Stedham Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 19 March 2024

Pupils are safe and happy at this nurturing village school. In the early years, children make a strong start to their education and develop highly positive attitudes to their learning. Pupils know and understand the school's '6 C' values such as creativity and consideration. They celebrate these in their weekly celebration assembly which includes 'Caught you being kind awards'. These help pupils develop and model care towards each other. Pupils have many opportunities to develop their talents and interests. Extra-curricular activities such as cricket, art festivals and netball events are highly valued. Pupils know about and understand why democracy is important. They enjoy learning how to debate in balanced ways, discussing topics that capture their enthusiasm. Responsibilities, such as being school councillors, help pupils play an active role in contributing to the life of the school positively. The school has high expectations for what all pupils can achieve. However, while pupils learn increasingly securely in reading, writing and mathematics because of improvements the school has made, this is not yet reflected in pupils' outcomes at the end of key stages. Overall, the curriculum is still in development and is not yet implemented as consistently and effectively as leaders intend. This means that pupils do not learn as well as they should.

What the school should improve

• Governors have not rigorously monitored the school's work to improve effectively enough. Governors do not systematically ask questions that enable them to check the impact of the curriculum on pupils' learning. Governance at the school must be strengthened so that those responsible can assure themselves that pupils receive a good-quality education.
• Pupils' outcomes are not yet consistently good in reading, writing and mathematics. The school must continue to develop consistent and effective pedagogical approaches, ensuring that all staff develop the specific subject expertise that they need, maintaining a focus on pupils' outcomes at all stages of education.
• In some subjects, the school is still identifying the precise knowledge and vocabulary that it wants pupils to learn and how this should be implemented. Pupils have gaps in their knowledge which affect their achievement. The school should ensure that clear cumulative knowledge is in place for all curriculum subjects, with agreed approaches about how to help all pupils to learn well.
• Assessment information in the wider curriculum is not always precise enough to show what pupils know and understand. This means that some pupils do not always build on their prior knowledge effectively. The school needs to ensure that teachers check what pupils know and can do consistently well.

Read the full Ofsted report (opens in a new tab)