Bishops Lydeard Church School

Overview: Bishops Lydeard Church School is a good school where pupils feel happy and safe, and are proud to take on roles of responsibility. The school's values of 'respect, endurance, friendship' are lived up to by pupils, and they celebrate difference. The school has a clear vision for its future, with leaders who are ambitious for pupils' learning.

Strengths:

• Pupils feel happy and safe in school, and are confident to share worries with a trusted adult.
• The school's early years provision is good, with children getting off to a flying start and staff skilfully supporting children to use well-organised indoor and outdoor learning environments successfully.
• Staff have consistently high expectations of pupils' behaviour, and routines are quickly established.
• The personal social and health education (PSHE) curriculum develops pupils' understanding of how to become responsible, active citizens well.
• Leaders, including governors and trustees, know the school's strengths and areas for development thoroughly.

Areas to improve:

• Leaders have not identified the essential knowledge they want pupils to know and remember across some foundation subject curriculums, making it difficult for teachers to plan and check precisely what pupils must know and remember.
• Teaching does not check on the important concepts that pupils need to learn, and pupils are unable to make connections between concepts that would help them to build on prior learning.
• In some subjects, pupils have superficial subject knowledge because teaching does not help to recap important content.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective, with leaders completing the necessary safeguarding checks before staff and volunteers begin working at the school, and staff receiving appropriate safeguarding training, including e-safety.