Church Crookham Junior School

Overview

Pupils are described as happy and safe in this “welcoming and inclusive school” where they demonstrate “high levels of motivation.” Leaders are “ambitious” for pupils to learn well, resulting in most achieving highly across the curriculum. The school fosters positive relationships and a culture where “everybody in this school gets their voice heard.”

Strengths

• Pupils value diversity and equality, showing respect for differences and celebrating various cultures and traditions.
• The curriculum is “ambitious and well sequenced,” with leaders identifying essential knowledge and monitoring progress to support those at risk of falling behind.
• Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities are “accurately identified and well supported,” accessing the same learning as their peers.
• There is a “wide range of extra-curricular provision,” including gardening, music, and competitive sport, with high levels of pupil participation.
• Teachers generally possess strong subject knowledge and confidently adapt the curriculum, ensuring pupils “learn and remember more over time.”

Areas to improve

• Leaders must ensure all staff receive subject-specific professional development, as some lack the confidence in subject knowledge needed to implement the curriculum consistently.
• Inconsistencies in how decoding skills are explained during one-to-one reading mean some early readers do not catch up as quickly as they should; all staff require training to teach early reading effectively.
• Leaders need to persevere with behaviour strategies to reduce suspensions, which are not decreasing quickly enough, to minimise lost learning time.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective, with “meticulous” systems for reporting issues and staff receiving up-to-date training to identify signs of concern.