Church Stretton School

Overview

Church Stretton School continues to be a good school, offering a broad and ambitious curriculum where pupils achieve well and move into sustained education, employment, or training. The inspection highlights a strong sense of community and high expectations for behaviour, though it notes inconsistencies in how teaching quality and behaviour policies are applied across the school.

Strengths

• The curriculum is "broad and ambitious," with careful sequencing that allows pupils to apply learning independently and address knowledge gaps effectively.
• Teachers demonstrate "strong subject knowledge" and use questioning well to check understanding, while support for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities is robust.
• Pupils benefit from a "rich creative arts curriculum" and high-quality careers education, with an increasing number choosing the English Baccalaureate suite of subjects.
• There is a strong sense of community, with pupils feeling a "strong sense of responsibility to the school and local community" and engaging in roles such as ‘bus captains’.

Areas to improve

• The school must ensure best practice is shared so that the "quality of education is of a consistently high standard across the school," addressing variations in vocabulary reinforcement and task delivery.
• Leaders should provide more planned opportunities for "sustained and meaningful discussion" to help pupils deepen their learning and develop oracy skills.
• All staff must follow the agreed policy for managing behaviour consistently, as some pupils’ inappropriate behaviour is not always tackled well enough due to inconsistent application.

Safeguarding

The report states that "the arrangements for safeguarding are effective."