Lickey End First School

Overview

Lickey End First School is judged as ‘Good’ across all inspection categories, marking a significant improvement from its previous ‘Requires improvement’ rating. The report highlights that leaders have taken ‘effective action to improve the curriculum’, resulting in pupils who ‘now do well’ and exhibit high standards of behaviour. The school fosters a positive environment where pupils are ‘happy’ and ‘attend very regularly’, supported by strong relationships between staff and students.

Strengths

• The curriculum is ‘ambitious’ and ‘logically sequenced’, with careful attention to key vocabulary and resources that build pupils’ knowledge and skills.
• Phonics teaching is effective; all pupils, including those who find reading difficult, are now able to ‘sound out words using their phonics skills’ and are becoming ‘confident and fluent readers’.
• Pupils demonstrate excellent behaviour, being ‘polite to each other and courteous to visitors’, while embracing values such as ‘resilience, teamwork, respect and independence’.
• Safeguarding is effective, underpinned by a culture where staff are ‘vigilant’ and believe ‘nothing is too small’, ensuring pupils feel safe.
• The headteacher ‘leads with clarity and vision’, and governors are ‘well informed’ and hold leaders to account, with almost all parents recommending the school.

Areas to improve

• Leadership in some subjects is ‘at an early stage of development’, meaning monitoring of pupil learning impact is ‘less well developed’ than in others.
• Formal assessment systems in some foundation subjects are ‘underdeveloped’, leaving leaders unclear about how well pupils are learning the intended curriculum in those areas.

Safeguarding

The report states that ‘the arrangements for safeguarding are effective’.