St Mary's Cockerton Church of England Primary School

Overview

Pupils enjoy a “warm and welcoming atmosphere” where staff are “ambitious for what pupils can achieve” through the ‘global explorer’ curriculum. The report states that the overall effectiveness, quality of education, behaviour, personal development, leadership, and early years provision are all “Good”.

Strengths

• Pupils are “polite and respectful” and staff “stamp out any unkind behaviour before it develops into bullying”.
• Leaders have “strengthened the curriculum in English and mathematics”, ensuring knowledge is broken down into smaller steps.
• Staff effectively support reading, helping children build phonics knowledge and read “fluently” using decodable books.
• Teachers use clear techniques like “my turn, your turn” to show pupils “what success looks like”.
• Trustees provide “significant amount of challenge and support” and regularly check the impact of curriculum improvements.

Areas to improve

• Leaders must map out when knowledge is taught in subjects like history and PSHE, as teachers are sometimes unclear on focus, causing pupils to “forget important details”.
• Staff need better training to support pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), particularly those with EHC plans, to prevent frustration and removal from lessons.
• Safeguarding record-keeping requires improvement, as some details are not recorded, meaning records are not always an “accurate account for that pupil”.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are “effective”, with staff well-trained to identify signs of neglect or exploitation, though record-keeping precision needs improvement.