Thurgoland Church of England (Voluntary Controlled) Primary School

Overview: Thurgoland Church of England (Voluntary Controlled) Primary School is a good school where everyone wants to 'be their best self'. Staff encourage pupils to 'give it a go' and 'be resilient', helping them to try new things and feel happy and confident. Pupils are enthusiastic in lessons and feel safe because they know their teachers care about them.

Strengths:

• Pupils are happy and confident, and feel safe because they know their teachers care about them.
• The reading programme is a strength of the school, with a sophisticated and well-organised structure to ensure that all pupils receive phonics teaching to help them learn to read quickly.
• Pupils are polite and respectful, and speak confidently to adults.
• The school values are well embedded and understood by all, helping to ensure that everyone in the school shares a common purpose.
• Leaders ensure that all pupils have a rich range of experiences, including a competitive sporting event and clubs such as gardening and cartoon drawing.

Areas to improve:

• In a small number of subjects, the knowledge that pupils need at each stage of their education is not clearly mapped out, meaning that it is not clear to teachers what knowledge pupils should have to prepare them for the next stages of education.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective, with a clear system for reporting concerns, regular updates for staff, and thorough checks on staff who work at the school.