Walkeringham Primary School

Overview

Walkeringham Primary School is judged as ‘Good’ across all inspection categories, maintaining high standards since its previous ‘Outstanding’ rating. The report describes a “small village school” with a “strong family feel,” where pupils are “courteous, friendly and welcoming” and demonstrate positive attitudes towards learning. Leaders have established a broad, ambitious curriculum that ensures pupils “know more and remember more over time.”

Strengths

• Pupils are “nurtured by staff” to be “resilient, responsible, curious, truthful, independent and respectful,” fostering a calm and focused environment.
• The curriculum is “broad in its scope,” with particular success in mathematics and reading, where staff ensure pupils “gain the knowledge, skills and confidence that they need to become fluent readers.”
• Staff possess “strong subject knowledge” and use assessment data effectively to “address errors or misconceptions,” ensuring work is “appropriately ambitious.”
• Provision for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) is effective, with staff who “know these pupils and their needs very well.”
• Leaders and governors “fulfil their responsibilities well,” supporting staff well-being and maintaining “positive” morale.

Areas to improve

• The school must ensure that “non-structured opportunities for play and learning” in the early years are “purposeful,” so children gain as much from these activities as from adult-directed sessions.
• The school should better coordinate and consolidate the range of opportunities for personal development, ensuring all pupils benefit from a structured plan to “build and consolidate pupils’ personal development over time.”

Safeguarding

The report states that “the arrangements for safeguarding are effective.”