Ofsted and Performance Data

The school was inspected by OfStEd on 28 & 29 September 2021.

The inspection was carried out under the new “Education Inspection Framework”, which has a much tighter focus on the wider curriculum than the previous “School Inspection Framework”. The report is also very much shorter and is designed to be easier for parents and families to access (pages 2 & 3 are written with parents in mind). We would strongly encourage you to read it.

We would like to thank everyone involved in the inspection for their contribution, including the children who were a credit to the school in everything they did and all the parents who made their views clear through conversations with inspectors and/or the online Parent View survey. We believe that the report rightly identifies both the strengths of the school and the areas that require improvement – indeed the inspectors agreed that our self-evaluation and school improvement plan were already aligned to the same priorities as Ofsted identified. Indeed, as you are already aware, the school has held a number of fundraising events this year to purchase new phonics books; Staff training has been held during the October INSET day; Subject Leaders have been booked on to subject leader courses & meetings have been scheduled to work on our curriculum with our cluster schools.

Many of you will appreciate the significant improvements you have seen at the school since the previous inspection and we are delighted that the inspectors were able to recognise the journey we have been on:

• Our Early Years Provision is now “Good”
• Significant improvements in phonics – “Children get off to a good start with their Phonics”
• Significant improvements in attendance – “Pupils like coming to school” (incidentally our attendance is now in the top 1/3 of schools nationally)
• Significant improvements in behaviour- “Pupils conduct themselves well – low level disruption is rare”
• The quality of relationships between staff and pupils – “Pupils know staff care for them. [They] are respected from an early age”
• The quality of Pastoral Care the school provides for our children – “Pastoral support is strong”
• The quality of provision, support and care provided by the school – “Parents are very appreciative of the provision and care provided to the children, particularly throughout the pandemic”

School leaders, governors and the Local Authority, are committed to ensuring the very best outcomes for all the children at Alderbury & West Grimstead School, building on the foundations already laid.

Our School's Performance Data, including progress scores, can be found here.

You can compare our performance with other schools, using the school and college performance tables website.