A PRIMARY school has been judged as being satisfactory by government inspectors.

Malvern Parish CE Primary School provides a “satisfactory standard of education for its pupils”, according to an Ofsted report.

Inspector Mark Sims said that the pupils made a “very significant contribution to the local and wider community” and also played a full part in events within the local community.

He also praised the curriculum, saying it had been revised to be more “creative and thematic”.

He said: “Senior leaders know the strengths and weaknesses of the school, including in teaching and learning, through its self-evaluation.

“Capacity to improve is satisfactory because the impact of improvement put in place has yet to be seen sufficiently in raised achievement of pupils.

“The governing body makes a good contribution to the work of the school.

"It is well informed to provide both support and challenge to the school’s leaders.”

The report outlined how children at the school did in their key stage tests, saying the number that achieved the highest level of attainment by the end of key stage 2 in English, maths and science was broadly average, and pupils’ progress was satisfactory overall.

He said: “This is because, although some of the teaching in key stages 1 and 2 is good or better, lesson activities planned for different groups of pupils in English and mathematics are not pitched consistently at the appropriate level or pace of challenge, given pupils’ different starting points.”

He also said that marking did not always give pupils clear guidance on how they could improve their work but he praised the positive attitude of pupils in lessons.

What the inspector said

What the school did well
• The school offers a good curriculum to its pupils.
• Pupils have well developed basic skills and through the school’s business links have opportunities in their learning to prepare for the world of work.
• The curriculum provides pupils with a range of motivating and imaginative experiences built around whole school themes.
• The governing body is fully involved in the life of the school and provides a good balance of support and challenge to the school’s leaders.

What needs to be improved
• Ensure that teaching and learning are consistently good by: matching tasks more closely to the needs of different groups of learners, providing sufficiently challenging targets for all learners in the tasks set, using assessment information.
• Ensure that the monitoring or teaching, learning and progress is sufficiently rigorous by enabling middle leaders to monitor teaching so they can hold staff to account for progress of pupils in their subject. Using data more systematically to track progress of all pupils.

Grades
• Overall effectiveness: Satisfactory
• The school’s capacity for sustained improvement: Satisfactory
• Outcomes for individuals and groups of pupils: Satisfactory
• Pupils’ achievement and the extent to which they enjoy their learning: Satisfactory
• The extent to which pupils feel safe: Outstanding
• Pupils’ behaviour: Good
• The extent to which pupils contribute to the school and wider community: Outstanding
• Quality of teaching: Satisfactory
• The effectiveness of leadership and management in embedding ambition and driving improvement: Satisfactory.
• Overall effectiveness of the Early Years Foundation Stage: Good.