Ofsted Reports

Dear parents and carers,

We are delighted to inform you that, following our most recent OfSTED inspection, we were once again judged to be performing at a good level in all four key areas of inspection with many strengths and features being highly celebrated in the report and during the inspection process.

As you may know OfSTED no longer provides a single overall grading for a school so the report focuses on four key inspection strands – plus safeguarding. Safeguarding does not receive a graded judgement – all schools aim for it to be evaluated as effective – which it was. Our judgements were:

We are very proud to have been continuously good since our academy conversion in 2012 and the high levels of consistency, and ongoing improvement, captured in each subsequent OfSTED report bear testament to the hard work, dedication and passion which the Ludlow team demonstrate every day.

We also feel that every report has underlined the fantastic links and rapport we have with our community and know that the successive strong reports are down to our wonderful families and children – every report talks openly and positively about how our children reflect, and talk confidently about, a strong and flourishing school with great opportunities and experiences for all

Our full report is attached for your information -  but we wanted to take the time to just highlight some of the key words/phrases that most resonated with us:

-Strong sense of community, belonging, calm, orderly, purposeful, positive relationships, treated as individuals, school values, patience, friendship, determination, polite, well mannered, pupils work hard, mix well, high expectations, aim high, many opportunities, roles and responsibilities, relevant, engaging, recall, confidence, reading and writing at the heart, knowledge and expertise, strong support, identifies and addresses, appropriate adaptations, extra support, celebrates attendance and behaviour, right way to treat others, calm, focus, enjoy, highly effective pastoral support, personal development, respectful, valued, proud, strengths

When reading the report, on Friday, we asked staff to reflect on what stood out the most and the key words above typified their responses – ‘that’s our school’ was the overwhelming view

We hope you enjoy being able to read the full report – attached – and that you can see both the hard work and efforts of the team reflected in it as well as the culture and ethos that your child contributes to being celebrated and brought to the fore

And finally - our development target – this is limited to one feature of teaching and learning and links to precision in taught content. When reviewing other ‘Good’ reports we found that many schools had 2 or more targets to develop – we have 1 key focus to consider – which suggests many other areas of the school were considered to be very strong indeed.

How will we be interpreting our target?

The report identified that, ‘occasionally’ in lessons, staff could be more precise and exact in their explanations in order for lessons to have the very best impact for pupils

The report target states:

On occasion, some staff do not explain new knowledge or design learning activities fully effectively. This means that some pupils do not learn the key knowledge the school wants them to as well as they could. The school needs to ensure that staff have the skills and expertise to support them in ensuring that pupils can learn the precise knowledge the school expects

We see this as guidance for us to work with all staff, at a training, coaching and development level, to work on ‘PACCE’

Precision- precise language is used in lessons and lesson plans, precision is encourage through training and development, lessons are extremely well planned and offer precise guidance and support to teachers, supporting materials are equally precise

Accuracy – linked to precision – accurate language and definitions are provided by staff and lesson preparation promotes accuracy and fluency to lead to precision, supporting resources are accurate and well planned at individual level,

Consistency – in every class levels of precision and accuracy are high with less experienced team members being coached highly effectively to match the expertise of more established colleagues

Clarity – ensuring that core learning is clear within planning and that colleagues receive coaching and support time to develop their understanding of the precise learning which is intended, enabling colleagues to rehearse lessons to develop clarity/confidence/fluency

For

Excellence – in terms of teaching delivery and pupil outcomes

As a school which prides itself on its coaching, professional development and training work this target feels very achievable and will have a positive impact on outcomes

Finally, we wanted to extend a massive thank you to our trustee group for its tireless work in supporting our strategic development and providing rigorous challenge across each year so that we enter each inspection ‘window’ ready and robust!

We have issued some further resources around applying for a trustee role, and what it means, on the website under our Trustees section – could you be on the team by the time of the next inspection?

Please click the link below to view our most recent Ofsted Inspection Report.
2025 Inspection Report