School reflects on successful year with good Ofsted rating

A SCHOOL based in Atworth and Monkton Farleigh has had a successful year, achieving a good Ofsted rating and being listed as one of the top 20% of schools nationally for maths, literacy and reading in key stage 2, following a disruptive few-years during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Churchfields, the Village School were keen to show the inspectors the ‘hard work that has taken place over the last few years.’

Headteacher Simon Futcher said, “We have worked hard to develop a curriculum that is really inspiring to the children. We have also introduced a new early reading strategy, to support children with reading as soon as they start school and we were also recognised for our school’s community engagement work.

“It’s lovely to have confirmation that we are within the top 20% of schools and we have had a good Ofsted report!”

As well as these achievements, the school has also won several awards this year including an Eco Schools Status, a Basic Skills Award, Science Quality Mark, Physical Education Award and a Healthy Schools Award. These achievements follow a disruptive two years in the Covid-19 pandemic, where schools were required to develop a remote learning platform to ensure children could still attend school virtually.

Simon Futcher said, “After the first lockdown we developed a learning platform to enable us to work remotely. All of the teachers and parents really engaged with it.”

Mental health support is also something the school provides with Emotional Literacy Support Assistants (ELSA), members of staff trained to support children process their emotions.

The headteacher said, “Before the pandemic, we already had an ELSA in place but when we returned to school, we identified capacity to recruit another one. We just wanted to ensure there was a space for the children to process their anxiety because if the children were feeling anxious, this was not going to help their learning.” Churchfields, the Village School is now looking ahead to a year of encouraging more outdoor learning.

Simon Futcher said, “One thing we want to focus on going forwards is to further develop our forest school provision and also explore how to take learning outside. For example, we want to look into how we can teach maths outdoors using the natural environment. We also have plans to create an outdoor structure at one of our bases called the Lookout, to create stronger links with the nursery, to support the transition from nursery to school.”

For more information about Churchfields The Village School visit, https:// churchfields.wilts.sch.uk/