Last updated 19:42, Thursday, 27 March 2008

THE personal development of pupils at a village school in West Cumbria is outstanding, Government inspectors say.

The level of care and support pupils at Broughton Primary School receive has been praised following a recent visit from Ofsted.

Inspectors said: “One parent summed up well the outstanding personal development and the care and support pupils receive when she wrote that ‘every child is valued and treated as an individual’.

“Parents are overwhelmingly supportive of the school and appreciate all that it does for their children.

“Although there are only small numbers of pupils with learning difficulties, they benefit particularly from this very caring ethos.

“Pupils are polite, they behave very well and are extremely caring and considerate to one another.”

Provision for the youngest children at the school was also deemed to be good.

Broughton primary was a ‘satisfactory and improving’ school overall, with the inspectors stating that provision in the foundation stage was good with children achieving well.

They also noted that achievement was improving as staffing stabilised following a phase of high turnover.

Writing was identified as being the weakest aspect of pupils’ achievement and the school has been told it must improve in that area.

Teaching was deemed to be satisfactory with some examples of good teaching across the school.

Inspectors said the school had an excellent programme of visits, visitors and clubs after school.

Other improvements the Ofsted team wanted to see were more able children being challenged and that there would be ‘greater rigour’ in the monitoring and evaluating of teaching and learning.