Ackworth Mill Dam Junior and Infant School

Mill Gate,
Ackworth,
Pontefract
WF7 7PH

Ackworth Mill Dam JI School is a small, but expanding primary school in a popular, semi rural village. Five years ago our community school was a different place. Although open plan, the classes worked in isolation and the staff rarely shared good practice. There were no whole school systems and many lessons were formally taught. We were in a deficit budget. Many of our children entered the school with baseline scores below those of their chronological age, although assessment data was difficult to access.

Our children still enter with low baseline levels but we enable them to make progress immediately, in a vibrant and caring foundation stage unit. In 2014 we decided to extend our range of good provision and opened a pre school unit for children aged from birth to five. This also supports working parents and those accessing the two and three year old offer of fifteen hours free provision. Furthermore early intervention has a positive impact on our value added scores at year two and year six and on the children’s wellbeing. Within three weeks of opening the nursery provision we were awarded the grade of Good by Ofsted. The school is also graded as Good.