Beech Grove Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Beech Grove Primary School has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils at Beech Grove are proud of their school, welcoming visitors with exemplary manners and conduct. They understand the school's 'next-door neighbour' principles and the school's five golden rules well.

Pupils consistently show high levels of respect to adults and to one another. They are happy and safe. Highly trained staff put pupils' needs first in all they do.

Pupils thrive in the warm and nurturing environment that the school fosters.

Leaders have created a culture of high expectations for pupils' ac...hievement. Pupils meet these expectations.

Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) achieve well. Those pupils who are eligible for the government's pupil premium funding achieve particularly well.

Pupils engage well with their learning.

Classrooms are calm and purposeful. Behaviour is positive in both the school and the playground. Pupils use the word 'family' to describe the relationships between adults and pupils in the school.

Parents and carers feel part of the school community. They have very positive attitudes towards the school and to how well their children are supported. Parents articulate this clearly.

They appreciate the work the school does for pupils' academic, moral and social development.

What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

The school has created a high-quality curriculum that builds on pupils' prior learning from early years to Year 6. This includes those pupils with SEND.

Their needs are identified quickly. Effective support means that these pupils achieve well.

Children in early years make strong progress through the curriculum from what are often low starting points.

They settle quickly into well-established routines. Adults promote exciting and engaging opportunities for children to learn through play. Children quickly gain the fundamental knowledge and skills they need.

They are able to communicate and use language with increasing confidence. Interactions between adults and children are often of a high standard.

The teaching of phonics is very effective.

This means that pupils at the early stages of learning to read develop the knowledge they need quickly. Pupils read with increasing accuracy, fluency and understanding. This includes those pupils who do not achieve age-appropriate outcomes at the end of early years.

In other subjects, pupils develop a bank of knowledge and skills. This is generally secure. Older pupils talk about previous geography learning on biomes with clear understanding, for example.

Others talk about the work of the artist, Frida Kahlo, and the techniques that other artists use. Staff teach and check pupils' understanding of knowledge, skills and concepts with care and precision across the curriculum. This means that gaps in knowledge can be addressed quickly and effectively.

Behaviour across school is of a high standard. Well-trained staff create a purposeful learning atmosphere. Pupils' learning is not disrupted by others.

However, pupil absence from school is an increasing issue. It impacts on pupils' ability to access the exciting curriculum that the school offers. The number of pupils who are persistently absent from school is too high.

These pupils miss out on the high-quality learning which would prepare them well for the next stage of their education. They struggle to catch up.

The school has crafted a highly effective and very well-considered provision for pupils' wider development.

Pupils get a wide range of rich and rewarding experiences at school. These include explicit opportunities to think deeply about issues around tolerance and the celebration of diversity. For example, pupils wrote insightful letters about the achievements and subsequent treatment of Alan Turing.

They confidently debate issues such as climate change and deforestation. Pupils have performed poetry at Middlesbrough town hall. Within the school, there are pupils of many different nationalities and ethnicities.

Pupils develop exemplary attitudes to those of different ethnicity, religion or belief. Their empathy for one another is tangible.

Leaders have taken effective action to sustain the school's performance.

Governors have clear oversight of the school's priorities. They ask probing questions and hold leaders to account. They fulfil their roles with diligence and understanding.

Staff report high levels of support for their workload and well-being. Staff are motivated and committed to improving opportunities for pupils across all aspects of the school's work.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The proportion of pupils who are persistently absent from school is too high. These pupils miss out on important learning and struggle to catch up when they are in school. The school should further develop its work to promote the benefits of attendance to parents and reduce the proportion of pupils who are persistently absent from school.

Background

Until September 2024, on a graded (section 5) inspection we gave schools an overall effectiveness grade, in addition to the key and provision judgements. Overall effectiveness grades given before September 2024 will continue to be visible on school inspection reports and on Ofsted's website. From September 2024 graded inspections will not include an overall effectiveness grade.

This school was, before September 2024, judged to be good for its overall effectiveness.

We have now inspected the school to determine whether it has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at that previous inspection. This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school's work has improved significantly or that it may not be as strong as it was at the last inspection, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection. A graded inspection is carried out under section 5 of the Act.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

This is the first ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good for overall effectiveness on 25 and 26 June 2019.