Beechwood Primary Academy

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school. Pupils achieve well and work hard in lessons.

They enjoy coming to school and the good teaching ensures they make good progress. The executive headteacher provides the school with strong leadership and, along with highly effective leaders and teachers, has ensured the school has rapidly improved. A culture now exists within the school where high expectations and a shared desire to continue to improve are the accepted norm.

Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage benefit from good provision and achieve well. Good teaching in the Nursery and Reception classes ensures that children are prepared well for the start of their school life. ...Pupils' behaviour is good.

Their attitudes towards learning are consistenly positive and this results in lessons that are full of pupils with a zest for learning. They respect each other and their teachers well. The substantial improvement in the quality of teaching since the previous inspection has led to securing and sustaining the improvements in pupils' achievement.

Lessons are well planned, with interesting tasks that reflect pupils' needs and aspirations well. This, along with good support provided by teaching assistants, has ensured that the pupils, including those with a disability or special educational needs, all make good progress. Governors provide good challenge to the school leaders and have supported them fully in their endeavours to refocus and improve since the previous inspection.

Governors have worked hard to seek out appropriate training needs to increase their capacity and have successfully challenged teachers to improve their teaching. It is not yet an outstanding school because : Teachers, especially in Key Stage 1, do not always use information about pupils' prior understanding and use of basic literacy and numeracy skills to quickly address any weaknesses. Pupils, particularly the more able, are not always clear about what they have to achieve to be successful by the end of the lesson.

Teachers do not always plan lessons that provide pupils with enough opportunities to think and learn completely independently.

Information about this school

Beechwood is a larger-than-average-sized primary school and was relocated into new buildings in 2010. It is led by an executive headteacher and, following a reorganisation of primary education in the area in 2008, is federated with another local primary school to form the Southernway Federation.

Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage are taught in Nursery and Reception classes. There are two Nursery settings on the school site that operate as a single unit. One is funded by the local authority, managed directly by the school and was inspected as part of this inspection.

The other is independently managed as part of the school's community interest company and is inspected separately. Almost all pupils are from White British backgrounds. The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs supported through school action is slightly above average, as is the proportion supported at school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs.

The proportion of pupils who are known to be eligible for the pupil premium, which provides additional funding for pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and for children from armed service families, is higher than average. The school meets the government's current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils' attainment and progress. A children's centre and the local authority funded ICAN unit for pupils with speech and language difficulties are both located within the school but are inspected separately.