Broad Square Community Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils feel safe, happy and loved at this caring school.

Positive relationships and respect are at the heart of the school. Pupils who are new to the school receive a warm welcome. They form friendships quickly.

Pupils enjoy their learning.

Pupils are courteous and considerate towards each other, staff and visitors. Those pupils who need extra help in managing their emotions receive effective support from knowledgeable and nurturing staff.

Pupils respond well to the school's high expectations for their academic achievement. Pupils are supported to be resilient. For example, children in the early years showed remarkable perseverance when building an o...bstacle course.

Pupils across the school achieve well. Children in the early years achieve exceptionally well.

Pupils appreciate participating in a wide range of extra-curricular activities, such as choir, debating and well-being walking clubs.

They enjoy educational visits that help to bring their learning to life.

Pupils relish the opportunities to take on various responsibilities in school. These include working as school councillors, litter-pickers and well-being champions.

The 'mini police' also helped the real police. For instance, by questioning speeding drivers and encouraging them to change their driving behaviour. These experiences help to show pupils what it means to be a positive member of society.

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

Pupils in key stages 1 and 2 benefit from an engaging and well-designed curriculum. The school has identified the small steps of knowledge that pupils should learn in each subject over time. It has ensured that teachers have the subject knowledge and expertise that they need to design effective learning activities.

Typically, pupils achieve well in most subject curriculums.

Children in the early years achieve exceptionally well. This is due to a carefully designed curriculum, which is delivered extremely well to make sure that children progress well towards the early learning goals.

Children are confident, independent learners, who are highly motivated and excited to join in with learning activities. This means that children are more than ready to meet the demands of the Year 1 curriculum.

The school ensures swift and accurate identification of pupils' special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

Staff successfully adapt their delivery of lessons for pupils with SEND. For instance, they take learning outdoors or break tasks down into smaller steps. This means that these pupils can access the same ambitious curriculum as their peers.

The school has introduced appropriate systems for checking on pupils' learning while taking account of staff's workload. Staff typically spot and address pupils' misconceptions well. However, in some subjects, staff do not provide pupils with sufficient opportunities to remember their earlier learning.

This means that some pupils have gaps in their knowledge.

Reading is at the heart of the school's curriculum. Developing a love of books begins in the early years.

Children love to visit the local library with their parents and carers. Children listen to stories and rhymes from the well-chosen books that staff share with them. This helps children in the early years to develop secure communication and language skills in readiness for key stage 1 and beyond.

Older pupils know that reading helps them to broaden their knowledge and to improve their own writing.

The school ensures that pupils gain secure phonics knowledge quickly. Well-trained staff teach the phonics programme consistently well.

Those children in the early years and pupils in key stage 1 who need extra support receive it promptly. This helps these pupils to keep up with the demands of the phonics programme. Pupils read books that are carefully matched to the sounds that they have learned.

Staff help pupils to understand new and interesting words that they read in books.

In 2023, pupils' progress in reading at the end of key stage 2 was significantly below the national average. The school has taken effective action to remedy this weakness.

For example, pupils across school practise reading using a variety of high-quality texts. Structured daily reading lessons ensure that pupils gain reading stamina so that they can tackle complex texts. This means that pupils currently at the school are progressing well through the reading programme.

Staff take every opportunity to teach pupils how to keep active and healthy. Eating healthily is an important part of the school's popular breakfast club. Older pupils learn about equality and diversity and understand what makes a healthy relationship.

They understand the importance of treating all people with respect.

Staff explicitly teach and model the behaviours that they expect from pupils. This helps pupils to follow the school's rules and it ensures that there is very little disruption to learning.

Children in the early years learn to regulate their emotions and they play together extremely well.

The school prioritises pupils' attendance. It works closely with the families of those pupils who are regularly absent.

This is beginning to have an impact with some pupils. Their attendance has improved. The school is continually refining its strategies to help to reduce the barriers that stop some pupils from attending school often enough.

Governors are active members of the school community. They check the impact of the school's work against the key areas identified for improvement. Staff are happy and proud to work at the school.

They value the support that the school provides in relation to their well-being. For example, the school considers the impact on staff's workload when introducing new policies.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• In some subjects, teachers do not provide pupils with sufficient opportunities to remember what they have learned previously. This means that some pupils are less confident in recalling what they have been taught. The school should ensure that it provides opportunities for pupils to develop secure foundations on which to build new learning.