Buckhurst Hill Community Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school The headteacher provides strong leadership.

She has ensured that the school is good and improving. The headteacher is supported well by an increasingly effective senior leadership team. Leaders monitor closely the progress made by all groups of pupils.

Pupils make good progress in reading, writing, mathematics and a wide range of other subjects, throughout the school. Leaders ensure that additional funding for disadvantaged pupils and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is spent effectively. Governance is effective.

The governing body arranged for its own practice to be reviewed and took appropriate actio...n to address the weaknesses identified. Governors do not always ensure that their role remains a strategic one rather than operational. At times, the line becomes blurred and governors are too 'hands-on'.

Governors do not routinely ask challenging questions of the school's leaders. The quality of teaching has improved and is now good throughout the school. Teachers and teaching assistants work closely together to ensure that pupils' needs are met.

The early years provision gets children off to a good start. The early years leader has an accurate understanding of its strengths and the areas that need further development. Pupils behave very well throughout the school.

Classrooms are orderly places where very little learning time is lost. Pupils are polite, well mannered and respectful. The vast majority of pupils feel safe at school.

Bullying is rare and, when it does occur, it is dealt with promptly and appropriately by staff. Safeguarding is effective. The headteacher has greatly improved safeguarding procedures and the school is now a safer place as a result.

The school's curriculum is not fully developed. It does not encourage a thirst for learning in pupils or motivate them to make rapid progress. Standards of presentation in pupils' exercise books vary across the school because some teachers' expectations are higher than others'.

The school's approach to further improving the quality of teaching is not systematic enough. A very small number of parents remain dissatisfied with the school. Leaders have not communicated recent improvements to them clearly enough.

Information about this school

The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website. The school meets current floor standards. These are the minimum expectations set by the government for pupils' progress and attainment.

There have been a number of leadership changes over the last three years. The school was led by an acting headteacher at the time of the previous inspection. A new substantive headteacher was appointed, and joined the school in September 2014.

The current headteacher joined the school as deputy headteacher in September 2015, became acting headteacher in October 2016 and substantive headteacher in April 2017. The long-standing chair of governors left the school in July 2016. The current chair of the governing body took up his post in September 2016.