Central Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Central Primary School is a haven for its pupils and families. Leaders have ensured that pupils' needs and safety are at the heart of the school's curriculum.

They want pupils to achieve their best. The school is vigilant to the external pressures that the community can face at times. It responds to the barriers that families encounter and endeavours to remove these.

Positive relationships with families allow this school to flourish.

Pupils' behaviour is exemplary. They are kind, courteous and accepting.

They listen carefully in lessons and pay attention to each other's feelings. The pupil senior leadership team ensures that all pupils at the school ...have a voice and are included in decisions that leaders make. Pupils and leaders strive for inclusion.

Pupils enjoy coming to school and are keen to share their achievements. They have a positive attitude towards learning. The school successfully ensures that all children in early years get off to the best start.

The curriculum is tailored around the needs of every child as they enter the setting. This helps them to learn and play well together, as well as being ready to move to more formal learning in Year 1.

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

Leaders have designed a curriculum to ensure that pupils are ready for their next stage of education.

They have threaded assessment through each area of the curriculum. Teachers use this assessment information well to identify gaps in key knowledge, which they then revisit at appropriate times. Curriculum leaders have identified essential learning to ensure that pupils build a strong foundation in all subjects.

This helps teachers to support pupils to keep up with their class if pupils have been absent from school.

Teachers follow a bespoke and highly effective professional development programme. This is linked to key development areas across the school.

In some subjects, such as reading, leaders have successfully created a programme of training for teachers to develop their subject knowledge, skills and confidence. In other subjects, this training is new. Some teachers lack confidence in the delivery of subjects they are less familiar with.

This means that, in some lessons, activities are less engaging, and pupils are waiting for their learning to start.

The school rightly prioritises reading. The teaching of phonics starts at the earliest opportunity in early years.

Staff teach phonics consistently well throughout the school. Pupils delight in the activities that staff use to help them remember what they have learned. Pupils can blend sounds on their own and read with fluency and expression.

Teachers use in-the-moment assessment to identify pupils who fall behind. These pupils are given individual support to help them keep up with their classmates. Every school day ends with pupils in a cosy setting, listening to their teacher read an engaging story.

The school quickly and accurately identifies pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The extended SEND provisions in the school provide pupils with bespoke learning opportunities. Staff use support plans to adapt their lessons to meet the needs of pupils with SEND.

This allows some pupils from the provision to have lessons in the main school. Leaders review and adapt these plans regularly to meet pupils' needs accurately and allow them to thrive.

The school is safe and calm.

Children in early years develop routines and patterns of behaviour quickly. This helps them to socialise and communicate effectively. The calmness throughout the school helps the most vulnerable pupils to regulate their behaviour and to feel safe and cared for.

Routines support learning and help develop confidence. Adults model positive and polite interactions. Pupils respond without hesitation and with enthusiasm.

The school puts no limits on children's development and achievement in early years. Their curriculum is built around their individual needs. Children learn through play and by working with adults who focus on their development needs.

Children play well together. They keep trying hard when they meet difficulties. They delight in working things out for themselves and are eager to share these achievements.

The school is preparing pupils for life beyond Central Primary. Pupils understand and respect differences. Staff support them to challenge intolerance.

There are opportunities for pupils to take on leadership roles in the school. Pupils value these chances. They apply for the posts and are interviewed by local business leaders.

The pupil senior leadership team organises the selection and running of the school's clubs. Pupils debate and vote for which clubs will run. However, opportunities for wider cultural and spiritual experiences are infrequent and are not yet part of the curriculum.

The governing body is determined that current improvement strategies are in the best interests of the pupils and the community. Governors are aware that transforming the school is demanding on teachers. Staff welcome the range and frequency of well-being activities.

They consistently report high levels of support to manage their mental health and well-being. They value the care that leaders have for them and the individual support they receive.

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 lessons, teachers lack confidence in delivering content and using pedagogical techniques that are unfamiliar to them. As a result, there is sometimes a lack of challenge and purposeful learning that does not match the ambitious intent of the school curriculum. The school should continue its staff development programme to help teachers develop the subject knowledge and confidence they need to deliver the curriculum more effectively.

• There are infrequent opportunities for pupils to experience the wider cultural and spiritual world beyond their community. This means that they are not directly interacting with people and places that are unfamiliar to them. The school should develop a strategic programme of opportunities for all pupils to enrich and develop their cultural perspectives.