Churchfields Junior School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils who attend Churchfields Junior School truly enjoy coming to school.

They are highly appreciated and exceptionally well cared for. Leaders have high expectations for pupils' learning and behaviour. Pupils strive to meet these with great success.

The school's 'Mr and Ms values' of independence, appreciation, communication, determination, curiosity, collaboration, resilience are at the heart of everything pupils do. These awards motivate pupils to read regularly and widely.

Pupils are not only well-prepared academically, but they are thoroughly prepared for life.

All pupils participate in leadership groups. This helps them to develop a sense of r...esponsibility and social action, which supports their broader moral and social development.

The music offer is exceptional.

Specialist teachers provide weekly instrumental tuition to every child. Weekly singing and listening assemblies provide an opportunity for pupils to sing together and appreciate the features of different types of world music.

The ambitious and well-designed curriculum is underpinned by a rich programme of outings.

For example, pupils enjoyed sharing their experience of visiting the British Museum, the Barbican and The Ragged School Museum. Pupils benefit from a wide variety of extra-curricular opportunities, including cooking, gymnastics, choir and design technology club.

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

The school has developed a well-designed, broad and ambitious curriculum that is interesting and engaging.

In all subjects, the content is well sequenced so that pupils build on what they have learned before. For example, in English, younger pupils learn to retrieve simple information. Older pupils build on this knowledge to make inferences about characters form more complex texts, using evidence to support their viewpoint.

As a result, pupils develop a deep body of knowledge in different subjects. They produce work of high quality across the curriculum and achieve highly, including in published outcomes.

The school has ensured that reading is at the heart of pupils' learning.

Staff are well trained to deliver highly effective phonics and reading lessons. Pupils who struggle with reading are identified quickly. Books are well matched to the sounds that pupils know.

This ensures that pupils get the support that they need to read confidently, fluently and accurately. Across the school, pupils are inspired to read widely because of the many ways reading is promoted. For example, 'The Reading Express', which is an adapted tube map and system, has been developed as a cornerstone of reading within the school.

Each colour of the various tube lines correlates to a genre within literature.

Pupils work hard and engage very well in their learning. They talk about what they have learned with confidence and enthusiasm.

Pupils are highly interested in learning because teaching is engaging. The school ensures that staff are highly skilled to implement the curriculum to the highest standard. Any adaptations made to support pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are effective.

This ensures, wherever possible, that pupils with SEND learn successfully alongside their peers.

The school embeds social and moral education through the curriculum. For example, pupils explore the lives of historical and contemporary figures from diverse backgrounds.

Visits to different places of worship and assemblies about religious festivals facilitate pupils' spiritual understanding, helping them to recognise that the different faiths have many moral similarities.

Pupils' behaviour is impeccable in classrooms, around the school and in the playground. This is because the school's system, 'Going for Gold', is well understood and consistently implemented.

At social times, pupils enjoy the range of activities on offer to them. For example, they enjoy the bouldering equipment in the playground. Attendance is high.

This is because the school has effective systems in place to support families to ensure that their children come to school regularly and on time.

The school is very well led. All staff, including those at the start of their careers, appreciate the strategies that are in place to manage workload, promote well-being and support their professional development.

Those responsible for governance are committed and demonstrate the same high ambitions as school leaders. Governors provide ongoing and effective support and challenge to maintain the high standard of education the school provides.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Also at this postcode