Dane Ghyll Community Primary School and Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Dane Ghyll Community Primary School and Nursery continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils, including children in the early years, enjoy coming to this lively, happy school. They look forward to their time in the classroom, where they particularly like learning with their friends.

Pupils behave well during lessons.

They listen carefully and they are keen to join in. At playtimes, pupils enjoy playing together. Well-being ambassadors and playground buddies make sure that pupils are well looked after.

Pupils move around the building sensibly while demonstrating their manners and holding the doors open for each other.

The sc...hool has high hopes for all pupils, including pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Pupils strive to do their best.

Most pupils achieve well across the curriculum.

Pupils benefit from a rich set of activities, including visits to the local area and residential trips to support team-building. Pupils enjoy performing music for the local community.

They know their opinions are valued and that they have input into some of the decisions made in school. Pupils demonstrate their empathy through deciding where the money from fundraising activities should be spent.

Older pupils take their responsibilities seriously.

They know that they need to be positive role models and do their best to live up to the school's high expectations.

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

The school has successfully fostered a love of reading and created a buzz among the pupils. They take great pleasure in choosing their books on the school bus.

Pupils are excited to learn about new authors and they revel in supporting each other to find books to enjoy. In the early years, children demonstrate their enthusiasm for reading by voting for their favourite books each day.

In the two-year-old provision, children learn songs and rhymes and they carefully listen to the sounds around them.

Staff use picture books to engage children well as they move through the early years. Children are ready to start learning phonics as soon as they enter the Reception class. Staff teach phonics expertly.

They ensure that children make strong progress and practise their reading with books that closely match the sounds that they know. If pupils struggle, they receive high-quality support to help them to catch up quickly. As a result, most children read fluently and with expression as they enter key stage 2.

Overall, the school has established a broad and ambitious curriculum from the early years to the end of Year 6. In the early years, staff nurture a love of learning. For example, in the Reception Year, children were fascinated by the repeating patterns that they were making in mathematics.

Even the youngest children in the Nursery classes show perseverance and willingness to learn. Across the early years, staff have a sharp focus on helping pupils to develop a rich and varied vocabulary.

The school is currently making changes to some curriculum areas.

In many subjects, the school has carefully organised the content in the curriculum to enable pupils to build their knowledge successfully over time. In these subjects, staff are well trained to design interesting and engaging learning. Their strong subject knowledge ensures that pupils receive prompt help if they need it.

Staff routinely check that pupils have understood important concepts before they move on to new learning.

In some subjects, the precise detail of what the school wants pupils to learn is less well defined. In addition, in these subjects the school has not identified the subject-specific vocabulary that pupils need to learn.

In these subjects, some pupils do not deepen their learning or articulate what they have learned as well as they could.

The school identifies pupils' additional needs quickly. Staff use information about individual pupils well to make appropriate adaptations to the delivery of the curriculum.

This helps pupils with SEND to make good progress from their starting points.

Pupils at this school value the experiences that they have to link their learning to real-life situations. For example, pupils look forward to a range of trips, such as learning about the monks at Furness Abbey or visiting London to see stage shows and tour the houses of parliament.

Pupils have choices, such as joining one of the school bands or the school choir, including the choir that uses British Sign Language.

Pupils have a broad range of clubs that they can attend. These help to develop musical, artistic and sporting talents.

For instance, pupils can join one of the school bands or the school choir. From the early years, pupils use the school garden to grow seasonal food. They take great pleasure using this food in their school kitchen to make healthy snacks.

Governors bring expertise to their roles. They focus on the professional development of the school staff. Most staff feel well supported to carry out their roles effectively.

Staff recognise the ways that the school helps to manage their workload.

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, the school has not fully defined the essential knowledge that pupils should learn.

On occasion, this hinders teachers from supporting pupils to build a rich body of subject knowledge. The school should ensure that, in these subjects, teachers are clear about the essential knowledge that pupils should learn and when this content should be taught. ? In some subjects, the school has not identified the subject-specific vocabulary that it wants pupils to learn.

From time to time, in these subjects, pupils are hampered from explaining their learning fully. The school should ensure that the curriculum identifies the vocabulary that pupils should learn so that they can successfully deepen their knowledge of each subject.

Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good.

This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which is carried out under section 5 of the Act.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

This is the first ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in December 2019.