Devoran School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Learning at Devoran School is like being part of a big, happy family.

The school promotes healthy minds, bodies and relationships in everything that it does. This means that pupils know that they are safe, well cared for and effectively prepared for the future.

Staff want the best for pupils.

Pupils respond confidently. They have positive attitudes to their learning and behave well around the school. Occasionally, some pupils need reminding to try their hardest and how to move from one activity to another sensibly.

Pupils and parents rightly agree that bullying is exceptionally rare. Pupils believe the anti-bullying ambassadors make a difference, eve...n though they are hardly needed. They recognise that staff sort issues out quickly and effectively.

The school ensures every pupil's individual needs and circumstances are understood and catered for. Pupils settle and feel valued from the moment they arrive in Reception. They go on to achieve well.

Staff use what they know to make learning relevant for each pupil's interests and starting points, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). As a result, pupils are supported effectively to embody the school's values of being 'ready, respectful and safe'.

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

Devoran School has an established ethos where everyone wants to do their best.

Alongside pupil well-being, the school also promotes staff well-being very effectively. This means that staff and governors work closely together to continually improve provision and meet the needs of the community.

The effective ethos has helped ensure the school has a very well designed and sensibly organised curriculum.

Subject leadership has been prioritised. This has helped to ensure that every subject is seen as important. Curriculum planning has been developed sensibly.

This helps to ensure learning is sequenced appropriately from the beginning of the early years and onwards. Adaptations for pupils with SEND are thought about carefully and are often effective. Teachers use this planning to promote pupils' learning across subjects in meaningful ways.

As a result, pupils, including those with SEND, generally remember important knowledge and achieve well.

Some parts of the curriculum are highly effective. Where this is the case, subject leadership has a very clear vision about what and how it wants subjects taught.

Teachers receive robust support and training to enable them to realise this vision. As a result, teachers plan learning carefully to build on what pupils know and can do. This helps pupils, including those with SEND, to learn and remember key content exceptionally well.

For example, in history, pupils remember important elements of local events and how these link to bigger concepts, such as the story of the Windrush Generation and World War 2. They are exceptionally knowledgeable about how to use different evidence to make considered judgements about the past.Nevertheless, there is more to do.

Sometimes the implementation of the curriculum does not match the expectations of the school. The school's checks do not identify these inconsistencies quickly enough. This means that, in some subjects, pupils learning is slowed, and they do not achieve as well as they could.

Reading has a high priority across all areas of school life. High-quality texts underpin planning in the early years, English and wider curriculum areas. An established and robust programme for teaching early reading starts from the moment children start in Reception.

Pupils go on to learn to read rapidly as a result. When pupils are at risk of falling behind, staff use assessment and targeted support well to ensure they keep up. Pupils learn to love reading.

They enjoy the books their teachers share with them. They are excited to meet local authors and to read the wide selection of books that are in the very well-presented library and their classrooms.

Pupils' personal development is promoted exceptionally well.

The school has given a high priority to supporting pupils to know how to look after themselves, physically and emotionally. For example, pupils know about healthy and unhealthy relationships. The school ensures that all learning and extra-curricular opportunities are accessible to all pupils.

For example, pupils appreciate the range of clubs and how they can learn about keeping healthy in physical education. Pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is stimulated very effectively through regular visits and school events. Pupils learn about different cultures, diversity and fundamental British values.

They remember what they are taught, because ideas are reinforced regularly and applied across all subjects.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The implementation of the curriculum in some subjects is not as strong as it is in others.

The school's checks do not pick up where this is the case as quickly as is needed. This means that relative weaknesses are not addressed in a timely way and so pupils do not achieve as well as they should. The school should strengthen the impact of the checks it makes to address this, so that pupils retain key knowledge in all subjects and achieve more, like they already do in history and personal, social, health and economics education.