Downfield Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are proud to be a part of their diverse school community.

They trust each other to respect the differences they have. Young interpreters excel in their roles helping new arrivals who speak English as an additional language to communicate. This helps pupils to quickly feel happy, safe and settled at school.

Pupils follow the school rules of 'ready, respect, safe'. They behave appropriately in class and when walking around the school. During lessons, pupils focus on their work.

They strive hard to reach the high expectations staff have of them. This helps pupils to achieve well across a range of subjects.

Pupils behave equally well in lessons an...d during breaktimes and lunchtimes.

Here, pupils look after each other. They play games harmoniously and socialise well together. This further instils the strong sense of a shared community where, as pupils reflected, 'there is room for everyone'.

Pupils benefit from numerous opportunities to take up leadership roles. Older pupils eagerly help younger children during lunchtime as lunchtime helpers. Well-being champions openly give their own time to help those who need extra support or guidance.

This helps to develop pupils' confidence and self-esteem.

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

The school has designed a curriculum that sets out the important knowledge pupils need to learn and understand. Teachers present information clearly.

They check for gaps in pupils' knowledge to identify when to revisit important content. For example, staff go over specific mathematical terms for pupils who need more time to understand what these words mean. This helps pupils to understand the vocabulary they then read and use in future lessons.

It particularly benefits pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who speak English as an additional language.

The school has improved the writing curriculum. Children in the early years develop important fine motor skills.

This helps them to form letters accurately when they begin to write. Pupils learn how to structure their writing. They do this well.

Across subjects, pupils apply their knowledge of important grammar, punctuation and spelling accurately when writing independently.

Children develop a love of reading from the moment they start school. They secure important early language skills by eagerly listening to stories staff read to them.

Well-trained staff carefully narrate children's play. This further helps children to expand their vocabulary. Staff help pupils to read new words by identifying the sounds letters make.

Pupils quickly learn to blend these sounds together in order to read new words. The school provides extra reading help for pupils who need it. This helps most pupils to become fluent and confident readers by the end of key stage 1.

Should pupils in key stage 2 need extra reading help, they get the support they need to read fluently. This helps pupils when reading across subjects. However, sometimes, pupils do not have sufficient opportunity to re-read new and unfamiliar words once they have sounded them out.

Consequently, some pupils overly rely on sounding out words they have already read. This means some pupils do not read fluently as quickly as they could.

Staff are typically knowledgeable in how to support the high number of pupils with SEND.

This includes in the specially resourced provision for pupils with SEND and the main school. Staff in the early years work closely with the special educational needs and/or disabilities coordinator (SENCo) to identify the needs of children with SEND early in their school life. This helps the school to quickly put in place the effective support that they need to thrive.

Across the school, staff mostly use precise strategies to help pupils with SEND to learn. For example, visual prompts enable pupils to secure their understanding of important mathematical concepts. Sometimes, the support plans staff write for pupils with SEND lack precision.

This means there are occasions where staff do not provide the specific support that some pupils with SEND need, to achieve as well as they could.

Pupils understand how to look after their physical and mental health. They also know how to build healthy relationships.

Religious education lessons teach pupils about different people, cultures and faiths. Pupils value the chance to learn about those who have different beliefs to their own.

Leaders identify accurately where they need to make improvements to the school.

Governors check how well leaders work towards achieving this. They also check how effectively leaders support staff to manage their own workload. New initiatives such as the well-being hub and morning nurture group have had a positive impact.

They have helped the school to remove some of the barriers pupils face in attending school regularly. As a result, both absence and persistent absence have reduced.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Sometimes, staff do not provide pupils with sufficient opportunities to re-read words once they have decoded them. This means some pupils overly rely on sounding out words and do not read as fluently as they could. The school should ensure staff support pupils to read for fluency once they can decode, blend and read unfamiliar words.

• Some support plans for pupils with SEND lack precision. This can make it hard for staff to put in place the precise strategies pupils with SEND need. The school should ensure that all staff understand how to plan for, and meet the needs of, all pupils with SEND effectively.

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