Downsview Community Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Downsview Community Primary is a nurturing and supportive school.

Staff know their pupils well, and there are positive relationships evident across the school. Pupils are proud to attend this school and of the inclusive nature of their community. For example, they talk positively about the Diwali and Holi celebrations they have held.

Pupils behave well and are keen to live up to the increased expectations throughout the school. Behaviour in lessons is mostly calm and focused. Bullying now happens very rarely.

If it were to take place, pupils are confident that staff would deal with it swiftly.

Pupils have a good range of opportunities beyond the acad...emic curriculum. As well as a range of clubs, including cooking, football and beading, they also have opportunities to develop leadership skills.

Pupils have a voice in this school, through the eco, school and sports councils. Pupils talk positively about these roles and aspire to take them on.

Pupils benefit from the actions leaders have taken to improve the quality of education following disappointing outcomes from the end of key stage assessments in 2022.

However, this work is not yet embedded across the school.

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

Leaders have high ambitions for all pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). They have planned an appropriate curriculum that is well considered and maps what pupils need to know from Year 1 upwards.

However, the planning in the early years is not as clearly connected.

In some subjects, planning carefully sequences both the knowledge and skills that pupils need to succeed. However, in some foundation subjects, this is not yet as well balanced.

As a result, sometimes activity choices are not always as clearly linked to the intended learning. Where practice is strongest, pupils benefit from clear explanations from teachers. Here, pupils can link their new knowledge to what they learned previously.

However, this is not the case across all subjects. Previously, pupils' attainment in national curriculum tests has been low. While current pupils are making better progress through some areas of this strengthened curriculum, this is not consistently the case across the school.

In mathematics and early reading, teachers have established systems to assess what pupils know and can remember during their lessons. This allows teachers to adapt what they teach to inform pupils' next steps, ensuring that any misunderstandings are resolved quickly. However, this is not the case in other subjects, and leaders have not yet embedded a system to check what pupils can remember over time.

Leaders increasingly promote a love of reading throughout the school, including the improved library space, classroom displays and reading corners in each classroom. Early reading is generally taught effectively. Children now benefit from targeted and specific sessions to support their particular needs, helping them to develop the skills they need to become increasingly fluent and confident readers.

However, this practice is still relatively new and not yet having the full impact that leaders intend.

Leaders have not ensured that all staff have a consistently secure knowledge of how to meet the additional needs of pupils with SEND. Leaders make timely referrals for external support.

However, in lessons, the support is more varied. Leaders have not equipped teachers well enough to ensure that there are routinely strong adaptations to learning so that all pupils can access their learning effectively. As a result, not all pupils learn as well as they should.

In the early years, like elsewhere in the school, there are warm and positive relationships between staff and children. However, children have not been sufficiently well prepared for their next steps. While children are engaged and interested in a range of different activities, leaders have not considered carefully enough the intended learning that sits behind the activity choices.

Similarly, while leaders acknowledge that communication is an essential area of development for children in the early years, staff do not fully exploit opportunities to model and encourage pupil talk.

While attendance for many pupils is generally strong, there are a minority of pupils who do not attend school regularly enough. Leaders' actions to address this are beginning to show some impact, but this work continues.

Senior leaders know their school well and carefully identify the actions they need to take to develop it. They work effectively with governors and school improvement partners from the local authority to evaluate the impact of their actions. This helps them to know that their actions are having the impact they want them to.

However, they recognise that there is still more work to do.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

There is an effective culture of safeguarding at the school.

Staff receive appropriate training which is regularly updated, meaning that they know how to identify and refer any pupils who might be at risk. They know their pupils well, and there are detailed records kept of any concerns. Concerns are acted on quickly, and leaders liaise well with external agencies as needed.

Pupils learn about how to keep themselves safe, including when online, through the curriculum.

Leaders complete appropriate checks to ensure that adults are safe to work with children. Governors know their safeguarding responsibilities and hold leaders to account.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Attendance in school is not high enough. As a result, too many pupils, particularly those who are persistently absent, are missing out on the learning that the school provides. Leaders need to continue to identify the barriers to good attendance and work with families to ensure that attendance increases.

• In the early years, there is not always a clearly considered plan for the activities that pupils undertake in order to develop their learning and specifically language acquisition. Consequently, there are missed opportunities to develop pupils' communication skills. Leaders need to ensure that all staff have the knowledge required to fully develop children's communication and language.

• There is not a clear or systematic approach to assessment in the recently developed foundation curriculum. This means that teachers and leaders do not have an accurate understanding of how much knowledge and skills pupils have understood or retained. Leaders need to ensure that staff are secure in their knowledge of how to assess effectively so that in the way that is the case for maths and early reading, teachers can gauge what pupils have understood and adapt their teaching as necessary.

• Teaching in lessons is not consistently adapted to meet the needs of pupils with SEND. As a result, pupils do not make the progress that they should through the planned curriculum. Leaders need to ensure all teachers have the knowledge to make required adaptations to learning activities for pupils with SEND.

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