Drayton Community Infant School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

The school creates a vibrant and inclusive environment where pupils feel safe, happy, and eager to learn. Staff foster positive relationships with children and families.

This creates a sense of trust and belonging for pupils.

Teacher's high expectations enable pupils to achieve well. Teachers understand pupils' needs and give extra support to pupils who need to catch up.

Pupils successfully learn about the world beyond their community, such as the contribution of important artists and scientists.

Pupils take pride in their achievements and know that teachers will recognise their effort. Behaviour across the school is respectful.

The school h...elps pupils to understand that everyone is different and that everyone needs to be patient and kind with each other. Approaches like 'taps for congrats' and 'celebrating special people' promote mutual respect.

A thoughtfully chosen programme of wider opportunities inspires curiosity and builds pupils' confidence.

For example, drama, archery and running clubs. The school offers every pupil an opportunity to gain new interests and skills. The school celebrates its diverse community through events like international sports days and creative projects.

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

Since the previous inspection, the school has made significant strides in improving its curriculum, teaching quality, and overall culture. This is due to leaders' astute focus on improving pupils' experiences. As a result, pupils receive a more consistent, engaging, and supportive education.

The impact of this work can be seen in pupils' all-round strong achievement. For example, pupils have noted their growing confidence in spelling. This reflects the positive impact of the school's changes to the way that writing is taught.

The school's curriculum is ambitious and carefully sequenced. Teachers plan lessons with care, ensuring that pupils build their knowledge and skills over time. Teachers present new concepts clearly and address misconceptions promptly.

This enables pupils to develop a deep and connected understanding of key ideas. The school regularly checks how well the curriculum is being implemented. However, some curriculum topics are relatively recently introduced.

This means that some staff are still getting to grips with this new content. Consequently, sometimes teaching activities do not support pupils' learning as well as they could. The school intelligently plans collaborative opportunities for teachers and subject leaders to reflect on and improve the curriculum.

The school integrates support for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) into every subject. In addition to regularly checking how well pupils are learning the curriculum, staff work closely with parents and carers to gain a thorough understanding of each pupil's strengths and needs. Teachers pay careful attention to pupils' needs by providing extra resources and adapting support in lessons.

Parents value how well the school helps their children overcome barriers to learning.

In the Reception Year, staff focus on helping children identify individual sounds before progressing to teaching the relationship between letters and sounds. Their expertise ensures that children and pupils build reading fluency and confidence.

Pupils who require additional support benefit from tailored interventions, and their reading books are carefully matched to their learning stage. The school introduces pupils to a diverse range of literature to support their understanding of the wider world.

Staff in the early years are experts in child development and understand children's interests and needs.

They establish important routines, such as lining up and listening carefully to adults. This contributes to a safe and productive learning environment. Children regularly practise key skills, sing songs, and listen to stories.

However, the school does not give sufficient focus to developing children's early writing skills, including letter formation. As a result, some children are not acquiring good writing right from the start and are more prone to making errors. However, staff promptly identify and correct these errors, ensuring children stay on track.

The school promotes high standards of behaviour and fosters a caring, inclusive ethos. Staff consistently praise and reward pupils for demonstrating kindness and effort. This positive reinforcement helps pupils focus during lessons.

When disagreements occur, staff help pupils to restore friendships. The school works closely with families to promote regular attendance.

Pupils benefit from an exceptional programme of personal development that equips them with essential life skills.

Pupils learn about relationships, personal safety, and respect for diversity. The school's emphasis on character education threads through many aspects of pupils' school experiences. As a result, pupils cite, and display, the many ways in which they can demonstrate values such as kindness and openness.

The school offers an extensive range of enrichment activities, including clubs, sports, and cultural events. These are designed to nurture pupils' talents and broaden their horizons.

The trust plays a pivotal role in supporting the school's focus on educational quality.

Leaders benefit from trust networks that provide expertise in subject teaching and safeguarding practices. Staff feel valued and supported. The school has robust systems to focus everyone's attention on improving pupils' experiences.

The trust's strategic support and focus on professional development ensures that both staff and pupils thrive.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The school's focus on letter formation and transcription for children in the early years is not sharp enough.

This means that children are occasionally more prone to making and repeating errors in their writing. The school needs to continue to embed the new approaches to writing in the early years. ? Some aspects of the wider subject curriculum are recently introduced and not fully embedded.

This means that teaching activities are not as well-matched as they could be to the intended learning. This risks pupils not achieving as well as they could in these subjects. The schools needs to ensure that staff have the knowledge they need to implement the curriculum in the way that the school intends.

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