Fairfield Community Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

Fairfield Primary School provides a good quality of education and an extremely positive and welcoming environment. It serves its pupils and local community well. Children get off to an excellent start in the Early Years Foundation Stage where their needs are met exceptionally well.

The care, guidance and support provided for pupils throughout school is outstanding so that by the time pupils leave the school their personal achievements are at least good and some are exemplary. Staff value each pupil, know their needs well and form strong and trusting relationships with them. Therefore pupils say they feel extremely safe, they develop positive attitudes to learning and behave exceptionally well.
.../>They are proud to take on responsibilities, such as membership of the school council or as play leaders because they know they can make a difference to the smooth running of the school. They show empathy and are thoughtful of others, for example, in organising entertainment for local residents in the school's community wing and by the mature way they reflect on challenging questions asked of them such as, in Religious Education, 'what is suffering?'. Pupils enjoy school a great deal and demonstrate this through their above average attendance.

They particularly enjoy the first hand experiences that they are offered through the good and well enriched curriculum, including many educational trips, residential visits and hands on investigations in the classroom. Pupils progress well through Key Stage 1 and 2 so that by the time they leave Year 5 their attainment is above average in English, mathematics and science. The picture is complex, with attainment in reading being consistently high, attainment in mathematics showing a rising trend and attainment in writing fluctuating and progress in writing being relatively slower.

This is because pupils are not offered enough opportunities to write at length or practise and celebrate their writing skills to a high level in other subjects. The rate at which pupils make progress sometimes varies across Key Stage 2. This is because, whilst the impact of teaching on learning is good overall and some outstanding practice was seen during the inspection, a few inconsistencies in teaching remain.

Governors provide outstanding support and challenge to the school. They have been particularly astute in how they have managed the change in senior leadership. Because leadership has been successfully devolved and accurate self-evaluation ensures leaders know the school's strengths and areas for development well, the drive for improvement has been sustained at all levels.

Systems for tracking pupil progress and documents for improvement planning lack sufficient rigour to quicken this progress further. However, the impact of leadership can be seen, for example, in improved attendance and in higher attainment in mathematics, providing evidence of the school's good capacity to continue to improve.

Information about the school

The school is smaller than average.

The proportion of pupils entitled to claim free school meals is known to be below average. The very large majority of pupils are White British and the first language of the overwhelming majority is English. The proportion of pupils with a special educational need and/or a disability, including those with a statement of special educational need, is below average.

Among others, the school has achieved an International Schools Award and a Sports Active Mark. Pupils transfer to high school at the end of Year 5. There is a pre-school which operates on the premises which is privately run and inspected separately.

Almost half the pupils attend from outside the catchment, from Leicester City. The school is being led for one term by a co-headship of an interim headteacher for two days and the deputy headteacher for three days. A full time substantive headteacher has been appointed from January.