Jordans School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are safe and happy. Older pupils help the younger ones, such as during lunchtimes when preparing and serving food. Pupils appreciate extra-curricular activities such as French and multi-skills clubs.

They enjoy forest school, where pupils learn about, for example, taking care of the environment and how to keep safe in the outdoors. Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) consistently benefit from the inclusive activities that the school provides. Pupils value trips and the range of visitors from different backgrounds who come to the school to talk in assemblies.

These are memorable experiences for pupils that help them to build confiden...ce and their understanding of the world. The school has high expectations for all pupils and ensures that pupils learn well and are prepared for their next stage of education.

Pupils behave well.

They are polite to staff and visitors. Pupils know the school's 'ready, respect, safe' guidance and respond to adult support appropriately. If pupils do present any challenging behaviour, this is managed sensitively so that learning is not disrupted.

Pupils know the school's values of kindness and courage and can explain what these mean and how they learn about them. Staff create a calm, purposeful atmosphere throughout the school. Pupils have very positive attitudes to their education.

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

The school is ambitious for all pupils. This starts exceptionally well in the early years, where staff create thoughtful tasks that build children's knowledge and vocabulary. The early years environment is rich in language and activities that help children to learn really well.

Staff use songs, rhymes and games to embed children's learning highly successfully. Partnership work contributes to children's learning strongly. Staff and parents work together successfully to help prioritise children's language development.

Through this close liaison, and work with external agencies such as educational psychologists, the school helps to remove barriers to learning that might exist for pupils with SEND. Lessons in the early years help children to build on what they know very effectively. Staff manage children's transitions into school and from the early years into Year 1 extremely well, particularly for pupils with SEND.

As a result, children in the early years achieve highly.

In the core subjects throughout the rest of the school, the curriculum is designed and sequenced well. For example, staff work together to ensure that expectations for phonics and mathematics are clear.

In these subjects, staff have secure subject knowledge. They ask effective questions and explore pupils' misconceptions to help pupils know and do more. However, for some other subjects, such as history and design and technology, the curriculum is not yet developed with the same precision.

Some of the curriculum is not as clear or as strong as it could be. This means learning does not always build on pupils' prior knowledge, which is reflected in some of the work that pupils produce. Although most pupils achieve well overall, some have gaps in their knowledge in these wider curriculum subjects and do not achieve as well as they could.

Pupils achieve highly in reading. Staff teach phonics consistently and effectively. If pupils fall behind, they get thoughtful and systematic support that is adapted to their individual needs.

This helps pupils to catch up quickly and is particularly effective for pupils with SEND. Pupils build their reading confidence through accessing carefully chosen texts that link to local authors and also celebrate authors of diverse backgrounds and beliefs. Pupils value the school library.

They enjoy the chance to change their books each week and to read to adults regularly. Books that pupils take home are matched to the sounds they have learned. Most pupils' achievement in phonics and reading is strong, and this is reflected in the school's published outcomes.

Governors know the strengths and areas to develop for the school. They understand their statutory responsibilities, supporting and challenging the school well. The school engages with parents and carers effectively.

All staff feel supported with their workload and well-being. Highly focused staff training helps teachers to implement the curriculum effectively, evidenced by the school's recent work in developing phonics and providing precise support for pupils with SEND. Parents are overwhelmingly supportive of the school.

One parent captured the thoughts of many, saying, 'The teachers and staff at Jordans make the school a very warm and welcoming place. The children are always happy.' Pupils' attendance is positive.

The strength of relationships between home and school helps pupils to attend well. If pupils have any barriers to attending regularly, staff work with parents and families in a highly effective way.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• In some foundation subjects, the school has not clearly identified and sequenced the precise knowledge and key vocabulary that pupils need to learn. This means that some pupils do not build on their prior knowledge and learn as well as they could. The school should ensure that the curriculum in all subjects specifies cumulative knowledge precisely and that the curriculum is implemented fully effectively so that pupils produce work of a high quality.

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