Oak Wood Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Oak Wood Primary School continues to be a good school.

The headteacher of this school is Jenny Roberts.

This school is part of Central England Academy Trust, which means other people in the trust also have responsibility for running the school. The trust is run by the chief executive officer, George Smith, and overseen by a board of trustees, chaired by Hilary Ward.

What is it like to attend this school?

Oak Wood Primary School is a caring, kind and friendly school.

Pupils' needs are at the heart of everything that happens. Pupils receive quality care from all staff, who treat them with dignity and respect. The relationships between staff and pupils are highly pos...itive and pupils communicate that they are happy in school.

Giving pupils a voice is a high priority. The school teaches pupils across the school to use a range of communication systems. Staff use this range in all areas of school life.

This helps pupils to share their feelings, make choices and learn the curriculum.

The school has high expectations for pupils' learning and behaviour. Pupils behave well in lessons and around the school.

They respond positively to staff and engage well in their learning. When pupils find things difficult, staff provide effective support to help pupils manage their emotions and to re-engage pupils with their learning. Using a total-communication approach, children and pupils are learning to read and enjoy reading.

Through a range of practical activities, pupils are also learning about numbers and how mathematics is part of everyday life.

Pupils enjoy a range of activities, including swimming and forest school. Pupils are proud of their charity work.

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

Most pupils start at the school with their special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) already identified. However, staff work closely with parents and carers, and any relevant outside agencies, to ensure this identification is accurate. Leaders carefully plan how to best support pupils when they move to the school.

This planning can include providing staff with additional training to meet pupils' specific needs. This thorough approach ensures that when children start in Reception Year, they are safe, they settle quickly, and they start to make progress immediately.

Leaders have worked hard to develop an ambitious curriculum to meet pupils' wide-ranging needs.

This curriculum consists of three pathways. There are also personalised curriculum plans. Together, these ensure that staff identify and target pupils' specific next steps.

Central to all areas of the curriculum is a focus on communication. Speech and language therapists support the school in identifying what pupils need to communicate effectively. Pupils have access to a range of different technologies and other systems of communication.

Pupils use whichever form best suits their individual needs. Staff ensure that pupils have access to the preferred system during all learning and social times. This approach is working well.

The school has ensured that learning to read is also a high priority. Children and pupils enjoy listening to stories and learning how to read. Staff teach pupils pre-reading skills, such as awareness of different sounds.

For many pupils, this moves on to learning phonics. Pupils read regularly to an adult and teaching gives a clear focus on helping pupils to understand what they have read. The school ensures that those pupils who find reading difficult get extra support.

This extra support is helping these pupils to read with increased fluency and confidence.

In most areas of the curriculum, the school has identified the specific knowledge that pupils need to learn, and this knowledge builds in a logical order. In some subjects, however, the focus on the precise knowledge pupils are expected to know and remember is less clear.

This means opportunities to build on prior knowledge are not always maximised.

In lessons, there is a purposeful learning environment. Any disruptions are well managed by staff.

Pupils are supported to reach their potential through a wide range of strategies. This usually involves breaking learning into small steps and lots of practical activities. However, on occasion, the activities given to pupils do not support their learning as well as they could.

Pupils' personal development sits at the centre of the curriculum. The school supports pupils to develop their independence as far as possible. This includes working closely with a range of external agencies to meet the physical and medical needs of pupils.

Leaders facilitate a range of clinics within the school to make it easier for pupils and their families to access services.

The school provides many opportunities throughout the curriculum to give pupils skills they will need to be ready for life outside school. This includes developing an understanding of when they are safe and how to let an adult know if they do not feel safe.

The school has made this a top priority and has done some innovative work with pupils around this.

Leaders engage well with staff. They listen to feedback and consider staff workload when making changes.

The school also engages well with parents who appreciate the significant support they receive to help meet their child's needs.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Staff subject knowledge across different areas of the curriculum varies.

As a result, pupils are sometimes given activities that are not the most effective in supporting their learning. The school should ensure that all staff have the subject-specific knowledge they need across all areas of the curriculum so that pupils achieve the best possible outcomes. ? In some subjects in the curriculum, the precise knowledge that pupils need to learn has not been refined.

As a result, pupils do not always build on prior knowledge as well as they could. The school should ensure that it identifies the most important knowledge that pupils need to learn in all subjects so that pupils build their knowledge year on year.

Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good.

This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which is carried out under section 5 of the Act.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

This is the second ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in July 2013.

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