Priory Fields School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school. Pupils make at least good progress in all year groups and excellent progress in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Attainment has improved over the last three years and pupils leave Year 6 with standards close to the national average.

Teachers have high expectations of all pupils. They manage their classes well and through excellent planning ensure that additional adults have the same high expectations. Pupils' work is marked thoroughly in all classes and all subjects.

This means that pupils know what they have done well. Many lessons include time for pupils to respond to marking to improve their work. The school provides good support for... pupils who speak English as an additional language, disabled pupils and those with special educational needs, and those who join part way through the year.

The headteacher and governors are united in their ambition to ensure that all pupils succeed, learn about the opportunities in life and are ambitious for the future. Leaders are effective and their actions have improved teaching, including teachers' subject knowledge of mathematics and the teaching of phonics (letters and the sounds they make). All pupils enjoy their learning and know how to improve.

Pupils feel safe and well cared for; they are caring towards each other. Older pupils 'buddy' with younger pupils and this reflects in a family feel to social times. Parents and carers praise the school for its efforts in helping their children to learn and settle in quickly.

Parents and carers support the effective actions that the school has taken to improve behaviour and, because of this, exclusions have been greatly reduced. It is not yet an outstanding school because : Older pupils who join the school and are very new to writing in English do not make the same good progress in writing as they do in reading and mathematics. Occasionally, teachers' subject knowledge of some subjects is not as good as that in English and mathematics.

Information about this school

The school is a larger-than-average-sized primary school. The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic groups is average. The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is higher than average.

The proportions of disabled pupils and those with special educational needs supported through school action is above average. The proportion supported at school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs is also above average. The stability of the school population is well below average, with high numbers joining and leaving the school throughout the year.

The proportion of pupils supported through the pupil premium (additional funding for pupils who are known to be eligible for free school meals, children looked after by the local authority and pupils with parents in the armed forces) is above average. The school meets the government's current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils' attainment and progress. The school provides a breakfast club for pupils.