Rainbow Forge Primary Academy

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils enjoy attending this caring school.

They greet visitors with a warm welcome. Pupils are polite and courteous to one another and to adults. Pupils show consideration for others.

For example, pupils habitually hold doors open for others. The school ensures that pupils know how to be respectful.

Staff enable pupils to take on positions of responsibilities that are affectionately known as 'jobs'.

Pupils enjoy taking on roles such as eco monitors and road safety helpers. They represent their peers in pupil parliament and carry out roles as anti-bullying ambassadors. The school rewards pupils with rainbow money.

Pupils use this to gain rewa...rds such as access to the 'winter fest'.

Pupils know that they have a trusted adult in school to turn to if they have concerns. If bullying happens then pupils know that this will be dealt with by the school.

This helps them to feel safe.

The school has high expectations of pupils. Pupils enjoy their learning and the curriculum enables them to learn in depth.

Pupils behave well in lessons and at social times. Pupils know the school rules and respond well to them. As a result, pupils enjoy their lessons.

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

The school's curriculum helps pupils to build knowledge well over time. Staff make regular checks to identify pupils' misconceptions and make sure that these are addressed quickly. For example, in history pupils revisit past learning to make sure they have learned important content.

Pupils can recall what they have previously learned. This practice is not consistent across all foundation subjects. On occasions, teaching and assessment do not fully meet the needs of pupils in mixed-age classes.

The school ensures that reading is prioritised in the curriculum. Leaders provide staff with highly effective training on the chosen phonics programme. This helps pupils to experience a consistent approach to the teaching of reading.

As a result, pupils gain the knowledge they need to be fluent readers. Pupils who are in the early stages of reading access appropriate support. They catch up quickly with their peers.

Pupils enjoy reading and talk positively about their class reading books. They enjoy being read to by an adult every day.

The school carefully considers the needs of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

Leaders provide staff with guidance on how to overcome some of the barriers that pupils with SEND may face. This enables pupils with SEND to keep up with their peers. For example, the school uses sentence maker boards to help some pupils with SEND to communicate more effectively.

Attendance is a priority in the school. There are effective systems in place to help pupils attend well. The school works closely with families to support better attendance.

Attendance at the school is good and improving.

The school has carefully planned the personal, social and health education curriculum. Pupils are very knowledgeable about the protected characteristics.

They are aware of different faiths. Pupils are clear that nobody should be discriminated against because of differences such as gender, race and faith. The school offers a variety of extra-curricular clubs.

These include cooking, bench ball and zen club. The attendance at these is high. The pupil parliament group is proud of its role in improving the school.

The new physical education equipment has been provided through the work of the pupils in this team.

Children in the early years benefit from a curriculum that prepares them for their next stage of learning. The stimulating environment means that children are happy to learn.

Children enjoy 'wild Wednesdays', where they experience their learning outside. Leaders carefully check children's progression through the curriculum. Staff ensure that children spend appropriate amounts of time on different learning activities so that they build a wide range of knowledge, skills and learning attributes.

As a result, children are ready to progress to key stage 1.

School leaders, the trust and the governing body are united in giving pupils the best experience in school. They have high expectations for pupils' achievement.

The outcomes achieved by key stage 2 pupils in 2023 do not reflect the good quality of education that pupils now experience. Pupils in this year group were adversely affected by the pandemic.

Leaders work closely with families.

Parents value the opportunity to visit school and attend workshops to help them to support learning at home. A phonics workshop helps school and families work together to support pupils with their reading development.

Staff feel valued by leaders.

They know that their workload is considered. Staff are proud to work at the school and value its family-like ethos.

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 areas of the curriculum, teaching and assessment are less well adapted to the needs of pupils in mixed-age classes than they are in others. This means that some pupils, particularly older pupils, do not get the opportunities they need to revisit and apply knowledge and skills as well as they could. The school should further refine how teaching and assessment are used to improve learning for all pupils in mixed-age classes.