Ridgeway Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Ridgeway Primary School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

The school strives for every child to be successful. Staff encourage pupils to follow the school values.

For example, they develop pupils' creativity, collaboration, and sense of responsibility. The school is warm, inclusive, and welcoming. Pupils feel safe and are confident staff will help them with any concerns or problems.

Pupils are proud to be part of the school. They enjoy learning, respect staff and fellow pupils. Behaviour in the school is positive, both in lessons and at social times.

Leaders set clear expectations so that pupils who need extra help receive exten...sive support and guidance.

The school provides pupils with many opportunities to take on responsibilities, such as supporting younger children to read. Pupils enjoy a range of activities to widen their development.

These include visits to parks and famous landmarks. Pupils have opportunities to participate in clubs and sporting teams.

Parents and carers are very positive about the school.

They appreciate the care shown for their children and the inclusivity of the school. Leaders make considerable efforts to work with the community. They work highly effectively to support vulnerable pupils and work with parents.

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

Leaders have carefully designed a curriculum that builds logically from the Nursery to Year 6. Leaders are ambitious for all pupils. The school's curricular thinking focuses on the important knowledge and skills that pupils need to learn over time.

Staff make sure that pupils develop their subject vocabulary well. For instance, in early years, children made colourful collages of plants, learning new scientific vocabulary as they completed their compositions.

Staff develop pupils' curiosity and love of learning.

They spot any misconceptions that pupils might develop and act quickly to address these. This helps pupils to remember important subject content confidently. For example, Year 6 pupils were able to explain the details of a food chain in science.

However, in some subjects, the key content that pupils need to know and the order they learn it is not identified as clearly. When this happens, pupils struggle to build on previous learning securely. This limits pupils' development of deeper subject-specific knowledge and skills.

Reading is a priority for the school. Leaders have implemented an effective reading programme. This starts in the early years and continues into key stage 2.

Books that pupils read are chosen carefully, to match the sounds they know. Teachers assess pupils regularly to ensure that they build their phonics knowledge effectively. Staff support any pupils that struggle, so that they can catch up quickly.

Pupils become fluent readers. They can choose from a wide range of books. Pupils spoke of their love of reading and value the well-resourced school library.

In early years, staff use songs and stories with children to excite and enhance their imagination.

Leaders ensure that the support for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) is central to the ethos of the school. They identify the needs of pupils accurately.

Staff support pupils with SEND skilfully to access the curriculum. The school makes sure that staff understand pupils' individual needs. Staff use this information to enable pupils with SEND to achieve well through appropriate adaptations and support.

Leaders ensure that there is a calm and purposeful atmosphere around school. Staff have high expectations of pupils' behaviour. Pupils respond positively to staff.

They behave well and respect each other. Pupils reflect on their behaviour and how they become successful learners. Leaders are tenacious in investigating absence from school.

They identify any patterns for absence and follow up very carefully. As a result, attendance has improved in recent years since COVID-19. Children in the early years, including the Nursery, settle quickly into the life of the school.

Staff support children to develop their skills and routines, such as sharing and becoming independent.

The school places significant focus on pupils' wider development. The curriculum, including personal, social and health education, is well planned.

Staff help pupils to understand how to manage their feelings. The school develops pupils' understanding about the importance of tolerance, equality and fairness. Pupils gain age-appropriate knowledge about healthy relationships.

They enjoy the range of extra-curricular opportunities available to them.

Governors are knowledgeable about the strengths and areas for improvement. They provide appropriate support and challenge to the school.

Most staff are positive about the support they receive to manage their workload and well-being.

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 subjects, the school does not identify the key knowledge that pupils need, and in which order they should learn it.

This limits pupils' deeper subject-specific knowledge and skills. The school needs to ensure that curricular thinking in all subjects identifies key subject content sequentially so that pupils build securely on their prior learning.

Background

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

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 first ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in November 2018.