Senacre Wood Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Senacre Wood Primary School has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils love school. They are well nurtured and cared for, personally and academically.

This purposeful, busy school balances a happy but controlled atmosphere. It is calm but not regimented. Pupils are warm, friendly, engaging and curious.

They behave respectfully and embrace the wide range of opportunities on offer.

The school works determinedly to ensure pupils come to school as often as possible. Most rarely miss it.

From the popular wraparound care and throughout the school day, pupils work and ...play hard together. They routinely tackle their work with enthusiasm, even when finding something difficult.

Rich opportunities in music, art and physical education enhance pupils' enjoyment of school.

They sing well and play instruments with control and precision. Their creative and well-developed artwork adorns the walls. The school inspires growing numbers, including girls and disadvantaged pupils, to take part in sports tournaments and competitions.

The school wants the very best for every pupil. Pupils achieve well in a wide range of subjects. Staff pay careful attention to helping any pupil who is behind to catch up.

Year 6 pupils movingly expressed how sad they will be to leave the school next summer. It is obvious why.

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

This school focuses relentlessly on the best interests of pupils.

Aspirational for all, the school champions disadvantaged pupils to ensure that every pupil is given the best chance to succeed. The school has united staff in this common cause, supporting its successful ongoing improvement journey.Pupils learn well through the school's carefully crafted curriculum.

They develop useful knowledge and skills across wide-ranging subjects, from mathematics to music. Deliberate strategies prompt pupils to regularly recall their previous learning. This helps pupils to remember and build on what they know.

For example, pupils can link their knowledge from different periods in history with a secure sense of chronology.

The school keeps a watchful eye on disadvantaged pupils. It continues tirelessly to target any remaining gaps between the achievement of these pupils and others.

For struggling readers, the school's close checks of any gaps inform decisions about the best support. Pupils benefit from books that are closely matched to the sounds they know. This helps sustain their positive attitudes to reading.

Similarly, pupils who find mathematics challenging are confident to have a go because they feel they are getting better. They are right. Teachers' clear explanations and demonstrations support this success.

The school has an attentive and systematic approach to identifying pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Ongoing investment in training to develop staff expertise constantly enhances already strong practice. Teachers routinely adopt and adapt strategies that enable pupils with SEND to succeed.

Targeted use of special equipment, resources and approaches are commonplace. Teachers' close work with well-trained teaching assistants makes the most of this valuable resource.

The school also tailors its approach to help all pupils rise to meet the school's high behaviour expectations.

Starting in early years, routines and visual prompts help children to follow routines, make choices and start to be responsible for their conduct.

That the school cherishes reading is plain to see. It is a priority from the start in early years.

This includes promoting the enjoyment of stories and exploration of books alongside a rigorous approach to teaching phonics. Children quickly start to use the sounds they learn to tackle unfamiliar words. Across the school, well-trained staff enthuse and engage pupils to sustain this positive momentum.

The careful thought invested in the books pupils encounter gives them a rich and varied reading diet. Provisional results from the 2024 national tests showed that Year 6 leavers performed significantly better than other pupils nationally in reading.

By the time they leave, many pupils write very well.

Starting in early years and through key stage 1, correct letter formation is taught systematically. However, some pupils are not given sufficient timely practice to get better at translating this into more fluent handwriting. This means that some pupils struggle to write down their ideas, restricting their improvement in writing overall.

The breadth of pupils' learning prepares them well for their next schools. For example, they develop a well-rounded and detailed view of how to keep themselves healthy, physically and mentally. Older pupils demonstrate an informed understanding of questioning and interpreting online information.

Staff expertise in the arts successfully promotes a range of qualities and attributes. For example, pupils demonstrate impressive levels of control, developing greater attention, concentration, focus and precision.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Some pupils do not have enough regular and repeated practice at writing transcription. This restricts the development of their motor skills and writing fluency, hindering their ability to focus on the content of their writing. The school should ensure that pupils have sufficient opportunities to practise and master basic transcription skills.

Background

Until September 2024, on a graded (section 5) inspection we gave schools an overall effectiveness grade, in addition to the key and provision judgements. Overall effectiveness grades given before September 2024 will continue to be visible on school inspection reports and on Ofsted's website. From September 2024 graded inspections will not include an overall effectiveness grade.

This school was, before September 2024, judged to be good for its overall effectiveness.

We have now inspected the school to determine whether it has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at that previous inspection. 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's work has improved significantly or that it may not be as strong as it was at the last inspection, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection. A graded inspection 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 for overall effectiveness in January 2016.