Thythorn Field Community Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Thythorn Field Community Primary School is a caring school where everyone is included in all that it has to offer.

The school has high expectations of pupils to achieve well. These expectations are realised. Positive and friendly working relationships between pupils and adults are at the heart of everything.

Pupils love coming to school and taking part in 'enjoyable' activities. For example, pupils said, 'We get to do fun things like art projects and putting on ukelele shows for our parents and carers.'

Pupils know and live out the school's high expectations for behaviour, and to be 'ready, respectful, safe'.

Pupils treat each other with courtesy an...d respect. This means that lunch and social times are calm and purposeful. Many pupils attend the 'everyone's welcome' lunchtime club and a wide range of after school clubs.

The vast majority of pupils show high levels of engagement in lessons. Pupils are interested in their learning and want to do their very best. Some pupils struggle to manage their own emotions.

The school's emotional literacy support team provide these pupils with highly effective support so that they can return to their learning calmly.

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

Children get off to an ambitious start in the Reception Year. Children enjoy following their own interests and learning through play.

Relationships between adults and children are warm and nurturing. The early years curriculum provides children with the knowledge and skills they need to access future learning. Adults support children to develop their early language and communication skills.

Adults model new vocabulary and encourage children to use these new words in conversation. Children make strong progress and achieve well. Pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education.

The school prioritises the teaching of early reading. The phonics programme is highly effective and published outcomes for phonics are above the national average. Pupils learn to identify sounds, blending them to decode and read new words.

Pupils' reading books are carefully matched to the level of phonics knowledge they have. Practising reading these sounds at both school and home helps pupils to develop their confidence and reading fluency. The school has chosen a range of high-quality whole-class texts for each year group.

These include texts specifically chosen to promote equality. The reading curriculum which follows on from the phonics does not clearly identify what pupils should learn and when. This means that the school cannot check how much of the reading curriculum pupils know and remember.

The school's wider curriculum is ambitious. Subject thinking identifies the important knowledge and skills that pupils should be taught in each year group. There is some inconsistency across classes in how well the curriculum is implemented.

This limits what pupils know and remember. Staff check for gaps in pupils' knowledge. They use a variety of ways to check what pupils remember over time.

They use this information to build in opportunities to recap prior learning and address misconceptions. Pupils enjoy completing 'flashback 4' in mathematics and 'quick quizzes' in history. Pupils say this helps to refresh their memory of what they have previously learned.

Nevertheless, there is still some variation in the depth of what pupils know and remember across the different subjects.

The school's approach to identifying pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and the tailored support which follows are both effective. The school proactively engages with a range of external professionals to seek support and guidance.

Pupils with SEND receive appropriate support and achieve well.

The school's work to promote pupils' personal development is a strength. Pupils are taught to be respectful and develop a secure understanding of equality.

Pupils talk about the British value of tolerance as, 'the need to respect difference such as someone's race or religious beliefs'. Pupils are proud of the leadership opportunities they can hold such as being a 'well-being ambassador'. These opportunities help pupils to develop their leadership skills and understand the importance of contributing to the community.

The school is well led and managed. The school recognises its areas for development. The school carefully considers staff's well-being and workload in all of its decision making.

The vast majority of staff are highly motivated and proud to work at the school. Those with responsibility for governance are actively involved in the life of the school and provide leaders with the appropriate level of support and challenge.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The reading curriculum which follows on from phonics does not explicitly identify what pupils should know and remember. This means that what is taught in reading lessons is currently reliant on teachers' individual skillsets. Pupils' progress is therefore difficult for the school to track.

The school should ensure that the reading curriculum builds pupils' knowledge and skills progressively over time. ? There is some inconsistency in the impact that subject monitoring has across the wider curriculum. Some subject leaders are less experienced than others.

Some monitoring activities do not lead to necessary and timely action being taken. As a result, the quality of teaching and expectation across the wider curriculum is variable. The school should ensure that all subject leaders have the necessary skills needed to ensure that all subject monitoring activity has a purposeful impact on the quality of teaching and expectation in all of the wider curriculum subjects.