Westwood Farm Infant School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils love attending Westwood Infants.

The 'Westwood Way' is known and followed by all. Leaders' expectations are evident in the school's calm and purposeful learning environment. Pupils benefit from the excellent guidance and support staff give them.

They feel safe and are well cared for by adults who know them well.

Strong relationships, based on mutual respect, flow throughout the school. Pupils are polite and considerate of each other.

They behave consistently well. In lessons, they engage well with their learning and are keen to do their best. They work hard on tasks and are rightly proud of their accomplishments.

Pupils learn collecti...ve responsibility, earning house points for their team in order to win the house point trophy.

Leaders plan a range of enrichment activities to build on learning across the curriculum. Pupils relish trips and planned experiences, such as visits to Windsor Castle and Cotswold Wildlife Park.

Participation in after-school activities is high. Pupils enjoys clubs, such as science where they learn how to build exploding rockets.

Parents are highly complimentary about the work of the school and the education and care their children receive.

One parent summed up the views of many when they stated, 'I wouldn't want them to be anywhere else.'

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

Leaders have prioritised pupils' personal development. Pupils benefit from an age-appropriate personal, social and health education curriculum that helps them develop positive relationships.

They learn how to be a good friend and know the difference between secrets and surprises. In the early years, children learn how to play cooperatively with their friends and about the importance of healthy eating. Across the school, pupils learn about different cultures and faiths through studying important festivals, such as Diwali and Holi.

They understand the importance of respecting others' views and beliefs, knowing these may differ from their own. As a result, pupils are curious and are developing an age-appropriate understanding of the world around them.

Pupils love reading.

Leaders prioritise giving pupils the skills they need to unlock a world of exciting stories and characters. Adults expertly deliver the school's phonics programme. This begins in early years where children learn to read their first words using their growing knowledge of the sounds letters make.

Across the school, pupils are given lots of opportunities to practise reading books with the sounds they know, and they quickly become fluent readers. High-quality literature is promoted throughout the curriculum. Pupils relish the daily story time as well as the multiple opportunities they get to hear stories throughout the day.

In lessons, most pupils achieve well, particularly in the core curriculum. Leaders ensure that staff are provided with ongoing training to help them refine their practice. Teachers, in turn, value the guidance and support they receive.

During learning, they plan activities that build on pupils' prior learning and make sure tasks are adapted appropriately for pupils with additional needs to help them learn well. They ensure pupils have regular opportunities, such as using 'flashback 4', to revisit important knowledge and develop quick recall. In the early years, children benefit from a vocabulary-rich environment that develops their early language and communication skills.

Assessment is used well in the core curriculum. However, assessment in the foundation subjects is not yet fully established. As a result, gaps in pupils' understanding are not always identified consistently, and key learning is not revisited sufficiently well in these subjects.

This is a wholly inclusive school. Leaders are passionate that pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities access the best provision and are well supported. Pupils in the school's resource bases are provided with high-quality tailored support from expert staff.

Throughout the school, leaders ensure pupils with additional needs are accurately identified. They work in partnership with parents to build highly effective plans. As a result, adults provide pupils with skilled guidance that helps them successfully learn and achieve well.

The school has ambitious aims for what pupils should learn and achieve. Leaders, including governors, regularly review how well the curriculum is being taught. They carefully consider the impact on workload of any new initiatives.

The core curriculum, such as reading and mathematics, is well established, and most pupils achieve well. This is because leaders have identified the building blocks of knowledge that pupils are to learn from the early years onwards. More recently, leaders have prioritised refining aspects of the foundation curriculum.

While much of this work has been accomplished, this is not yet complete. Where this work has been finished, plans are new, and although pupils can recall more recent learning, they are less clear about what they have previously learned.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Work to refine the foundation curriculum is currently under way or very recently completed. Consequently, some pupils have gaps in their prior knowledge, which are yet to be addressed. The school should ensure that the updated curriculum identifies vital knowledge consistently well.

• Assessment across the foundation subjects is not as effective as in English and mathematics. As a result, sometimes it is unclear what knowledge pupils have retained. The school needs to ensure that teachers can confidently use the assessment processes to review what pupils have learned, adapting future learning so that pupils know more and remember more across the curriculum.

Also at this postcode