Windsor Community Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

The school helps all pupils, including pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), to feel that they are recognised and valued. Pupils behave well.

They are happy and said that they make many friends at the school. Pupils are optimistic about life and learn to believe in themselves. They feel safe and said that the school is a refuge for them.

Pupils benefit from a range of learning experiences at breakfast club, in classrooms and during after-school clubs that help them to be responsible. Pupils on the school council said that they are thrilled with helping the school to make 'big decisions'.

The school has thought carefully about the q...uestions that it wants pupils to be able to answer.

For instance, How can we be a good friend? What do I need to do to keep myself healthy? Pupils have many opportunities to learn about these topics and much more.

Pupils, including pupils with SEND, enthuse about their learning. However, the variable quality of the curriculum, including in early years, means that more work is still required to fully realise the school's high expectations for pupils' achievement.

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

The school is ambitious to help pupils, including children in the early years, to overcome obstacles that they may be experiencing, such as poverty, prejudice or SEND. The school therefore provides pupils with many well-considered opportunities to develop their personal skills, talents and interests. It helps pupils to understand what makes people equal yet different to one another.

Pupils' efforts and achievements, their culture, language and family heritage, are valued and celebrated at this school.

Published information about the school does not fully explain pupils' achievements. For example, pupils who start at the school in the Reception Year and stay until the end of Year 6 learn well in some subjects.

Pupils respond positively to the interesting learning opportunities that staff provide. Mostly, pupils remember their learning. However, a few subject curriculums do not include all the required information set out in the national curriculum.

Consequently, pupils are not taught all the information that they need to know and are not prepared well enough for the next stage of their education.

In the main, the school makes effective use of assessment strategies to review pupils' learning in lessons, as well as at the end of key units of work. Staff identify the needs of pupils with SEND quickly and accurately.

The school uses assessment information to identify changes to make in the curriculum to help all pupils to learn more successfully.

Due to the school's positive work, the delivery of a well-thought-out phonics programme is helping pupils to read with increasing speed and fluency. Staff benefit from the coaching and advice that they receive to teach early reading.

The school considers the needs of pupils who speak English as an additional language carefully in helping them to learn phonics. It has invested in many high-quality books that pupils enjoy reading and that staff select to teach pupils to read. Staff ensure that pupils learn to write letters and words accurately in phonics sessions.

Staff in the early years provide children with enjoyable learning experiences. For example, children learn to be physically active, use books, listen to stories and develop a knowledge of new words. They learn through play in well-organised, attractive classrooms as well as in a spacious and well-considered outdoor area.

Staff are gentle and supportive, using words and questions skilfully with the children to extend their thinking. However, in some areas of learning, the school has not identified with enough clarity the small chunks of knowledge that staff should teach or when this should happen. This means that children do not learn all the information that they need to understand.

Where pupils, including some pupils with SEND, find it difficult to manage their feelings and actions, staff remain calm, positive and supportive. Pupils know the school rules and behave well, which means that disruptions to pupils' learning in classrooms are rare.

The school's actions to ensure that teachers have a reasonable workload mean that staff can focus on teaching their classes.

The school provides parents and carers with many opportunities to learn about their children's education, for instance through stay-and-play sessions in the early years. This equips parents to better support their children's learning at home.

The governing body does not hold a clear enough understanding of the actions of the school to improve the curriculum.

This holds back governors' ability to provide the support and challenge needed so that the work of the school improves further.

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's curriculum does not match all the national curriculum.

This means that pupils are not taught some key information that they need to know. The school should review the content of subject curriculums carefully and ensure that the scope of each subject meets the requirements of the national curriculum. This will ensure that pupils are better prepared for their future learning.

In some areas of learning, the school's curriculum in the early years does not consider well enough the small chunks of knowledge that staff should teach and when. This means that children are not equipped with some of the knowledge that they need to understand. The school should identify the component knowledge that staff will teach to children and when, to enable them to be even more successful.

• The governing body does not have a clear enough oversight of the actions that the school is taking to improve subject curriculums. This limits the impact of the governing body on reviewing and challenging the work of the school. Governors should ensure that they are fully informed about the school's improvement work.