Asquith Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 19 June 2024

Pupils at Asquith Primary School are happy and safe. They enjoy coming to school. Relationships between adults and pupils are warm and respectful. Pupils behave well. They are polite and courteous. A few pupils struggle to manage their own behaviour. Adults help them to be calm and to focus on their learning. Pupils are very accepting of the differences between themselves and other pupils. Bullying is rare and pupils trust adults to sort out problems quickly. Some pupils do not attend school regularly enough. This means they miss out on important learning opportunities and the social aspects of school. The school has begun to work with families to improve attendance, but there is more work to be done. Pupils benefit from a range of experiences to support their personal development. They learn to work hard, to be resilient and to cooperate to solve problems. The school provides many opportunities for pupils to experience visits and events. There are some opportunities for pupils to develop leadership skills, such as the school council and becoming anti-bullying ambassadors. Pupils enjoy sharing their work with parents at curriculum showcase events, stay-and-play sessions, and performances. The school is emerging from a period of significant change, including leadership and staffing changes. New leaders quickly identified the improvements they needed to make. Much has happened in a short period of time. Leaders at all levels are committed to providing the very best education for pupils at this school.

What the school should improve

• Many aspects of the foundation curriculum are in the early stages of implementation. In some subjects, the school has not set out precisely the important knowledge that pupils should learn and remember. As a result, pupils' learning is sometimes superficial and older pupils have many gaps in their subject knowledge. The school should ensure that it continues to develop and refine the curriculum in all subjects to deepen pupils' understanding of important knowledge over time and address gaps in knowledge for older pupils.
• Pupils do not master correct letter formation and basic sentence structure effectively during the early years and key stage 1. Too many pupils across key stage 2 are not fluent in basic writing transcription skills. This hinders their ability to focus on the content of their writing. The school should ensure that all pupils have sufficient opportunities to practise and master basic transcription skills.
• The curriculum for reading, for those pupils who no longer need phonics teaching, does not give sufficient consideration to the teaching of fluency and comprehension. The current approach is not coherent. Pupils struggle to read and understand longer and more-complex texts as they move through school. The school should ensure that it develops a coherent approach to the teaching of fluency and comprehension.
• Attendance is stubbornly low. The school has not developed effective strategies to improve this. Too many pupils are absent too often. These pupils do not achieve as well as they should. The school should ensure that it improves attendance through well-thought-out, strategic actions that are applied with tenacity.
• A significant number of parents say they do not feel welcome in the school and their views are not heard. The school has missed opportunities to communicate clearly about the reasons for change and the good work that is happening to make necessary improvements across all year groups. The school should take steps to increase the opportunities to engage positively and communicate clearly with parents.

Read the full Ofsted report (opens in a new tab)