Bnei Zion Community School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 12 November 2024

Pupils are happy and enjoy coming to this school. They are attentive in lessons and demonstrate very positive attitudes to their learning. The school encourages pupils to be kind and considerate of others. This helps pupils to develop as community- minded citizens. Pupils enjoy getting involved with local charities and entertaining residents in a nursing home. The school does not have high-enough expectations for pupils' secular education. Although the school has started to address this, pupils still study a curriculum that covers a narrow range of subjects outside of pupils' religious studies. The school dedicates too little time to the teaching of these subjects. This means that pupils are not able to develop a coherent understanding of key knowledge within the secular curriculum. Although there is regular time for phonics lessons, pupils move through the phonics curriculum too slowly. As a result, they do not gain a good standard of reading in readiness for their next steps. Children in the early years do not benefit from a coherent curriculum. The activities on offer to children do not promote learning. Children do not acquire a wide vocabulary. Their communication and social skills develop slowly. Consequently, children in the early years are ill-prepared for learning in Year 1 and beyond.

What the school should improve

• The secular curriculum lacks ambition and breadth. It does not identify what pupils should learn over time nor is it adapted to pupils' needs. Some subjects are not taught, and insufficient time is allocated to teaching the secular curriculum. As a result, in these subjects, pupils do not gain the knowledge and skills that they need to succeed. The school must increase the breadth and ambition of the secular curriculum so that pupils gain a secure and deep understanding of the subjects that they should study.
• Teachers have a limited understanding of the most effective ways to help pupils learn. This means that the activities that teachers design do not enable pupils to develop their subject knowledge over time. Teachers' checks on pupils' learning do not help to identify what pupils have understood. As a result, pupils do not recall their prior learning. The school must ensure that staff are suitably equipped to help pupils remember their learning and build their knowledge.
• The phonics programme does not enable pupils to learn to read in English quickly enough. This is because sounds are introduced too slowly, books are not well matched to the sounds that pupils know, and teachers do not check for gaps in pupils' phonics knowledge. The school must ensure that the teaching of the phonics programme enables pupils to gain reading fluency so that they able to succeed in the next stage of their education.
• The school provides limited education about cultures and religions outside of pupils' own religious upbringing. As a result, pupils are not as well prepared for life in diverse British society as they should be. The school must ensure that pupils gain an appreciation of cultures and religions that are different to their own.
• The current early years curriculum lacks ambition and structure. The school has not considered how children in the early years will develop their knowledge across the seven areas of learning. In addition, staff miss crucial opportunities to develop children's communication and social skills. As a result, children do not have the necessary foundations for subsequent learning. The school must ensure that the early years curriculum enables children to learn all that they should in readiness for Year 1.
• The proprietor and the school have been too slow to tackle the weaknesses in the quality of pupils' education. They have not made the necessary changes in order to meet the standards. The school must ensure that it takes urgent action to improve the quality of education for all pupils in the school.

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