Boddington Church of England Primary Academy

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 28 April 2026

Pupils are happy and secure. They enjoy school and their attendance is high. The school community welcomes new pupils enthusiastically, so they settle quickly into school life. Pupils benefit from warm, respectful relationships across the school and receive nurturing care from staff. However, pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities do not consistently receive the right support to thrive. Pupils behave very well. They understand the school’s routines and follow them consistently, thus benefiting from a calm and orderly environment. Through high expectations, pupils grow to work independently and diligently in lessons. Playtimes are harmonious, and bullying or unkind behaviour is rare. Pupils work hard, but they do not achieve as well as they should. This is due to weak curriculum design, hampering how well staff can teach it. Additionally, pupils have gaps and misconceptions in their knowledge, which staff do not identify and address quickly enough. The progress children make in the early years is varied because staff do not consistently move children’s learning on through high-quality talk. Leaders made improvements recently, but some of this work is still in the early stages of being established. The school has experienced a turbulent time, which has hindered improvement in pupils’ achievement. Leaders and those responsible for governance do not act precisely in the right areas but are taking more pivotal actions now. The school is embarking on a new journey of improvement to ensure all pupils achieve as highly as possible. Pupils benefit from a range of opportunities that broaden their experiences and support their personal development well. Furthering their sense of personal responsibility, pupils enjoy contributing to the school community through nominated roles. Pupils value how leaders listen to their collective voice. School council members take pride in making a difference, such as by helping the school to introduce a wildlife garden and expand the extra-curricular clubs on offer.

What the school should improve

• Leaders should ensure the curriculum is suitable and coherently sequenced for all subjects and for the early years, enabling pupils in all year groups to build knowledge successfully and consistently over time.
• Leaders should ensure that staff check pupils’ learning systematically and use assessment effectively to adapt their delivery of the curriculum and address gaps and misconceptions in pupils’ knowledge.
• Leaders should ensure that the delivery of the early years provision, including through high-quality interactions and the use of assessment, is consistently effective.
• Leaders should ensure that the individual support plans and targets for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities are suitable, covering the breadth of these pupils' needs. They should support staff to use the plans and targets effectively to inform the support they provide.
• Leaders and governance should ensure that their actions to make improvements are precise. They should ensure that their processes for checking the deployment of improvement plans and the school’s work are robust, ensuring that staff implement actions and intentions consistently, while identifying any weakness quickly.

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