Cherry Lane Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 26 June 2024

Pupils at Cherry Lane are polite and welcoming to visitors. Pupils feel safe and are kept safe at school. This is because they have trusted adults to speak with and can report any concerns they may have by using the 'worry box'. Typically, pupils behave well in lessons. At times, however, the behaviour of some pupils disrupts learning, and this is not always addressed swiftly. Pupils have opportunities to take on responsibilities within the school, such as through the school council, as 'eco-warriors' or as class monitors. There are a range of clubs on offer to pupils, for example, football, martial arts, gymnastics and netball. Pupils contribute positively to the wider community, such as by raising money for local and national charities. The curriculum pupils follow matches the scope of what is expected nationally. However, it is not consistently well designed or implemented. As a result, pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), do not develop a sufficient depth of knowledge. This limits some pupils' achievement, including in national assessments, and their readiness for the next stage of their education.

What the school should improve

• In several subjects, the curriculum does not set out precisely what pupils should learn. This means that teaching and assessment are not sufficiently focused on the most important subject knowledge pupils need to secure. As a result, the tasks pupils complete sometimes lack ambition and pupils do not develop sufficient knowledge across the curriculum. The school should ensure the curriculum in each subject identifies and sequences the important concepts pupils need to learn. The school should also ensure that the activities provided match the ambition of the planned curriculum and that assessment is used well to identify and correct misconceptions.
• There has been insufficient training on how to support pupils with SEND to access the curriculum. As a result, some pupils are asked to complete tasks that lack ambition and do not help them to develop independence or the knowledge they need to progress through the curriculum. The school should ensure that training supports staff to make meaningful and appropriate adaptations for pupils with SEND.
• The provision for early reading and language development is not sufficiently robust. The planned opportunities to develop young children's spoken language are not maximised. Similarly, the school's chosen phonics programme is not implemented with consistent precision across the school. Consequently, pupils and children in early years are not fully supported to develop as accurate, confident and fluent readers. The school should ensure that the early years curriculum and chosen phonics programme are implemented in a way that systematically develops pupils' early spoken language and reading knowledge.
• Leaders at all levels, including those responsible for governance, do not have sufficiently detailed oversight of the quality of education, behaviour and attendance. As a result, some of the priorities for improvement have not been timely nor consistently implemented. The school should ensure subject leaders have the appropriate training and opportunities to check the impact of the curriculum. The school should also ensure those responsible for governance receive sufficiently detailed information to support and hold leaders to account. This will help them to better identify specific areas for improvement and check the effectiveness with which they are implemented.

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