Churchfields Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 3 October 2023

Churchfields Primary School is a warm and welcoming place. Pupils, staff, parents and carers are all proud to be part of this community. Pupils enjoy school and are happy here. The provision for pupils' personal development is impressive and consistently of high quality. It is underpinned by the school's core values of aspiration, citizenship and excellence. Ensuring that pupils have a voice in their school is extremely important to leaders and staff. Pupils are encouraged to be part of all school decision-making. For example, pupils suggest and help to run their own extra-curricular clubs. Pupils really value that leaders listen to them and take on board their suggestions. Pupils especially like that their ideas have led to an increase in the number and variety of extra-curricular clubs on offer. Pupils rise to the high expectations for their learning and behaviour. In lessons, they are focused and have positive attitudes to their learning. They achieve well across the curriculum. Pupils and staff are positive about the recent changes to the school's approach to behaviour. Pupils know what is expected of them. The three golden rules, 'ready, respectful and safe', are clear to all. Pupils are polite, well-mannered and courteous. Relationships between staff and pupils are nurturing. Pupils feel safe. They trust that adults will deal with issues when they arise, such as bullying.

What the school should improve

• For pupils in the ARC, learning and activities are, at times, not as precisely matched to their complex needs as they should be. The intended learning, while ambitious, is not always broken into small chunks that enable pupils to successfully learn. This means these pupils can experience cognitive overload and find it harder to connect new content with their prior knowledge. The trust should ensure that staff receive further training which focuses on strengthening their understanding of how pupils with complex needs learn and, in turn, enables them to make adaptations that increase pupils' success in learning the curriculum.
• Support for the weakest readers has recently not been as timely as is needed. This means these pupils have not yet had the targeted, specific support needed to address any gaps in their phonics knowledge. The trust needs to further prioritise making sure that the weakest readers get the full level of support that they need.

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