Coltishall Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 3 December 2024

Pupils like their school. Pupils are happy and safe because teachers keep pupils' welfare at the forefront of their minds. Pupils understand they can seek help from an adult if they ever have a concern. Most pupils learn well because of their teachers' high expectations. Children's behaviour in Reception is exemplary because their teachers have established highly consistent routines. Pupils attend regularly, and the majority of pupils behave consistently well. When they do not, most teachers intervene swiftly. Pupils listen attentively to their teacher and their friends. They enjoy learning. Pupils participate with enthusiasm in class. Older pupils demonstrate considerable maturity. They discuss and debate ideas with sensitivity. Pupils appreciate a rich range of trips and other extra-curricular activities. They visit museums, sites of historical importance, the zoo and the theatre. Pupils acknowledge how these experiences help enhance their curriculum knowledge. The buddy system ensures older pupils become important role models. They check on younger pupils' well-being. Pupils have a voice, and their teachers listen. The school councillors' suggestions lead to changes in school life such as creating quiet areas where pupils can meet and reflect. Pupils raise money for charities and sing for the local community.

What the school should improve

• Some teachers do not adapt the writing curriculum well enough for some pupils with SEND. Furthermore, they do not rigorously identify spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors in these pupils' work. As a result of this, pupils with SEND do not learn to write as well as they could. The school must ensure that teachers support pupils' writing more effectively and systematically check the quality of pupils' work to ensure that pupils with SEND achieve better.
• Leaders' monitoring of some areas of school provision is not as rigorous as it could be. As a result, leaders are not as well informed of how well the school is functioning. Some of their actions to improve the school are not as precise or as swift as they could be. Leaders need to ensure more robust monitoring of some areas of school provision such as pupils' participation in extra-curricular activities and attendance records, for example, so they have a precise understanding of what the school does well and how it needs to improve.

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