Coppermill Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 13 June 2024

Coppermill is a school where everyone gets to know each other really well. It is described by many as feeling like a village in the heart of the city. Pupils, parents and carers all appreciate the school's welcoming and inclusive atmosphere. It is a place where every pupil is known, heard and understood. This makes the school a special part of the local community. Pupils enjoy school and achieve well. Their behaviour in lessons and at other times is excellent. They rise to the high expectations set for them. Pupils are keen to get stuck into their learning. They jump at the chance to talk about their work and share their ideas. Pupils particularly like the way that staff make learning meaningful and relevant to them. For example, in mathematics, pupils used all sorts of prior knowledge to plan and design their business models for the upcoming enterprise fair. In geography, pupils in Year 6 were enthused to spend time studying a selection of local area maps to see how the features of Walthamstow have changed over the last two hundred years. Pupils take part in a wide variety of exciting activities which help them to understand the part they play in society. Pupils are proud that Coppermill recently won a prestigious award for its work on sustainability. They particularly enjoyed having the chance to work with an architect to design buildings for the future. Their work is displayed at a London gallery for others to learn from. The school's emphasis on high-quality literature makes a real and important contribution to Coppermill's ethos. For example, the recent whole- school focus on the text, 'Red - A Crayon's Story', is just one example of how pupils throughout the school learn about themselves and others through themes, such as identity.

What the school should improve

• In a few of the foundation subjects, the school's approaches for checking what pupils know and can do over time are not firmly established. Where this is the case, this can sometimes affect how well pupils develop their knowledge. The school should continue its work to ensure that, in these subjects, everyone is clear about how to check that pupils know and remember important concepts before moving on to new content.

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