Coulsdon CofE Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 8 November 2023

Pupils are proud to belong to this welcoming community. They show kindness to each other, valuing different characteristics, choices and faiths. Relationships between adults and pupils are respectful. Pupils behave well in classrooms and around the school. They know they can talk to staff if they have any worries, and they trust adults to help them. This ensures that pupils feel safe and are kept safe at school. Over time, the curriculum has not equipped pupils with the knowledge they need to achieve well and be well-prepared for the next stage of their education. Changes have been made to improve the curriculum, but these are recent and have not impacted fully. Staff encourage pupils to try their best. Pupils work hard and enjoy talking about activities that have sparked their interest. The school nurtures pupils' confidence and resilience. Pupils enjoy looking after the environment, including maintaining the school pond. They learn about finance and budgeting, taking part in an enterprise project. Enrichment activities provide pupils with opportunities to explore new experiences. Pupils enjoy representing their school in sporting and music events. Members of the school council are proud of the impact they have on the school community. Parents and carers are overwhelmingly positive about the school's support for their children.

What the school should improve

• In some subjects, and in aspects of early years, the existing curriculum is not sufficiently designed or consistently implemented. As a result, pupils have not secured the cumulative knowledge and vocabulary they need to achieve well, including in national assessments. The school needs to ensure that the revised curriculum is fully implemented so that pupils deepen their understanding in different subjects over time.
• The provision for developing older pupils' language is not embedded or sufficiently focused on addressing gaps in their knowledge and understanding. As a result, some pupils do not read with sufficient fluency, while others are less confident in spelling and handwriting. This impacts on the quality of written work in different subjects. The school should fully implement their plans to improve this aspect of their work. This includes ensuring that assessment is used well to identify and address gaps in pupils' knowledge.
• Systems to check and evaluate the impact of recent curriculum changes in some subjects are underdeveloped. This means the school does not have a sufficiently robust understanding of the impact of recent work in these areas. As a result, some of the variability in curriculum implementation is not consistently identified and used to inform future priorities. The school needs to make sure the implementation of the curriculum is checked, and that this information is used to further inform school improvement work.

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