Henbury Court Primary Academy

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 1 October 2024

Pupils are proud to belong to this caring and welcoming school. Through positive relationships with each other and adults, pupils demonstrate the school's values of being confident, playful, respectful and working as a team. If pupils feel anxious, they know they can speak to an adult or use the worry box to share concerns. This ensures that pupils' voices are heard. Over time, the curriculum has not equipped pupils with the knowledge they need to achieve well. Too many pupils leave the school not ready for the demands of secondary education. The school has raised expectations of what pupils can achieve and made bold changes to improve the curriculum. However, some changes are recent and have not had time to fully impact pupils' learning, especially in upper key stage 2. Well-established routines and high expectations of pupils' behaviour start in the early years. Children settle in quickly. The school's 'golden rules' guide pupils to make the right choices in their work and play. Pupils know that respect and tolerance are important. They proudly talk about the different flags in the hall that celebrate each pupil's diverse cultural background. Special events like the Iftar during Ramadan and 'cultural week' develop a sense of belonging.

What the school should improve

• A legacy of a weak curriculum remains for some groups of pupils, notably in upper key stage 2. As a result, some pupils have not mastered the essential knowledge and skills to support fluent reading, writing and mathematics. The trust should continue to eradicate the legacy of underachievement so that pupils achieve consistently well in all subjects and are ready for the next stage of their education.
• In some subjects, the school does not use assessment with enough precision to check what pupils know and remember both within and over a series of lessons. As a result, some gaps in pupils' knowledge are not identified or closed quickly enough. The trust needs to ensure that staff are equipped with the knowledge to use assessment effectively to check on pupils' understanding and to inform future learning.
• The school has not checked the impact of the curriculum in some subjects with enough rigour. Consequently, some staff do not cover content in sufficient depth. This limits the breadth of knowledge pupils acquire. The trust should ensure that the school strengthens its checks and evaluation of the impact of the curriculum on pupils' learning.

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