Hightown Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 7 November 2023

Pupils enjoy attending Hightown. Relationships between adults and pupils are strong. Staff know pupils and their families well. Children in the early years settle into school life happily and quickly. Pupils strive to show the school's 'INSPIRE' values, such as innovation and excellence, in their approach to work and behaviour. They love collecting 'INSPIRE' points by demonstrating these values in school. Most work hard and show positive behaviours. Pupils who need additional help to behave receive carefully considered pastoral support. This helps them understand their emotions well. Pupils have access to a wide range of educational experiences. They love attending clubs such as basketball, athletics and choir. Pupils in Year 4 enjoy learning how to play the trumpet. Pupils are proud to take on responsibilities, such as for the pupil leadership team. They are busy planning how to reduce the school's carbon footprint. Current pupils are learning well in most subjects and know what they need to do to learn and remember more. Although the school has high expectations, pupils' published outcomes, in some aspects of achievement, are not yet as high as they could be. In part, this is due to a legacy of underachievement, the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and weaker curriculum thinking in the past.

What the school should improve

• In a small number of foundation subjects, the school has not identified with enough precision what teachers need to teach. Teachers do not know what to check up on and ensure that pupils can recall. Consequently, pupils' knowledge in these subjects is not as deep or secure as it could be. The school should ensure that teachers know the most important knowledge that pupils should learn and remember in all subjects.
• Some of the curriculum is quite new. This means that, occasionally, the school's intentions for the curriculum are not implemented consistently well. This hinders how well some pupils learn. The school should continue to support teachers to develop the knowledge they need to best teach the curricular aims so that pupils achieve consistently well in all areas of the curriculum.
• Some pupils do not attend school regularly enough. This means that they miss too much of their education, which prevents them from achieving as well as they should. The school should continue to work with families, and analyse all attendance information, to ensure that all pupils attend school regularly.

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