Pickering Community Infant School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 9 July 2024

Pupils are happy and safe at this welcoming and inclusive school. Staff build nurturing relationships with pupils. Pupils benefit from opportunities to be leaders, including being part of the school's 'Eco-Council'. Pupils are active in planting vegetables and looking after the school grounds. Pupils appreciate the many clubs that they can attend. Staff help pupils to become resilient and confident learners. Parents and carers are overwhelmingly positive about the school. Pupils typically behave well in lessons and enjoy their learning. Breaktimes are a highlight for the pupils. Pupils love to talk about their play area. They enjoy the wealth of play equipment they use, which includes crates, a mud kitchen, and a digging area. These areas develop their interests and skills. Pupils experience lots of exciting visits as part of the curriculum. For example, some pupils visit Whitby to develop their understanding of the coast. The school has high expectations for pupils. Most pupils in key stage 1 achieve well. However, the quality of education that children receive in the early years is not good enough. This means that some children are not as ready for the next stage of their education as they need to be.

What the school should improve

• The curriculum in the early years is inconsistently implemented. This means that children in the early years do not achieve as highly as they could and they are not as well prepared for the next stage of their education as they need to be. The school should ensure that children in early years benefit from a carefully implemented early years curriculum. As part of this work, the school should review the training it provides for staff to help staff understand how to implement the curriculum effectively and consistently.
• Some aspects of the teaching of reading, beyond phonics, are not as developed as they could be. The school should further develop its sequenced approach to reading so that more pupils develop their fluency and a wider love of reading.
• In some wider curriculum subjects, the curriculum is not as coherently sequenced as it needs to be. This means that pupils do not build their knowledge and skills securely over time. The school needs to ensure that the curriculum is sequenced and implemented effectively to ensure that, in all subjects, pupils learn the knowledge they need for their next stage of education.

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