Richard Durning's Endowed Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 16 July 2024

Richard Durning's aptly describes itself as 'a small school with a big heart'. It has a strong sense of family and community. Staff understand and nurture their pupils' individual personalities. The school provides pupils with high levels of love and care. Pupils value the way that they all get along together and know each other well. They feel happy and secure. Pupils have an abundance of opportunities to pursue their wider interests, be they academic, creative or sporting. A few of these many opportunities include individual and team mathematics competitions, poetry competitions and numerous sporting events. Extra-curricular clubs are plentiful and run throughout the school day. These include rounders club at lunchtime and after-school clubs such as geography, art and craft, and singing clubs. Pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), consistently benefit from this rich offer. Pupils also have a wide range of opportunities to take on meaningful responsibilities around the school, such as being buddies for the children in the Nursery class and school council roles. The school is ambitious for what pupils should learn. Many pupils achieve well across the curriculum. In some instances, pupils' knowledge is particularly strong.

What the school should improve

• Some parts of the school's early years curriculum are not clearly defined, nor are strong links made with key stage 1 content. At times, this hinders children from building secure foundations for their future learning. The school should further develop its early years curriculum so that staff understand the smaller steps of knowledge that children should be taught. It should also ensure that there are stronger links with key stage 1 so that pupils can capitalise on what they already know and can do when they leave the early years.

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