Selsdon Primary and Nursery School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 25 March 2025

Pupils at Selsdon Primary School are happy and proud of their school. The caring and nurturing environment enables pupils to build confidence and feel supported. Pupils are kind to each other. They demonstrate the school's core value of equality and show respect and understanding of pupils' different backgrounds. On the whole, staff have high expectations of pupils. They help pupils to work hard in class and try their best. Pupils generally live up to these expectations. In 2024, too many pupils left the school at the end of Year 6 without fully securing the depth of knowledge needed, especially in mathematics. The school has made improvements to the curriculum and teaching. Pupils currently receive a much stronger quality of education. They achieve well. However, children in the early years have not fully benefited from these improvements. Behaviour is strong throughout the school. Pupils know and understand the school rules and enjoy working in a calm and positive environment. Pupils strive to gain merits, determined to secure a place on the headteacher's reward trip. Pupils feel safe in school and know they can share any concerns with adults. The school ensures pupils experience trips to enrich the curriculum. Year 6 pupils share their enjoyment of the residential trip and appreciate the life skills they learn. School council members and Year 6 prefects are proud to carry out their roles and support younger peers.

What the school should improve

• The school has not provided sufficient guidance on the important vocabulary that children need to learn in the early years. This means that children do not learn as well as they could. The school should intensify its work to provide staff with the guidance needed to help them to build children's vocabulary and wider language skills.
• There is variation in how well aspects of handwriting are taught. Expectations of what pupils can achieve are not consistently high and errors are not always clearly identified or addressed. This means that some pupils do not write with fluency and accuracy. The school should carry out further work to develop pupils' writing and support pupils to write well.

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