South Park Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 31 January 2024

Pupils enjoy coming to this school. Pupils are respectful of their peers, staff and visitors. They understand and follow the school's values of self-belief, perseverance, pride and success. Older pupils proudly act as role models to younger pupils. For example, the school has created opportunities for older pupils to become reading buddies to support younger pupils in their reading. Pupils behave well because adults have clear expectations of how pupils should conduct themselves in school. Pupils are confident that adults will help them should they have any concerns. Pupils feel happy and are kept safe here. The school has high aspirations for all pupils. Often pupils join the school part way through each year. The school ensures that it knows precisely where any gaps in pupils' learning are, and then addresses them. Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are well supported and involved in every aspect of the school day. Pupils achieve well in their learning. The school has thought carefully about how trips and visits support what pupils are learning in school. For example, pupils visit art galleries, including the National Gallery and SPACE Ilford, to learn about artists and their work. Pupils also enjoy the regular opportunities to visit places of worship. They learn about those of different faiths and are taught about different kinds of families.

What the school should improve

• Attendance for some pupils is low. This means that these pupils can miss out on learning important curriculum content as well as the wider opportunities offered by the school. The school should refine its approaches for monitoring the attendance of these pupils to ensure that patterns and trends in absence are better identified and used to inform strategies to improve attendance.
• Delivery of the planned curriculum in a few subject areas is not focused enough on building knowledge progressively. While staff understand what long-term goals pupils need to work towards, they are sometimes less clear on what needs to be taught and remembered at each stage so that pupils achieve these goals. This means that pupils' understanding and recall of some subject knowledge is not secure. The school should strengthen approaches to checking and refining the delivery of the curriculum across all subjects. This includes training for staff to ensure that they know what key subject content should be taught at each stage of the curriculum.

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