Thornbury Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 15 October 2024

This is an inclusive school where everyone is welcome. A richly diverse community of pupils learn and play together well. This starts in the early years where Reception children quickly learn to share and collaborate. Older pupils treat each other respectfully. Pupils in the specially resourced provision for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (specially resourced provision) enjoy learning alongside their peers. Everyone is encouraged to take part in all aspects of school life. The trust works closely with the school to improve the quality of education pupils receive. However, the curriculum does not always ensure that pupils achieve well. Pupils sometimes struggle to recall or apply what they have learned. Many improvements are too recent to have had time to impact on published outcomes. As a result, too many pupils leave the school without the knowledge and skills they need for the next stage of their education. Pastoral care is strong. The school's culture of safeguarding is a strength of the school. Staff know the pupils and families well, which builds positive relationships. This helps pupils to trust adults. They feel safe to share any worries and are confident that staff will listen and help them if needed.

What the school should improve

• Staff's subject knowledge is not secure across the curriculum, including in English. This hinders staff from providing pupils with learning activities that match the aims and ambition of the curriculum. The school should ensure that staff have high enough expectations of pupils through the development of teachers' subject and pedagogical knowledge.
• The school has not fully identified the specific knowledge pupils need to learn in all subjects. This prevents pupils from developing a deeper knowledge and understanding in some subjects. The school must continue to identify the precise knowledge pupils will learn and build upon so that pupils know more, remember more and can do more over time.
• The school is not always effective in accurately evaluating the impact of improvement changes on pupils' knowledge. As a result, it does not always know whether the actions taken are improving the depth of learning which pupils acquire. The trust should develop its monitoring and evaluation processes so that it has a clear understanding of whether the curriculum is ensuring pupils learn the curriculum well.

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