Withnell Fold Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 28 January 2025

Pupils are proud to attend this nurturing village school. They rightly describe it as welcoming and caring. Pupils of all ages enjoy learning and playing together. They feel safe and happy in school because they know that they could speak to a trusted adult if they had any worries. They are confident that staff would listen to them and resolve any problems. The school is ambitious for what pupils should learn. Pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), achieve well across many parts of the school's curriculum. Carefully selected trips complement and extend classroom learning. For instance, pupils have visited an archaeological dig, an observatory and a Buddhist temple. Behaviour is exemplary. Pupils are polite. They are respectful, confident and articulate when expressing their thoughts and views. They conduct themselves exceptionally well throughout the school day. Older pupils take pride in carrying out roles of responsibility. These roles include librarians, members of the pupil parliament and 'hotpot helpers', who support younger pupils at lunchtime. Pupils have many opportunities to develop their talents and interests through extra- curricular clubs, such as yoga, sign language and 'glow-in-the-dark' fitness. The uptake of these is high across all year groups. Pupils respond enthusiastically to the opportunity to learn guitar, flute or clarinet, and many choose to join the school's choir.

What the school should improve

• In a small number of subjects, the essential learning is not as clearly defined as it is in many other areas of the curriculum. This limits how well pupils learn in these subjects. The school should finalise its curriculum thinking in these subjects so that pupils build a solid and sufficient body of knowledge over time.
• The school does not always ensure that pupils' errors in their writing are identified and corrected swiftly. As a result, some pupils continue to repeat mistakes over time. This hinders pupils' capacity to achieve as well as they could. The school should ensure that the basic skills that pupils learn and apply in core subjects are reinforced in all writing activities, so that pupils write with increased accuracy and fluency across the curriculum.

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