Leeds primary school creating 'nurturing ethos' of support for pupils after first Ofsted visit for nine years
A Leeds primary school has been praised for creating a “nurturing ethos” of support for its pupils after its first Ofsted visit for nine years.
Hawksworth Wood Primary School, located on Cragside Walk, Leeds, was rated as Good in all five inspected categories - the quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management and early years provision.
Ofsted visited the school on June 10 this year. It was their first full inspection since they scored a Good overall following a visit in January 2016.
The education watchdog said: “A culture of high expectations permeates through Hawksworth Wood Primary School. Pupils feel happy and are safe. Staff know pupils and their families extremely well. High quality pastoral support helps pupils to have a positive experience in school.
“The nurturing ethos of the school supports pupils to flourish. Many pupils comment on improvements to behaviour over recent years. Pupils show manners and demonstrate the school’s values through their positive behaviour.”
A “carefully sequenced curriculum” supports pupils to be able to learn in line with their starting points, the report said. While effective interventions are in place for pupils who need additional support with learning. This includes a number of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) who have recently joined the school.
Hawksworth Wood is “tenacious” in its efforts to ensure that all pupils are given every opportunity to learn to read, according to inspectors. The curriculum is “well designed” and ensures that the most important knowledge has been identified.
Focusing on areas of further improvement, inspectors added: “In a few subjects, the focus for learning in lessons is not clear. Activities provided for pupils do not enable them to learn the identified knowledge from the curriculum. Pupils do not learn as well as they could in these subjects.
“Some pupils do not attend school as often as they should. Persistent absence rates for some groups of pupils are too high, particularly those with SEND or who are disadvantaged.”
Systems in the school are said to be responding to the high absence rates, while the report describes the school’s leadership as “resolute in their ambition to give pupils the very best.”
The early years ensures that children are well prepared for Year 1 and they “quickly settle into life at school.” The school is also said to offer a “well-structured personal development programme,” where pupils learn important skills such as staying safe online and building healthy relationships.