Crawley Ridge Infant School

Overview

Crawley Ridge Infant School is judged as ‘Good’ across all inspection categories. New leadership has ‘reinvigorated the school by raising standards across the curriculum, improving behaviour and opening the new nursery provision’ following a period of disruption. Pupils feel safe, valued, and engaged in a community that prioritises kindness and respect.

Strengths

• Staff nurture ‘warm and trusting relationships’ so pupils ‘feel safe and secure’, with ‘hardly any inappropriate behaviour or unkindness’.
• Reading is given ‘top priority’, with staff trained well in phonics and a ‘wide range of books’ matched to pupils’ needs, fostering a ‘love of reading’.
• The new nursery provides a ‘very strong start to their education’ through a ‘well planned and sequenced’ curriculum and ‘high-quality activities’.
• Leaders promote ‘personal development very well’, supporting pupils’ well-being through a ‘thoughtfully planned’ PSHE curriculum and extra-curricular clubs.
• ‘Highly effective working relationships’ between the trust, leadership, and staff underpin significant improvements in pupil achievement.

Areas to improve

• Leaders must ensure all staff receive further training to ‘adapt their teaching to meet the needs of all pupils effectively’, particularly for disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs.
• Planning in subjects such as art and design technology needs refinement to ensure learning ‘builds on the experiences and knowledge pupils have gained in early years’ in a ‘more coherent sequence’.
• Teaching in mathematics and science requires refinements to ‘ensure that all pupils learn as well as they could’.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are ‘effective’, with a ‘culture of vigilance’ and ‘very well-organised systems’ in place to record and share concerns.