Dacre Braithwaite Church of England Primary School

Overview

Dacre Braithwaite Church of England Primary School is described as a “warm and welcoming haven” where pupils feel safe and proud to attend. The report states that the school is “friendly” and “caring,” with a Christian ethos that underpins school life and encourages respect and kindness. Overall, pupils achieve well and are “well prepared for secondary school,” though the report notes that early years provision requires improvement.

Strengths

• Pupils “behave well” and feel safe, with confidence that adults will listen to their concerns.
• New approaches to teaching early reading and mathematics are “supporting all pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) to learn well.”
• The curriculum is “broad and balanced,” with leaders ensuring learning is “interesting, engaging and challenging.”
• Staff are “well trained” in phonics, using resources consistently to help pupils learn new sounds quickly.
• Pupils enjoy a wide range of extra-curricular clubs and take on responsibilities such as roles in the school council or eco-team.

Areas to improve

• In a small number of subjects, the school has not identified the important knowledge pupils should remember, meaning teachers are “not clear enough about how to plan small steps in learning.”
• The school does not monitor how the curriculum is enacted in the classroom closely enough, so it is “not aware that some of the activities and approaches that teachers choose to support learning are not effective.”
• The early years curriculum “lacks clarity about how learning is organised,” resulting in activities that sometimes “lack purpose, or do not provide sufficient challenge.”

Safeguarding

The report states that “the arrangements for safeguarding are effective.”