East Herrington Primary Academy

Overview

East Herrington Primary Academy is rated as ‘Good’ across all inspection categories. The report describes a school where pupils are ‘respectful and eager to achieve well’, benefiting from a ‘calm and orderly school environment’ and a well-sequenced curriculum that supports strong progress in reading and history.

Strengths

• Pupils demonstrate ‘positive attitudes to learning’ and concentrate well, with teachers using strategies like singing to ‘motivate and engage pupils’.
• The curriculum is ‘well-sequenced’, ensuring knowledge builds effectively; for instance, in history, pupils ‘make connections and suggest reasons for historical events’.
• Reading provision is strong, with staff receiving refresher phonics training and pupils reading books that ‘match their phonics knowledge’, leading to confident fluency.
• Leaders provide ‘exciting experiences’ for personal development, including after-school clubs and national choir competitions, fostering a sense of community and achievement.
• Staff and leaders work closely with parents and external agencies to support pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), ensuring they ‘achieve well’.

Areas to improve

• Leaders must check the effectiveness of the new assessment system for mathematics to ensure it helps teachers understand pupil learning.
• The proportion of pupils who are ‘persistently absent from school is too high’, causing them to miss important learning.
• The personal development curriculum lacks detail regarding other faiths and cultures; leaders must ensure pupils learn about the ‘beliefs of the diverse faiths and cultures in the local and wider community’.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are ‘effective’, with thorough procedures in place to identify vulnerable pupils and staff receiving regular training to keep their knowledge up to date.