Haydon Abbey School and Pre-School

Overview: Haydon Abbey School and Pre-School is a welcoming school where pupils feel safe and happy, and demonstrate the school's six values of 'Cooperation, Kindness, Honesty, Resilience, Respect and Well-being'. The school is ambitious for all pupils to achieve well, but recent curriculum changes have not yet supported pupils to understand or revisit important knowledge.

Strengths:

• Pupils feel safe and happy, and demonstrate the school's six values.
• Pupils have positive attitudes to learning, showing this by arriving promptly for lessons and working with focus.
• The school is raising the profile of reading effectively, with increased time given for reading lessons and specific rewards to encourage pupils to read at home.
• Pupils have a broad range of opportunities to develop their understanding of different cultures and backgrounds.

Areas to improve:

• In a number of subjects, curriculum planning has not supported pupils to understand or revisit important knowledge, hindering their ability to link their learning or apply it to new tasks.
• Assessments are not being used to inform teaching across all subjects, meaning that pupils continue to have inaccurate understanding and can continue to apply incorrect thinking.
• Governors are not clear about the extent to which changes are improving the quality of education for pupils, restricting the effectiveness of their work to support and challenge leaders.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.