Light Oaks Infant School

Overview

Light Oaks Infant School continues to be a good school, where pupils are happy, feel safe, and enjoy strong relationships with staff and peers. Leaders have successfully revised the curriculum structure, ensuring most staff are clear about what to teach, resulting in pupils becoming "enthusiastic learners, confident readers and proficient mathematicians."

Strengths

• Pupils achieve well, with leaders successfully helping teachers address learning gaps caused by the pandemic.
• Reading is a high priority; pupils enjoy reading widely and quickly master the phonics code with effective support for those who struggle.
• Staff maintain high expectations for all pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), who follow the same curriculum as their peers.
• Behaviour is generally sensible with rare low-level disruption, allowing staff to focus on teaching new knowledge.
• Pupils are well prepared to contribute to British society, learning about kindness, respect, and sensitive world issues.

Areas to improve

• Leaders must finalise curriculum thinking in one or two subjects by identifying all essential knowledge and vocabulary for early years and key stage 1.
• Leaders should ensure teachers consistently use the school’s curriculum as the basis for assessing pupils’ learning, rather than relying on alternative systems.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective, with staff well trained to identify risks and leaders linking appropriately with other agencies when required.