Cardinal Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Cardinal Road Infant and Nursery School has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils at Cardinal Road are kind. Manners are emphasised by staff consistently.

Pupils rise to the school's high expectations and behave excellently. Pupils understand how to raise any concerns they may have about behaviour and bullying, if this does occur. Pupils are rightly proud of their school and keen to invite others into their learning and play.

Pupils know how to stay safe, including in school and out in the local community. They know who their trusted adults are.

As part of the school's ...'curriculum drivers', pupils benefit from a rich and wide set of experiences.

They contribute to their local area, for example, through the harvest festival. Pupils have opportunities to eat together and celebrate special occasions, such as New Year's Eve by singing Auld Lang Syne, as well as feeding meerkats, or having visits from the fire brigade. These opportunities provide new experiences, seek to celebrate commonalities and enrich pupils' understanding of the wider world.

Leaders and governors are incredibly aspirational for pupils. They work with families to support pupils to succeed for as long as they are in the school. As a result, pupils achieve well across the different areas of learning in early years and subjects in the national curriculum.

What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

The curriculum is carefully designed, beginning in early years. Teachers work collaboratively to share expertise and identify the important knowledge and skills pupils need to achieve each year. This means that teachers can check precisely that pupils have learned the most important knowledge and address any misconceptions swiftly.

This helps pupils to deepen their understanding and develop great levels of independence in their learning.

The programme for reading is implemented by expertly trained staff. Beginning in early years, there are shared approaches for teaching highly ambitious vocabulary across the school.

These consistent routines, including words and actions, support children to access new language swiftly. This is particularly helpful for pupils newer to the school, including those who speak English as an additional language. Additional support is provided for pupils who need more help to practise their vocabulary and language.

Visits to the local area include those to the library so that pupils can build positive habits for reading right from the start.

The provision for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) supports them to access and make progress through the curriculum. Pupils' needs are identified effectively.

The school's 'provision plans' outline the termly targets for pupils with SEND in a way that are understandable to them, teachers and parents. Pupils typically learn alongside their peers, receiving more tailored approaches when required.

The 'speech and language workshop' provision supports pupils very well with their early language.

Staff are trained to use the strategies in the workshop and across the school consistently. This means that pupils benefit from skilfully adapted teaching and then practise and apply their language in the classroom.

Behaviour and character development are integrated deeply in the culture of the school.

For example, teachers use pupils' developing early number knowledge, such as the use of '10 frames', to help them understand their 'smilies' rewards in concrete ways. Attendance is followed up carefully. The school takes a bespoke approach with families.

This is helping rates of attendance to improve over time.

The integrated nature of the personal development offer is highly effective in supporting pupils to understand important values in the school and beyond. For example, through a programme of carefully selected texts, pupils are introduced to key topics, such as the environment in 'Thabo's Tree'.

Through several readings of the text, pupils engage in the key themes, such as taking care of the environment and the risks of deforestation. In linked activities across the curriculum, pupils reviewed their approaches to recycling at the school and experimented with making their own paper in science. This supported pupils with the key value of 'respect', when they came to look after their trees in the playground as well as the creatures in their classrooms, including butterflies, chicks, or giant snails.

As a result, pupils learn about the impact of their actions in considered ways across the school day.

Staff feel well supported by leaders. They appreciate the opportunities to share resources and expertise across the school.

Staff recognise that their workload is well managed, especially at busy times of the year. Governors have a systematic understanding of the work of the school and use this to continue to provide opportunities for all pupils in the school community to succeed in their next steps.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Background

Until September 2024, on a graded (section 5) inspection we gave schools an overall effectiveness grade, in addition to the key and provision judgements. Overall effectiveness grades given before September 2024 will continue to be visible on school inspection reports and on Ofsted's website. From September 2024, graded inspections will not include an overall effectiveness grade.

This school was, before September 2024, judged outstanding for its overall effectiveness.

We have now inspected the school to determine whether it has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at that previous inspection. This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school's work has improved significantly or that it may not be as strong as it was at the last inspection, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection. A graded inspection is carried out under section 5 of the Act.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

This is the first ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be outstanding for overall effectiveness in May 2019.