Broad Square Community Primary School

Inspection of Broad Square Community Primary School Broad Square, Liverpool, Merseyside L11 1BS

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Overall effectiveness Good

The quality of education Good Behaviour and attitudes Good Personal development Good Leadership and management Good Early years provision Outstanding Previous inspection grade Good 18 and 19 June 2024

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils feel safe, happy and loved at this caring school. Positive relationships and respect are at the heart of the school. Pupils who are new to the school receive a warm welcome. They form friendships quickly. Pupils enjoy their learning.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are courteous and considerate towards each other, staff and visitors. Those pupils who need extra help in managing their emotions receive effective support from knowledgeable and nurturing staff.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils respond well to the school’s high expectations for their academic achievement. Pupils are supported to be resilient. For example, children in the early years showed remarkable perseverance when building an obstacle course. Pupils across the school achieve well. Children in the early years achieve exceptionally well.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils appreciate participating in a wide range of extra-curricular activities, such as choir, debating and well-being walking clubs. They enjoy educational visits that help to bring their learning to life.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils relish the opportunities to take on various responsibilities in school. These include working as school councillors, litter-pickers and well-being champions. The ‘mini police’ also helped the real police. For instance, by questioning speeding drivers and encouraging them to change their driving behaviour. These experiences help to show pupils what it means to be a positive member of society.

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better?

Pupils in key stages 1 and 2 benefit from an engaging and well-designed curriculum. The school has identified the small steps of knowledge that pupils should learn in each subject over time. It has ensured that teachers have the subject knowledge and expertise that they need to design effective learning activities. Typically, pupils achieve well in most subject curriculums.

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better?

Children in the early years achieve exceptionally well. This is due to a carefully designed curriculum, which is delivered extremely well to make sure that children progress well towards the early learning goals. Children are confident, independent learners, who are highly motivated and excited to join in with learning activities. This means that children are more than ready to meet the demands of the Year 1 curriculum.

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better?

The school ensures swift and accurate identification of pupils’ special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff successfully adapt their delivery of lessons for pupils with SEND. For instance, they take learning outdoors or break tasks down into smaller steps. This means that these pupils can access the same ambitious curriculum as their peers. 18 and 19 June 2024

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The school has introduced appropriate systems for checking on pupils’ learning while taking account of staff’s workload. Staff typically spot and address pupils’ misconceptions well. However, in some subjects, staff do not provide pupils with sufficient opportunities to remember their earlier learning. This means that some pupils have gaps in their knowledge.

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Reading is at the heart of the school’s curriculum. Developing a love of books begins in the early years. Children love to visit the local library with their parents and carers. Children listen to stories and rhymes from the well-chosen books that staff share with them. This helps children in the early years to develop secure communication and language skills in readiness for key stage 1 and beyond. Older pupils know that reading helps them to broaden their knowledge and to improve their own writing.

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The school ensures that pupils gain secure phonics knowledge quickly. Well-trained staff teach the phonics programme consistently well. Those children in the early years and pupils in key stage 1 who need extra support receive it promptly. This helps these pupils to keep up with the demands of the phonics programme. Pupils read books that are carefully matched to the sounds that they have learned. Staff help pupils to understand new and interesting words that they read in books.

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In 2023, pupils’ progress in reading at the end of key stage 2 was significantly below the national average. The school has taken effective action to remedy this weakness. For example, pupils across school practise reading using a variety of high- quality texts. Structured daily reading lessons ensure that pupils gain reading stamina so that they can tackle complex texts. This means that pupils currently at the school are progressing well through the reading programme.

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Staff take every opportunity to teach pupils how to keep active and healthy. Eating healthily is an important part of the school’s popular breakfast club. Older pupils learn about equality and diversity and understand what makes a healthy relationship. They understand the importance of treating all people with respect.

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Staff explicitly teach and model the behaviours that they expect from pupils. This helps pupils to follow the school’s rules and it ensures that there is very little disruption to learning. Children in the early years learn to regulate their emotions and they play together extremely well.

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The school prioritises pupils’ attendance. It works closely with the families of those pupils who are regularly absent. This is beginning to have an impact with some pupils. Their attendance has improved. The school is continually refining its strategies to help to reduce the barriers that stop some pupils from attending school often enough.

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Governors are active members of the school community. They check the impact of the school’s work against the key areas identified for improvement. Staff are happy 18 and 19 June 2024

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and proud to work at the school. They value the support that the school provides in relation to their well-being. For example, the school considers the impact on staff’s workload when introducing new policies.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 In some subjects, teachers do not provide pupils with sufficient opportunities to remember what they have learned previously. This means that some pupils are less confident in recalling what they have been taught. The school should ensure that it provides opportunities for pupils to develop secure foundations on which to build new learning.

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How can I feed back my views?

or to find out what other parents and carers think. We use information from Ofsted Parent View when deciding which schools to inspect, when to inspect them and as part of their inspection.

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How can I feed back my views?

The Department for Education has further guidance on how to complain about a school.

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Further information

You can search for published performance information about the school.

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Further information

In the report, ‘disadvantaged pupils’ is used to mean pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND); pupils who meet the definition of children in need of help and protection; pupils receiving statutory local authority support from a social worker; and pupils who otherwise meet the criteria used for deciding the school’s pupil premium funding (this includes pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years, looked after children (children in local authority care) and/or children who left care through adoption or another formal route). 18 and 19 June 2024

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Date of previous inspection 1 November 2018, under section 8 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 A new headteacher has been appointed since the school was last inspected.  The school provides a breakfast club.  The school uses one registered alternative provision for pupils.

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Information about this inspection

The inspectors carried out this graded inspection under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspections are a point-in-time judgement about the quality of a school’s education provision.  This was the first routine inspection the school received since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The inspectors discussed the impact of the pandemic with the school and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school. 18 and 19 June 2024

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 To review the work of the school, the inspectors spoke with the headteacher, other leaders and representatives of the local authority. They also spoke with a member of staff at an alternative provision used by the school.  The inspectors completed deep dives in these subjects: early reading, art and design, geography, history and mathematics. For each deep dive, inspectors held discussions about the curriculum, visited a sample of lessons, spoke with staff and spoke with some pupils about their learning. They also reviewed a sample of pupils’ work.  The inspectors discussed some other subjects with the school and with pupils.  The lead inspector observed some pupils from Years 1 to 3 read to staff.  The inspectors discussed with the school its provision for pupils’ personal development, behaviour and attendance, SEND and early years.  The inspectors spoke with staff about their well-being, workload and training.

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Inspectors reviewed the responses from staff to Ofsted’s online survey.  Inspectors met with groups of pupils to ask them about their experiences of the school. There were no responses to Ofsted’s pupil survey.  Inspectors reviewed the responses to Ofsted Parent View, including the free-text comments. Inspectors spoke with some parents as they arrived at the school with their children.  The lead inspector met with members of the governing body, including the chair of governors. The inspectors reviewed examples of the minutes of meetings of the governing body.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, the inspectors reviewed the single central record, took account of the views of leaders, staff and pupils and considered the extent to which the school has created an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts pupils’ interests first.

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Inspection team

Sharon Cowey, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector

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Inspection team

Olivia Barnes Ofsted Inspector 18 and 19 June 2024

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regulates and inspects to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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