East Oxford Primary School

Inspection of a school judged good for overall effectiveness before September 2024: East Oxford Primary School Union Street, Cowley, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX4 1JP

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Inspection dates: 28 and 29 January 2025

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Outcome

East Oxford Primary School has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are happy at East Oxford Primary. They appreciate how there are always kind and caring members of staff, who listen and sort out any concerns that pupils may have. Pupils behave well and consistently meet the high expectations that staff have of them. Routines are well embedded, and relationships are warm and respectful. This helps pupils to feel safe and show kindness to each other.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who are disadvantaged, learn an interesting and well-designed curriculum. They work hard and produce work of good quality in different subjects. This helps to ensure that they are ready for their transition to secondary school.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils benefit from an extensive programme of additional activities to learn new interests and skills. These include a wide variety of sports clubs delivered by professional coaches as well as choir, drama, dance and board games. Pupils are encouraged to become active citizens and contribute readily to the real sense of community here. The richness of Oxford is built into the curriculum through regular trips. Pupils also showcase their learning in the community. For example, they perform at a local theatre and sing outside a local supermarket to raise money for charity.

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

Pupils develop as fluent readers, who engage positively in a wide range of literature and reading opportunities. As a result, they achieve well, including in national assessments. Pupils are well supported to read with growing accuracy and confidence. This is because the school’s chosen phonics programme is delivered with precision from the Reception Year. Any pupils that struggle to read are swiftly identified and helped to catch up quickly. 28 and 29 January 2025

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Opportunities to practise early writing, however, are not always as carefully considered. There are times when a minority of pupils are given tasks that are too hard and beyond their level of understanding. When this happens, pupils’ fluency in writing takes longer to develop.

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Pupils follow a broad curriculum. The school has thought carefully about the knowledge they expect pupils to learn and remember. This has been logically organised, including for the mixed-age classes, so that pupils can develop a depth of understanding in each subject. For example, in art, pupils learn to draw facial features. They build on this knowledge when applying shading to drawings with increasing accuracy. Similarly, in history, younger pupils learn about the lives of significant people and events. This knowledge helps them make effective links with other periods of history later on.

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Teachers have secure subject knowledge. There is an eager ‘buzz’ in the classrooms, particularly during lessons in the wider curriculum. Assessment is typically used well to check pupils have understood and can recall their previous learning.

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Pupils’ additional needs are accurately identified and typically well supported in the classroom. Staff are knowledgeable about pupils’ specific needs, but activities are not always adapted as well as they could be. In all lessons, pupils are provided with a range of activities to work through. However, within this, there are not always sufficient opportunities for some pupils to reason and deepen their understanding as well as they could.

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In classrooms, behaviour is calm and focused. In the playground, pupils engage harmoniously with each other. Most pupils attend school regularly and on time. Leaders use information effectively to identify the families with the lowest attendance. A range of strategies are in place to help understand and reduce the barriers these pupils experience in coming to school. As a result, the number of pupils who are persistently absent has reduced significantly.

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Pupils’ wider development is a significant strength of the school. It has been well designed to support pupils’ experiences effectively. The extensive range of meticulously planned visits enrich their learning and bring it to life. The school’s links with the University of Oxford mean pupils enjoy experiences that are rare for their age group. These are designed to pique their interests and build their aspirations for the future. For example, all pupils visit the pathology laboratory to explore the brain, which is linked to their learning in science. They also explore an Enigma machine as part of their study of World War Two.

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Staff are rightly proud to work at this school. They feel well supported to develop professionally and to manage their well-being.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. 28 and 29 January 2025

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 On occasions, some pupils are not consistently encouraged to develop deeper thinking, such as opportunities for their reasoning and deduction. This puts them at a disadvantage. The school should ensure that tasks regularly enable all pupils to think deeply and critically across all curriculum areas.  The teaching of early writing does not provide consistently effective opportunities for pupils to practise and master what they have learned. This sometimes hinders writing fluency and the transcriptional skills of some pupils at the earlier stages of learning to write. The school should work to ensure that writing tasks are accessible to all pupils so that they develop fluency in writing as quickly as possible.

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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 to be good for its overall effectiveness.

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Background

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.

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Background

This is the second ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good for overall effectiveness in February 2015.

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How can I feed back my views?

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. 28 and 29 January 2025

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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). 28 and 29 January 2025

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Date of previous inspection 13 March 2019, under section 8 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 The school runs a breakfast- and after-school club.  The school does not use any alternative provision.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspections are a point-in-time evaluation 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 inspector discussed the impact of the pandemic with school leaders and has taken that into account in their evaluation.  The inspector met with the headteacher, the deputy headteacher and members of staff. They also spoke with a representative of the local authority and met with six governors, including the chair of governors.  The inspector met with subject leaders, discussed the curriculum, visited a sample of lessons, spoke with some pupils about their learning and looked at samples of their work. 28 and 29 January 2025

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 To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, the inspector: 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.  The inspector looked at a range of documents, including leaders’ priorities for improvement.  The views of pupils, parents and staff were gathered through discussions and the outcomes of Ofsted’s surveys were considered.

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Inspection team

Samantha Ingram, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector 28 and 29 January 2025

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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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