Albion Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

Albion Primary provides an outstanding quality of education and serves its local community exceptionally well.

Working together as a very strong team, the staff ensure that all pupils are valued and each individual pupil is known extremely well. Leaders, managers and members of the governing body work successfully together with a shared determination to ensure that all pupils thrive in the school's caring environment. This contributes enormously to pupils' enjoyment of school and their outstanding behaviour.

Pupils' caring attitudes towards one another, strong teamwork skills, respect for pupils from a wide variety of different cultures and generous charity fundraising are evidence of their e...xcellent spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Their awareness of issues related to staying healthy and keeping safe is outstanding. Pupils make an outstanding contribution to the community.

For example, the eco team, who have helped to secure the school's Eco-School Award, take responsibility for switching off lights and computers. Year 4 play-leaders are enthusiastic to organise games and activities for other pupils during break-time. Pupils play an active part in their local area.

The gospel choir sings in the local community. Pupils have collected litter, designed a bridge for a local conservation area, made a mural for display outside a local museum and expressed their opinions to the local authority regarding development plans for the locality. Children get off to a good start in the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Well-established routines ensure children grow in confidence and settle quickly when they start. The school tracks pupils' progress carefully and quickly identifies any pupils who need additional help with their learning. Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities, as well as those pupils who speak English as an additional language, make outstanding progress because they receive additional support that is exceptionally well tailored to their needs.

Extremely well-coordinated guidance in lessons from dedicated additional adults, and individualised extra sessions with specialised therapists, ensure that these pupils make consistently swift gains in their skills. Occasionally, teachers' planning for other pupils does not use the information from assessments as consistently to plan activities that are sharply tailored to all pupils' needs, particularly for those who are more able. Nevertheless, they make good progress and their attainment by the end of Year 6 is broadly average.

Through perceptive and accurate self-evaluation, the school knows its strengths and has successfully tackled key priorities for development. Since the last inspection, secure improvements have been made including enhancements to the curriculum, and increased provision for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities, which has led to improved rates of progress, as well as outstanding outcomes for all pupils in their personal skills. The school's work to engage the support of parents and carers and involve them in their children's early learning experiences is extremely effective.

As a result of all these strengths, the school's overall effectiveness has improved and is outstanding, reflecting the school's outstanding capacity for sustained improvement.

Information about the school

This is a smaller-than-average primary school with Early Years Foundation Stage provision for children in two part-time Nursery classes and one Reception class. A small minority of children in the Nursery classes attend either the morning or the afternoon session while the large majority attend both sessions.

The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic heritages is well above average. The proportion of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities is above average. Most of these pupils have moderate learning difficulties or behavioural, emotional and social difficulties.

The proportion of pupils speaking English as an additional language is well above average. The majority of these pupils are at an early stage of learning English. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is high.

The school operates and manages a breakfast club. A greater than average number of pupils join and leave the school part-way through their education. The school has achieved a number of nationally recognised awards including Eco-School Silver, Healthy Schools, International Schools and Artsmark Gold.

Also at this postcode