Ark King Solomon Academy

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

The school successfully enables pupils to achieve highly.

Leaders set high expectations, and pupils exceed these. Pupils' achievements are reflected in the school's exceptional published academic outcomes. Alongside this, the school strongly encourages pupils to be kind and to help others.

All aspects of the school's work are delivered with high levels of consistency.

The school has very clear behaviour expectations. Pupils rise to meet these.

They receive rewards for their excellent conduct and, when needed, fair sanctions and intensive and highly effective support for those who need help to improve their behaviour. This enables pupils to learn in c...alm and focused classrooms, where respect is fostered and pupils are polite to one another. Pupils are safe.

The school prepares pupils for success beyond academia. All pupils have opportunities to take on leadership roles. In the primary phase, classroom ambassadors are responsible for welcoming visitors.

Pupils in the secondary phase read with younger pupils, and prefects in the sixth form act as role models within the school and address the whole school in assembly. All pupils learn to play a stringed instrument in an orchestra as part of a very ambitious music programme. The careers programme provides pupils throughout the school with well-planned university and business experiences.

Pupils regularly attend clubs, including coding, crafts and drama. Pupils visit museums, theatres and historical houses. All pupils in Year 10 travel to Belgium to visit First World War memorials.

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

Over many years, the school has designed and refined a curriculum of exceptional quality. Leaders have designed a curriculum that deliberately and carefully builds pupils' knowledge and skills over the 15 years that the pupils attend, from age two years to 18. For example, in geography, pupils study Antarctica in Year 1.

They build on this when they learn about the ocean and ecosystems in Year 9. Finally, students studying geography A level build on this further when they learn about global systems and governance in Year 13. In science, when pupils in the secondary phase learn about nutrition, they build on their knowledge of the digestive system, first introduced when they were in Year 2.

Subject leaders have thought in much detail how best to build pupils' knowledge over time. Pupils know, remember and can do more than what is expected by the national curriculum across several subjects. For example, in mathematics, by Year 9, pupils study 3D trigonometry and solve complex problems involving simultaneous equations and probability.

The school provides excellent training and guidance for teachers. This supports teachers to become experts, and they deliver the curriculum with precision and skill from the early years to the sixth form. In Reception, for example, staff extend and expand children's language when in conversation.

In the sixth form, teachers break down information in ways that make advanced concepts easy to understand and remember. Teachers regularly check that pupils have the prior knowledge they need before beginning new learning. Teachers constantly check that pupils remember and understand any new information, addressing any misunderstandings as soon as they arise.

The school is very ambitious for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff know the needs of pupils with SEND and adapt their teaching where necessary. This enables pupils with SEND to work towards the same academic goals as their peers.

Pupils with SEND are fully involved in all aspects of school life. They routinely take part in different extra-curricular opportunities.

Reading is treated as a priority across the entire school.

In the Nursery, children gain the learning behaviours that they need to concentrate on their learning. In Reception, pupils are taught to read systematically and intensively so that they can read accurately. Leaders regularly check that pupils build reading fluency and provide support for any pupils who may need it.

All staff ensure that pupils learn the subject-specific vocabulary that they need to speak and write as subject experts.

The quality of ongoing training for teachers is very high. Leaders ensure that all new staff receive rigorous support when they begin at the school.

Leaders have high expectations of the staff at the school, and they ensure that teachers' workload and well-being are taken into account. Those responsible for governance challenge leaders appropriately. The trust also draws on its wide network of expertise to support senior and subject leaders where necessary.

Pupils are consistently engaged in learning. This is because leaders ensure that children learn good habits from the beginning of the early years. Pupils follow clear routines established for every part of the school day.

These provide a sense of purpose for everything that pupils do while at school and increase the time that pupils spend learning. Teachers support them to work independently and discuss ideas with their peers. These strong routines encourage pupils to respect one another.

From Year 5 onwards, pupils eat lunch in small groups each day, like a family, serving and clearing away their own food.

The school works hard to improve pupils' attendance rates. Leaders use their strong professional relationships with parents and carers, which often begin in Nursery, to support families to get their children to school every day.

The personal development curriculum has been designed with the same detail and thought as the school's academic curriculum. Every activity that pupils experience has been deliberately planned and builds on previous experiences that pupils have had at the school. Activities are tailored to the needs of pupils and the community that the school serves.

Many extra-curricular opportunities take place during the extended school day, which ensures that all pupils have an equal opportunity to take part. By the end of the sixth form, pupils have played a range of sports, visited a range of top universities, and experienced living and working on a farm.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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