Kea Community Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

Kea Community Primary School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils learn happily and with increasing success at this friendly community school. They benefit from a carefully designed, improving curriculum.

Provision for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) is carefully tailored to meet their needs. Pupils of all abilities and backgrounds are included in all elements of school life. Collectively, this all means pupils learn well and harmoniously together.

They are well prepared for the transition to secondary school by the end of key stage 2.

Staff follow leaders' high expectations for pupils. They ...secure positive relationships with and between pupils.

As a result, pupils behave well and are respectful. Occasionally, more could be expected of pupils in lessons. Bullying is very rare and, when it does happen, is dealt with effectively.

Sensible adjustments are made for those with SEND. Low-level disruption is very rare.

Pupils recognise how staff help them to love to learn, be good citizens and consider the world of work.

For example, pupils are positive about the increased opportunities to learn outside in the school's extensive grounds. They like the way they can shine in school productions, undertake leadership opportunities and develop independence when on residential visits.

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

The school has been in a period of transition lately, with the appointment of a new headteacher and deputy headteacher.

They have worked together determinedly to build on the strengths and improve the school systematically and with high ambition. This ambition is being increasingly realised in the improving curriculum. An historic fall in standards has already been addressed.

However, leaders are rightly keen to ensure that pupils' learning is consistently strong across all subjects.

Leaders have secured the commitment of staff. They are working collaboratively to secure leaders' clear vision to ensure that pupils' learning is robust and consistent.

Together, they are developing a more effective curriculum. Leaders develop staff to be skilled, whatever their role. Staff benefit from considered opportunities to improve their practice.

This has helped ensure that the implementation of the curriculum is strengthening considerably, including in Reception. For example, teachers use planning to promote pupils' learning across subjects in increasingly meaningful ways. As a result, pupils, including those with SEND, secure knowledge with increasing accuracy.

Nevertheless, the school rightly acknowledges there is more to do. For example, in history, pupils' understanding of how to use evidence to make judgements about the past could be better. Pupils enjoy learning history.

They know when events happened and how periods of time relate to each other. However, they do not learn to question the evidence they look at to understand its reliability.

Similarly, the use of assessment has improved, but could still be more impactful.

Teachers use assessment well during key points across the academic year, including in Reception. They use this information to identify pupils who are on track and those who need extra support to catch up. However, teachers are less adept at checking pupils' learning systematically in lessons.

This means, occasionally, pupils have gaps in their knowledge or misconceptions that are not addressed before they move on to new learning. As a result, when asked to apply their knowledge in more complex tasks, pupils do not have the security they need to do this as well as they should.

Leaders give reading the highest priority.

They have established a curriculum that ensures all pupils can learn and enjoy reading. From the moment they start in Reception, children learn the routines that are used in the robust programme for learning phonics that is securely in place. Consequently, children learn their sounds rapidly in Reception and as they move into key stage 1.

Leaders use assessment very well to ensure pupils stay on track. Teachers ensure that pupils focus on the sounds they need to learn. Books taken home match very well the sounds pupils know.

Consequently, pupils make very strong progress in their reading and learn to love stories and books.

Opportunities in the curriculum to promote pupils' personal development are plentiful. Staff do this very effectively.

For example, assemblies and trips are used to promote an understanding of life in modern Britain. Trips and visits help pupils to appreciate their locality and their contribution to it. All pupils, including those with SEND, are included in all parts of school life.

This helps them to feel valued members of this increasingly aspirational school community.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The school's work to improve the impact of the curriculum is more secure in some subjects than others.

This means that, although improving, pupils do not retain key knowledge as well as they could, particularly by the end of key stage 2. The school should continue its work on ensuring pupils' learning is robust and consistent across all subjects so that more pupils reach their full potential. ? The use of assessment does not consistently help teachers check that pupils have secured new knowledge in their long-term memory.

This means that sometimes pupils move on to new learning before they are ready. The school should improve the use of assessment to ensure that pupils embed new knowledge and fix misconceptions before moving on to new concepts.

Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good.

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 would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which 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 good in February 2019.

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