King’s Meadow Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Short inspection of King's Meadow Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 4 June 2019, I write on behalf of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. The visit was the first short inspection carried out since the school was judged to be good in June 2015.

This school continues to be good. The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Since your arrival at the school four years ago, you have revised systems and developed a strong team of confident and effective leaders.

Your carefully chosen initiatives have been successful in developing consistently good teaching, and h...ave secured improving outcomes and high-quality provision for pupils. Staff, pupils, parents and carers are united, confident and excited about the future. Pupils are proud of their school.

They appreciate the good-humoured and respectful relationships they have with staff. Pupils enjoy their lessons and are keen to learn because teaching stimulates their curiosity. Pupils work well together and relish the many opportunities teachers give them to discuss their thinking and support each other in their learning.

In lessons and around the school, pupils model the school's values well. Parents are mostly supportive of the school. Parents like the interesting curriculum, which they say inspires their children.

They have confidence in your leadership and the high quality of teaching and care received by their children. The views of many were summarised by one parent writing on the Ofsted survey, Parent View: 'The school has a really good atmosphere about it and is a positive place for my children to learn and grow.' You have maintained the strengths identified in the previous inspection.

The curriculum is broad, rich and interesting for pupils. Artwork across the school is particularly striking and of high quality. A clearly developed range of skills is illustrated through a wide sample of artistic media.

Recent work from the whole-school focus on 'take 1 picture', demonstrates how skills are built upon across the school. Physical education (PE) is developed particularly well so that pupil participation and enjoyment across a wide range of sports and dance are evident. You are rightly proud of the early years.

Children settle well into the Nursery and Reception Year. They enjoy playing and learning together. Staff listen carefully to children and support them well by using questions effectively to stretch children's knowledge and assess their understanding.

The attractive environment offers children the opportunity to investigate a wide range of aspects of the early years curriculum. Children's early recording skills are developed well, seen, for instance, in their ability in using whiteboards to record scores in a game. As a result of this high-quality provision, children make good progress and are well prepared for Year 1.

You have addressed the areas for improvement from the previous inspection. Well-structured improvement plans are driving school improvement effectively. Rightly, these plans are regularly monitored by leaders, including governors, to check that they are having a positive impact.

Pupils benefit from a range of opportunities to write for different purposes. Nevertheless, you are wisely reviewing the frequency with which pupils write across the curriculum. For instance, you want to ensure that they express themselves as well in their written work in science, geography and history as they do orally.

Teaching is enhanced by regular challenge, to which pupils rise with enthusiasm and confidence. Staff are adept at listening carefully to pupils to ensure that questioning provides just the right amount of challenge to stretch their learning. However, you are not complacent.

You are aware that there is more work to do in key stage 1 to ensure that the most able pupils are sufficiently challenged to make consistently good progress in mathematics. Safeguarding is effective. The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose.

All necessary checks are carried out before staff are appointed. Safeguarding training is up to date and complete. Staff are well trained in matters of child protection.

Any necessary referrals are made in a timely fashion and followed up carefully and quickly in school. Processes have been reviewed by governors, who work closely with leaders to ensure that everything is as it should be. Pupils told me that they feel safe at school.

They have confidence in the systems and staff that help to keep them safe. Parents who spoke to me or who completed the survey felt that pupils were safe at school. You have successfully raised awareness of e-safety, for instance through hosting evenings where parents and pupils can come along to have devices security marked and find out more about how to stay safe online.

Inspection findings ? During the inspection, we looked in detail at some aspects of the school's work, including the provision for disadvantaged pupils. It is, rightly, important to you that these pupils are engaged by and included in school, and that, as you say, they feel that 'school is for them'. You have ensured that additional funding for these pupils is used to further this aim.

For instance, some disadvantaged pupils have benefited from instrument tuition, demonstrated in a performance they provided for their parents. ? Current disadvantaged pupils are making good progress in reading, writing and mathematics from their varying starting points. Together with governors, you keep a watchful eye on this progress and carefully plan for further improvements to ensure that the gap between the achievement of disadvantaged pupils and other pupils nationally continues to narrow.

• We also looked together at the standard of writing across the school. Pupils write well. They structure their sentences correctly and have sufficient grammatical understanding to make informed and effective vocabulary choices.

Pupils' spelling is generally good. They demonstrate pride in their work through careful presentation. Nevertheless, pupils do not consistently have enough opportunity to extend and apply their skills when writing in a range of subjects across the wider curriculum.

• The English leader has successfully secured improvement in reading. Changes in the planning of lessons have helped raise pupils' levels of comprehension. Pupils across the school demonstrate a rich vocabulary and were clearly enjoying discussing the meaning and nuance of a range of text types.

Pupils who read to me did so with accuracy and enjoyment. ? Pupils told me how much they enjoy mathematics. In lessons, pupils were confidently sharing their rationales for solving calculations and problems.

In key stage 2, teaching is consistently well matched to pupils' needs so that all pupils make good progress from their starting points. However, sometimes there is a lack of challenge for the most able pupils in key stage 1, which inhibits their ability to make good progress and attain as well as they could. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: ? pupils are given more opportunity to develop their writing across the wider curriculum ? teaching of mathematics provides systematic challenge for the most able pupils in key stage 1.

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children's services for Oxfordshire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Deborah Gordon Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection, we met regularly together.

I also met with staff and members of the governing body, and had a meeting with a representative of the local authority. I reviewed documentation, including: the school's own information about pupils' achievement; the school improvement plan; and safeguarding checks, policies and procedures. Together, we visited classes across the school.

In lessons, I observed pupils learning, looked at their books, and spoke to pupils about their work. I had a meeting with pupils to gather their views of the school and to hear them read. I took into account the views of parents I met on the playground, and also considered 68 responses to Ofsted's online questionnaire, Parent View, including 40 free-text comments.