Mayfield Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

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

What is it like to attend this school?

Mayfield Primary has high expectations for all pupils and staff.

There is a sense of community and a 'family feel' to how the school operates. Pupils enjoy coming to school. This is because they experience a well-organised curriculum that enables them to enjoy learning.

The school ensures that its curriculum teaches pupils to respect diversity, for example, through learning about people of different faiths and backgrounds.

Pupils behave well and they rarely miss school. They benefit from strong pastoral care, wh...ich ensures that they feel safe and their needs are met well.

As a result, pupils, including those in the Nursery and Reception Years, make strong progress through the curriculum.

The personal development of pupils is a key strength of the school. By the time that pupils reach Year 6, they have become mature, responsible individuals, who are ready for the next stage of their learning.

Pupils demonstrate the school's values, such as by participating in 'action projects' and contributing positively to the life of the local community. Opportunities for leadership include pupils becoming members of the school council, eco-warriors, and junior travel ambassadors. Pupils participate in various clubs, including art, different sports, chess, dance and keyboard.

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

The school has taken effective steps to create and implement an ambitious curriculum. It has carefully set out the most important knowledge that pupils need to learn in each year group. For example, in mathematics, pupils learn about patterns through chanting, clapping and recognising colours when they are in Nursery.

This approach continues well in the Reception Year, where children are also taught to add and subtract. During the inspection, pupils in Year 2 were learning to count successfully in steps of two and three, moving forwards and backwards. Pupils in Years 5 and 6 are confident in their application of mathematics as they learn to calculate using different methods and approaches with greater accuracy.

The school has a strong culture of prioritising reading. The teaching of the phonics curriculum is effective. In the Reception Year, children learn to blend sounds together when reading words.

They understand the key vocabulary that staff teach them. This successful work continues in Years 1 and 2. Pupils who start to fall behind are identified quickly and carefully monitored.

Effective additional support is provided to help them to catch up. Pupils become increasingly confident and fluent readers.

Teachers typically have strong knowledge of curriculum subjects and effective teaching methods.

They use a wide range of approaches to teach pupils the key subject knowledge. However, occasionally teachers' expectations and choice of activities limit the quality of work produced and some pupils lack recall of the most important knowledge.

The school has well-thought-out arrangements for identifying the needs of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

It works effectively with external agencies to ensure that pupils' needs are met. The school ensures that learning activities and resources are adapted so that pupils with SEND can access the curriculum alongside their peers.Pupils respond well to the school's high expectations for their behaviour and conduct.

Children in the Nursery settle into routines very quickly and learn to cooperate with each other and with adults. Throughout the school, pupils behave well in lessons. If a pupil finds it difficult to maintain their equilibrium in class, the school thinks carefully about how pupils are best supported to improve their behaviour.

This means that there is little disruption to pupils' learning.Through its personal, social, and health education programme, the school ensures that pupils learn key information and are well prepared for secondary school and adult life. For instance, pupils are aware of how to keep themselves safe online and live healthy lifestyles.

They understand what constitutes safe and healthy relationships.

Leaders and governors have ensured that their decisions focus carefully on improving the quality of education. For example, they have ensured that the school's curriculum has developed over time and is effectively structured and implemented in most cases.

Staff appreciate the school's actions to reduce their workload, such as through its new approach to assessment. Most parents and carers are very supportive of the school's work, including how it communicates with them.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• In a few subjects, the selected activities and teachers' expectations of what pupils should achieve are limited. This results in some pupils not completing work of high quality, and not remembering key knowledge. The school should ensure that expectations of what pupils can achieve are consistently high, and that activities chosen reflect these high ambitions.

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.

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.

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

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