Mead Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are happy and thriving in this friendly and inclusive school.

Leaders have high expectations for pupils' learning and behaviour. As a result, lessons are calm and purposeful. Around the school, pupils behave sensibly.

The school encourages pupils to help each other and to understand and respect different perspectives and cultural differences. The needs of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are understood well by all in the school.

School leaders have swiftly put in place staff training to raise the standard of reading in the school.

The reading programme is now a strength of the school. The school's curriculum is ...ambitious for pupils. The school supplements the taught curriculum through a wide range of educational visits.

The school places emphasis on pupils developing a strong sense of citizenship. Pupils experience a range of community-minded activities each year. Pupils who make up the school's Pupil Parliament take a leading role.

They work with the school's leaders to ensure pupils' views are taken into account when key decisions are made.

Pupils across the school participate in the school's University of Mead at the end of each year. They complete enrichment projects such as arts and crafts, science experiments, drama and music productions.

They explore and develop their talents and interests through a different activity each year.

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

The school's curriculum, including in the early years, has been redesigned in recent years to increase its ambition in line with the national curriculum. The curriculum is now structured around the important disciplinary knowledge and skills of each subject.

Key learning builds up sequentially over time. The school's curriculum development work is further ahead in some subjects than it is in others, including in early years. Early mathematics, for example, is well supported through the range of learning opportunities that children can choose.

Other areas of the curriculum are less well defined in the learning that children can choose to access.

The result of a well-planned programme of training for staff and the use of subject-specialist teachers, for example in art, physical education and music, is that the curriculum is typically delivered with confidence, including in the early years. This is particularly the case in English and mathematics.

Where the curriculum is newer, teachers are less confident. At times, the explanations of teachers in these subjects are less clear. The activities they choose to help pupils to consolidate their learning can distract pupils from the key knowledge they need to learn.

In the early years, recent training for staff has improved the ways in which they interact with children to develop their communication skills and vocabulary.

Teachers use checks on pupils' learning and recall well in the classroom. They use a range of methods to check what pupils know and can remember from previous lessons.

Through this, they quickly identify knowledge gaps, and address these before moving on.

Pupils with SEND are supported to access all aspects of the school's curriculum. Staff quickly identify their needs and ensure these are met by the adults who work with them.

Pupils in the school's specialist SEND provision are exceptionally well catered for. Across the school, pupils are encouraged to understand the experiences of their peers. Awareness days and charity fundraising events are used to educate pupils on different medical conditions, including mental health.

Reading is a passion across the school. Pupils of all ages read widely and with increasing confidence. Leaders have invested in new books to support the school's chosen phonics programme for early readers.

These accurately match the sounds pupils have learned. Teachers accurately model new sounds to pupils and quickly identify any pupils who need extra help. These pupils are supported well to improve their reading fluency and to catch up to their peers.

Pupils are kind and caring. They pay attention in their lessons and love to learn. At present, the attendance of pupils in the school is below national figures.

Leaders understand why some families have trouble getting their children to school. They are working hard to overcome these barriers and improve school attendance year on year.

Staff here are happy and well supported by leaders.

Recent staff training has greatly increased their knowledge of effective ways to teach. Staff report that workload is manageable. They appreciate the actions of leaders to support their well-being.

Early careers teachers are well supported in the school.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• At times, teachers have not given enough consideration to the main knowledge and skills they want pupils to learn in their lessons.

As a result, teachers' explanations and follow-up activities can distract and confuse pupils from the most essential learning points. In the early years, opportunities for learning in the continuous provision do not routinely support children to embed their learning from teacher-led sessions. Leaders should ensure that explanations and lesson activities are sharply focused on teaching and embedding the key knowledge and skills that pupils need to learn, including in the early years.

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