Meon Junior School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school.

Teaching is at least good across the school, enabling all groups of pupils to make good and often faster progress. Pupils attain above national averages in English and mathematics by the time they leave. Teachers have excellent subject knowledge and plan activities which engage pupils' interest because they are accurately matched to their needs and abilities.

Behaviour and safety are outstanding. The pupils are cared for extremely well and they respond by being exceptionally caring towards each other, showing total respect for all adults and always doing their best in lessons. Leaders use rigorous systems to check on the quality of teach...ing and identify how improvements can be made, resulting in a culture where everyone wants to get better.

Parents, staff and pupils are very proud of the school and very supportive of the school's leadership. This results in everyone pulling in the same direction within a harmonious school community. The combination of specialist subject teachers and knowledgeable subject leaders results in a curriculum which is demanding in terms of both content and in how it deepens pupils' learning.

Pupils therefore enjoy school and are always interested inwhat they are learning. It is not yet an outstanding school because : Pupils are not trained well enough in how to find things out for themselves and are sometimes too heavily dependent on the teacher, which sometimes slows down their learning. Pupils do not learn as much as they could from the teachers' marking because they are not always given enough time to respond to it.

Governors do not get involved enough in the school's work and so do not have a deep enough understanding of its overall effectiveness. As a consequence, they do not have a significant strategic role in formulating plans that would move the school to outstanding.

Information about this school

This is a larger-than-average-sized primary school.

A quarter of pupils are known to be eligible for the pupil premium (additional government funding which supports pupils known to be eligible for free school meals, looked-after children or children of service families). In this school, the eligible pupils are entitled to free school meals or come from service families. The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs supported through school action, school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs is below average.

One in eight pupils belong to ethnic groups other than White British and most speak English as their first language. The school meets the government's current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils' attainment and progress. The longstanding headteacher is a local leader in education (LLE), supporting schools in Portsmouth.

The school has recently become a lead school for the teaching of computer science. The headteacher is retiring at the end of the spring term 2014. In the last eighteen months the whole governing body has changed personnel.

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