Park Walk Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Key findings

This is a good school. Its overall effectiveness is good.

Leadership and management are good. Current priorities are well focused and the school has successfully addressed the required improvements identified at the previous inspection. Pupils, their parents and carers confirm that pupils feel safe, behave well and develop very positive attitudes towards learning.

As one pupil said, `I like school as I make friends and learn new things.' The school promotes pupils' spiritual, moral and social development well and enriches pupils' experiences through visits to many of London's museums, theatres and other cultural institutions. Pupils develop good social skills and grow greatly in confidence and... self-esteem.

From very low starting points in the Early Years Foundation Stage, pupils make good progress overall. Attainment at the end of Year 2 is below average overall. With accelerated progress at Key Stage 2, pupils' attainment at the end of Year 6 is consistently above average in English and mathematics.

There are no significant or consistent differences between the achievements of any groups of pupils. The school has a good system in place for the teaching of phonics in small ability groups. Pupils make good progress in learning sounds and applying these skills to reading and writing.

Books used in 'guided reading' sessions are well matched to pupils' abilities, but in a few instances this is not the case when pupils choose their own reading books. A few parents and carers felt that they needed more guidance to help them support their children's learning more effectively and inspectors agree that more could be done to support those parents and carers. Most of the teaching is at least good and sometimes outstanding.

In a few lessons, teaching is less effective so the pace of learning is slower. The marking of pupils' work is mostly of high quality and gives pupils useful guidance on how to improve.

Information about the school

Park Walk Primary is an average-sized school.

The proportions of pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds and those known to be eligible for free school meals are well above average. The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs is larger than average. Most of this group have speech, language and communication needs or behavioural difficulties.

The number of pupils who speak English as an additional language is well above average with a high percentage of children entering the school with little or no English. The proportion of those who join or leave the school other than at the usual time is also well above average. There has been a sizeable turnover of teaching staff and most of the current senior leadership have been appointed since the previous inspection.

The headteacher has been on long-term absence since September 2011 and the deputy headteacher has been acting headteacher since October 2011. The school has many accreditations, including since the previous inspection, the intermediate International Schools award. The school meets the current floor standard.

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