Summerville Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school.

Pupils achieve well and reach above-average standards in English and mathematics by the time they leave the school. In lessons and over time, all groups of pupils make good progress in reading, writing and mathematics. Lessons are interesting and the curriculum is exciting with many educational visits and visitors into school, which pupils say they enjoy very much.

Teaching is good. Teachers ensure that pupils learn well through activities that help them to improve their skills and to develop their understanding, particularly in reading. Pupils behave well both in lessons and at break times.

The headteacher and senior leadership... team ensure that teachers and teaching assistants are well trained and undertake regular checks to make sure that the quality of teaching is consistently good enough to ensure pupils' at least good achievement. The governing body has a good understanding of pupils' attainment and progress. It makes regular checks on the progress of all groups of pupils.

It is not yet an outstanding school because : Pupils' targets for improvement are not always challenging enough or used to help pupils to review or improve their own work, especially for higher-attaining pupils. Pupils' progress is sometimes held back by work which does not challenge them to use their skills to work on problems that may have more than one answer. Standards of attainment in writing are not as high as in reading and mathematics.

Opportunities for pupils to write at length in subjects other than English are underdeveloped and pupils are not always given precise guidance about the punctuation and grammar required.

Information about this school

This is a smaller than average sized primary school. Just over a quarter of all pupils are from minority ethnic groups and about one fifth of pupils speaks English as an additional language.

An above-average proportion of pupils are known to be eligible for the pupil premium, which provides additional funding for children in local authority care and pupils known to be eligible for a free school meal and those from service families. The proportion of pupils supported through school action is above average. The proportion of pupils supported at school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs is above average.

The school uses alternative provision, Alderbrook Primary Partnership Centre, to support a very small number of pupils with special educational needs. In 2012, the school met the government's current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils' attainment and progress. There is a separately managed children's centre on the school site which was not part of this inspection.

The children's centre inspection report is available on the Ofsted website. Since the last inspection there has been a significant number of new staff and staff absence. About half of the current teachers were not in post at the last inspection.