Wykeham Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is an outstanding school. Pupils achieve extremely well.

Over the last five years, pupils' attainment has been consistently and significantly higher than average at the end of Years 2 and 6. All groups of pupils make rapid progress, often from low starting points, including the disadvantaged, those with special educational needs and those who speak English as an additional language. The most able pupils achieve exceptionally well and this is evident in the high proportion reaching the higher Levels 5 and 6 in mathematics and writing.

These pupils do not do quite as well in reading at Level 6. Teaching over time is of a very high quality. Teachers really c...apture the imagination of pupils and provide activities that enable all to make rapid gains in their learning.

The management of teaching is of high quality. Leaders have high expectations of teachers and check regularly to make sure that teaching is enabling pupils to make rapid progress. Provision in the early years is excellent.

Children are very well prepared for Year 1. The school promotes its values very strongly, based on respecting the rights of the individual and taking responsibility for one's own actions. The headteacher, governors and other leaders have a united vision to give all pupils the best chances in life through education.

They have worked successfully since the previous inspection to improve the quality of teaching and pupils' achievement. Pupils' behaviour is outstanding. They have a maturity beyond their years in the way they conduct themselves in and around school.

They have excellent attitudes to learning. Pupils' high achievement and excellent behaviour are rooted in confident self-belief. From the headteacher down, adults in the school believe passionately in each pupil's ability to excel and they tell pupils that they can achieve very highly.

Pupils' safety is extremely secure. This is because : governors take pupils' safety very seriously and they ensure that all aspects for keeping pupils safe are of the highest standards. The required improvements identified in the previous inspection have been successfully carried out, showing the school's very strong capacity to improve.

Information about this school

This school is more than twice the size of the average-sized primary school. Pupils can join the school either in the Nursery or in Reception. They can attend either the morning or the afternoon session in the Nursery.

Reception is full time. There are some 18 ethnic backgrounds represented among the pupils. The largest three groups are African, followed by Caribbean and Other White.

Other groups consist of very few pupils in each. Nearly two thirds of the pupils speak English as an additional language. This is a much larger proportion than average.

Between them, pupils speak some 30 different languages. Many pupils join the Nursery speaking little or no English. Several of these pupils join the school after Reception during Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.

The proportion of pupils with special educational needs is much smaller than average. About half of the pupils are eligible for the pupil premium grant. This is a much larger proportion than average.

This is additional government funding used to support those pupils eligible for free school meals and those looked after by the local authority. The school meets the government's current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils' attainment and progress in mathematics, reading and writing. The school works with five other schools in the Willesden cluster to share good practice in teaching and to moderate assessment systems and outcomes.

The headteacher was asked by the local authority to serve on a committee approved by the Department for Education to support another school in difficulty. After resolving these he was invited to become a governor of that school. The school is visited by managers of other schools in England and from abroad, at the request of the local authority, as part of an improvement programme.

The school will be joining a training school alliance in the summer term of 2015 to carry out school-based teacher training. The school is twinned with a primary school in Madrid. There is a breakfast club and an after-school club run by the governing body.