Martello Primary Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve teaching, learning and assessment across key stage 1 and key stage 2 to secure consistently good outcomes for pupils, including those who are disadvantaged, those who have SEN and/or disabilities, and those who speak English as an additional language, by ensuring that:
  • teaching is consistently strong
  • teachers identify pupils’ misconceptions effectively, and tackle them successfully
  • assessment information is used effectively to inform teaching so that it routinely meets the needs of pupils
  • the most able pupils are challenged to work at the highest standards.
• Improve behaviour, by:
  • enabling pupils to work more independently and sustain their focus on learning for longer
  • further improve pupils’ attendance.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• The principal has set a clear vision for improvement at Martello Primary. She has high expectations for all pupils to achieve well. Staff share this aspiration and work with perseverance and determination under her strong leadership to raise standards in education.
• Leaders have an accurate understanding of the school’s effectiveness. Importantly, they know what needs to improve and what is working well. Leaders’ careful evaluation informs their action plans that are now strengthening teaching and learning.
• Senior leaders provide capable support in leading the school effectively. They have a clear understanding of their roles and fulfil them with determination. The school is improving rapidly because senior leaders’ work is focused precisely on their areas of responsibility. Senior leaders work collaboratively under the principal’s clear, well-guided direction.
• Leaders provide staff with training that helps them improve their teaching. Teachers’ appraisals usefully identify relevant areas for development, and additional coaching and support are provided to help them achieve success. Leaders tackle underperformance rigorously to ensure timely and appropriate improvement. The majority of staff feel well supported by leaders and stated that they are proud to work at Martello Primary.
• Leaders deliver a range of activities that prepare pupils successfully for life in modern Britain. Recently, a group of pupils visited the local mayor and learned about democracy. Other activities ensure that pupils’ spiritual, social, moral and cultural development is strong. As a result, pupils demonstrate a sound appreciation of, for example, right and wrong and of respect and tolerance.
• The pupil premium grant is used to good effect to support disadvantaged pupils. Leaders use some of this funding to provide a lively, well-attended breakfast club. This ensures that pupils start the day with a healthy meal, are happy and are ready to learn.
• The sports premium is used successfully. Specialist coaches provide physical education lessons that keep most pupils fit and active. Additionally, this provision trains school staff to deliver better-quality sports lessons.
• The trust provides high-quality support to the principal and other senior leaders. For example, trust staff have been instrumental in developing the school’s broad and balanced curriculum, and in developing the provision in the autistic spectrum disorder classroom. As a result, learning over time is planned appropriately to help pupils acquire new knowledge and skills across a wide range of subjects.
• Some parents and carers hold the school in high regard. They value ‘the caring teachers’ and the new leaders who ‘deal with issues quickly’, and they said that ‘it’s a really supportive school’. However, of the small number of parents who completed Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, just over half would recommend the school to others.

Governance of the school

• Governors know what the school needs to do to improve. They have a thorough understanding of how well pupils achieve, including those who are disadvantaged, have SEN and/or disabilities, and who speak English as an additional language. They support the trust in monitoring leaders’ actions against the school’s improvement plan and scrutinise pupils’ progress information well to hold leaders to account effectively.
• Governors visit the school often. They use visits to meet with leaders, during which they challenge and support them effectively. They have a clear understanding of how the pupil premium grant is used and champion to a high standard the need to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. Governors fulfil their statutory duties well.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Systems to keep children safe are strong. Leaders have refined further the good practice already in place to monitor vulnerable children. Staff take the right action to protect pupils and demonstrate ably their ability to identify, and monitor, children at risk of harm.
• Leaders work well with other child protection professionals. For example, there is good communication and solid partnerships in place with the neighbourhood police and local authority social care team. Vulnerable pupils are supported well by the wrap-around care that leaders coordinate with other care professionals.
• Pupils learn how to keep themselves safe. They have a good knowledge of e-safety and know the risks present online. One pupil said: ‘It’s dangerous to meet up with someone you’ve met on the internet. They might not be who they say they are.’ Importantly, they explained: ‘If one of my friends said they were meeting up with someone they had met online, I’d tell my parents or a teacher at school straight away.’

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• The quality of teaching is not yet consistently good. Effective teaching is evident in some classes, but strong practice is not yet typical throughout key stage 1 and key stage 2. Consequently, not enough pupils, including those who are disadvantaged, have SEN and/or disabilities, or who speak English as an additional language, make strong progress year on year.
• Some teaching does not tackle pupils’ misconceptions well enough. This is because teachers’ checks on what pupils understand are not frequently accurate. Therefore, some pupils are not supported to learn swiftly and do not achieve as well as they should.
• Throughout key stage 1 and key stage 2, teaching typically does not meet pupils’ needs. Assessment systems have been sharpened throughout the school, but the information this provides is not yet used successfully to inform teaching. As a result, some pupils do not learn well because the work is either too easy or too difficult.
• Most-able pupils, including those who are disadvantaged, are not yet challenged sufficiently to achieve at the highest standards. Learning does not consistently provide more difficult work that stretches these pupils’ ability. More recently, leaders have begun taking action to address this, but more needs to be achieved to improve teaching for this group of pupils.
• The teaching of reading and phonics is carefully planned to help pupils acquire and use an ever-increasing range of vocabulary. The strong emphasis that leaders and teachers place on developing pupils’ language and communication skills is helping pupils learn more effectively over a range of subjects.
• Effective teaching across the wider curriculum provides well for pupils’ artistic development. In the Year 5 and 6 class, pupils shared enthusiastically their impressive three-dimensional African masks. They were rightly proud of their creations and eloquently explained how they had chosen colours to make their masks more dramatic and culturally authentic.
• Some teaching uses questioning effectively to deepen pupils’ knowledge. In Year 5, adults’ searching questions helped pupils to infer meaning from a class novel. Pupils were then able to improve their work by adding extra points that made their writing more detailed and accurate.
• The support from teaching assistants impacts positively on pupils’ outcomes. For example, in a Year 1 art lesson, the teaching assistant encouraged pupils to develop further their portraits by ensuring that they looked more closely at their subjects. This helped pupils to draw eyes that were elliptical and not circular.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Requires improvement

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare requires improvement.
• Too many pupils need close adult supervision to sustain focus on their work. This is because they have not yet developed a strong ability to be effective, independent learners. As a result, the standard of some pupils’ work varies too much, which limits the progress they make over time.
• Pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities are supported increasingly well in the autistic spectrum disorder classroom. Staff provide specialist support and use a range of strategies to ensure that these pupils access learning more successfully. For instance, visual timetables show pupils what to expect each day and what lessons they are going to. The environment is well organised to ensure that pupils learn calmly and productively.
• Pupils stated that bullying is not a problem at Martello Primary. They that learning helps them understand the importance of respecting each other and treating each other with kindness. Pupils know that discrimination, in all its forms, is wrong, and are confident it would not be tolerated by staff at school.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils requires improvement.
• Some pupils are not yet attending school regularly enough. Leaders have raised expectations considerably and are challenging and supporting parents and carers more effectively now than they have in the past. This is beginning to have a positive effect, but overall rates of attendance are still too low.
• Pupils’ behaviour is not yet consistently strong. Sometimes, when the level of challenge in lessons is not right, some pupils’ concentration drifts and they lose interest in learning. Occasionally, they will call out or distract others from learning effectively.
• Where teaching is at its most effective, pupils’ conduct is much better. They demonstrate positive attitudes to learning by joining in with classroom discussions and working collaboratively and respectfully with their peers.
• Pupils’ typically conduct themselves around school in a calm and orderly manner. Systems to promote good behaviour are consistently applied by staff, which ensures that high expectations are maintained. Pupils respond to this well, for example, by playing together cooperatively and participating enthusiastically at breaktimes, when staff organise games.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Across key stage 1 and key stage 2, the progress of current pupils, including those who are disadvantaged, those who have SEN and/or disabilities, and those who speak English as an additional language is not consistently strong.
• Pupils’ progress, particularly in mathematics and writing, is inconsistent. This is because the quality of teaching is too variable, and learning does not frequently match pupils’ needs. Work does not routinely challenge enough pupils to make good progress.
• In 2016 key stage 1 national assessments, too few pupils achieved the expected standards for their age in reading, writing and mathematics. Current pupils are making better progress, but more needs to be done to improve successfully pupils’ broad outcomes.
• Too few most-able pupils are making accelerated progress in a range of subjects. This is because teaching is not yet sufficiently challenging to make them think harder.
• Current pupils, including lower-ability pupils, read well. This is because they have frequent opportunities to read aloud, and learning across the curriculum places a strong emphasis on developing language skills. Pupils stated that they enjoy reading for pleasure and relish studying good-quality texts as part of their learning.
• Last year, the proportion of pupils who achieved the expected standard in phonics exceeded rates seen nationally. School information and pupils’ progress in lessons suggest that current pupils are achieving similarly well.
• Exciting learning, for instance in art and history, helps pupils make strong progress across the wider curriculum. Pupils’ interests are more frequently engaged because learning is typically stimulating. As a result, pupils show greater determination to work hard and produce work of a good standard.

Early years provision Good

• The newly appointed early years leader has brought fresh determination to ensure that all children get off to a flying start at Martello Primary. She is supported by the early years teacher who has strong knowledge of pupils and their learning needs. Together, they have ensured that the early years classroom is a bright and stimulating environment in which children learn well.
• Children make good progress from their starting points in the early years. Teaching is planned and delivered well, and the majority of children achieve a good level of development. Consequently, pupils are well prepared for the Year 1 curriculum.
• The school-wide initiative to improve pupils’ reading skills is embedded successfully in the early years. Children practise confidently their phonics skills and learn their letters and sounds well. For example, two boys, reading words from a text, were able to sound out accurately the difficult word, ‘sandwich’.
• The outside area is vibrant and engaging. Learning across all areas of the early years curriculum is planned for carefully with a range of activities. One group of girls was using water from the water-tray to fill jugs to water the plants. They demonstrated their good knowledge of the world around them, saying, ‘We’re watering the flowers so they can grow bigger and bigger!’
• Staff ensure that children learn routines that help keep them safe. This is because the school’s system to manage behaviour is followed consistently in the early years. Children listen to adults and follow their instructions obediently. For instance, when children line up to go outside, they do this quietly and in an orderly manner. Behaviour is good. All statutory safeguarding and health and safety requirements are met in the early years.
• Staff have developed strong links with parents. Together, they work to ensure that, before children join the setting, any problems that might occur are ironed out first. During the year, parents are kept well informed about the progress their children are making. Positive relationships between home and school support children to make rapid progress.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 140433 Kent 10046587 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Primary School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Academy sponsor-led 4 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 146 Appropriate authority Chair Principal Board of trustees Mrs Jennie King Mrs Michele Sowden-Mehta Telephone number 01303 847540 Website Email address www.turnermartello.org martellooffice@turnerschools.com Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• The school complies with Department for Education guidance on what academies should publish.
• Martello Primary is a smaller-than-average primary school. This year is the first in which the school has had pupils up to Year 6.
• The majority of pupils are White British, and others come from a range of different ethnic backgrounds. The proportion who speak English as an additional language is above average.
• The proportion of pupils supported by the pupil premium is above the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities or who have an education, health and care plan is above the national average.
• The school has a high rate of pupils who leave or join the school during the school year.
• Martello Primary is part of the Turner Schools Trust.

Information about this inspection

• The inspector observed learning throughout the school, spoke to pupils and looked at work in their books. Observations were conducted jointly with senior leaders.
• Meetings were held with senior leaders, middle leaders, groups of pupils, the chair of the local governing board and another parent governor, and representatives from the Turner Schools Trust.
• The inspectors spoke to parents at the end of the day and took into account 14 responses to the online questionnaire, Parent View. The inspector also analysed 23 responses to the staff questionnaire and responses to the pupil survey completed by pupils in Year 5 and Year 6.
• A range of documents was reviewed, including the school’s development plan and self-evaluation document; information about pupils’ achievement, attendance, behaviour and safety; information about the school’s performance management of staff; and governing body reports and trust reports.

Inspection team

Dom Cook, lead inspector

Her Majesty’s Inspector