King's Park Academy Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Continue to raise standards in reading so that they match the high standards achieved in writing.
• Ensure that teaching fully develops pupils’ deeper thinking and reasoning skills in mathematics so that outcomes in these areas are of a consistently high standard across all years and classes.
• Further develop the implementation of the broad and balanced curriculum so that teachers track and monitor how well pupils consolidate their subject-specific knowledge, skills and understanding in science and the foundation subjects.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

• Leaders at all levels show a determined drive and commitment to achieve the highest standards in all aspects of their work. This drive is well supported by the trust and the academy advisory committee.
• Leaders’ vision and ambition are fully shared by staff. All staff speak very highly of the way in which leaders have driven improvement. They report that the actions of leaders have had a markedly positive impact on their work and on the outcomes for pupils.
• Leaders have established highly effective monitoring and evaluation systems. Middle leaders play an important part in these systems and understand very well what they are responsible and accountable for. Therefore, leaders at all levels know the school’s strengths well and know what they need to do to secure further improvement.
• Heads of year play an important role in driving continued improvement in pupils’ achievement and well-being. They meet regularly with senior leaders, the leader for special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities and the leader for inclusion to identify any pupils or groups of pupils who are falling behind. They ensure that timely interventions are in place. They rigorously check the impact of these interventions. As a result of this joined-up working, most disadvantaged pupils, pupils who speak English as an additional language, and pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities make progress at least in line with that of other pupils.
• Leaders monitor the quality of teaching very well. They use their secure knowledge of its strengths and weaknesses to target professional development effectively. Leaders draw on, and contribute to, a range of professional development provision across and beyond the trust to make sure that staff have access to the best possible development opportunities. Staff recognise the quality of the training they receive and value it.
• Leaders constantly seek to develop talent within the school staff. Staff from within the school have benefited from development programmes and been promoted to middle leadership positions. Teaching assistants with appropriate qualifications have been able to train as teachers. Consequently, the quality of teaching continues to improve.
• The broad and balanced curriculum is effective in developing pupils’ strong skills in reading, writing and mathematics, but also provides rich and varied learning experiences for pupils in science, humanities and creative and expressive arts. Leaders have further developed and improved the curriculum in order to broaden pupils’ cultural and contextual understanding of the texts that they are reading. However, the school’s work to track and monitor pupils’ progress and to map and consolidate pupils’ skills and understanding specific to science and the foundation subjects is not yet fully developed.

Governance of the school

• The academy advisory committee (AAC) supports and challenges school leaders effectively in response to detailed information that they receive about all aspects of the school’s work. They use their considerable knowledge to examine assessment data so that they have a very strong understanding of the progress that pupils are making, including the progress of groups of pupils.
• The AAC also, where appropriate, challenges the trust. The strong and open working relationship between school leaders, the trust and the AAC provides a very effective governance structure to ensure that decisions and actions are clearly focused on improving outcomes for pupils. The impact of their combined efforts can be seen in the improvements in the school over the last three years.
• AAC members ensure that their safeguarding knowledge is up to date, and ensure that the school’s policy and practice are strong and secure.

Safeguarding

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Teaching across the school is of a consistently good quality. Teachers speak positively about how they have benefited from a range of opportunities to develop their practice.
• Teachers establish a positive climate for learning. They set high expectations for pupils’ behaviour and have established consistent classroom routines. As a result, pupils get to work quickly and little learning time is lost in moving between sessions or activities.
• Pupils demonstrate positive attitudes to learning because teachers have high expectations about what they can and should be able to learn. As a result, most pupils tackle their work with enthusiasm and commit themselves to producing their best work.
• Teachers take very seriously their responsibility for making sure that all their pupils make good progress. They work well with heads of year, the SENCo and the leader for inclusion to identify and support pupils who start to fall behind. They set the targets for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities, although in a few cases these targets are not precise enough to measure their success accurately.
• Teachers typically plan well to meet the needs of pupils. Good assessment of pupils’ needs in English and mathematics results in teaching that enables them to reach the standards expected for their age. However, assessment in other subjects is less strong.
• Teachers develop writing skilfully. They model good practice well and plan work that enables pupils to develop extended writing skills in a range of styles and for different purposes. Teachers help pupils to master the different techniques and devices needed for each style. Pupils make strong progress in writing as a result.
• Teaching in mathematics has enabled pupils to develop very strong number and calculation skills. Pupils in all years can talk about their understanding of the mathematics skills they have learned, and progress in number and calculation is strong. However, teaching of reasoning and problem-solving is less strong. In some cases, teachers have not precisely identified pupils’ misconceptions in reasoning and problem-solving tasks. As a result, pupils’ deeper learning in these areas is held back.
• Teachers apply the school’s policy for giving guidance to pupils consistently. As pupils move up through the school they become increasingly accustomed to editing their work and using self- and peer-assessment to identify areas for development. As a result, pupils say that they know how to improve their work, and improvement over time can be clearly seen in their books.
• The teaching of phonics builds well on the work done in the early years. Teachers accurately model sounds and give pupils time to practise them in a range of words, to build confidence. Progress in phonics over time is strong.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is outstanding.
• Leaders have built a school culture which develops pupils’ understanding of their community and society. A well-structured programme of personal, social and health education helps pupils to think about important aspects of their personal well-being, including healthy lifestyles, as well as a range of moral issues.
• The broad range of visitors and visits provides the pupils with a rich experience of the world beyond the school. Many of the events link directly to the curriculum topic being covered and provide a strong cultural, social or scientific context for the learning that is going on in the classroom. Many of the activities, such as the beach trips and shelter building, help to develop pupils’ understanding of risk and how to keep themselves safe.
• The school places great emphasis on building strong relationships with pupils’ families. Parents are often invited to share what pupils are learning through a visit. For example, the visiting Life Education Centre, which teaches younger children about healthy lifestyles and older pupils about drugs and alcohol, is also open to parents.
• Staff give pupils opportunities to develop their leadership skills, including taking part in the school council and the prefect system. All the pupils who spoke with inspectors talked positively about these opportunities.
• The school helps to develop important character traits through the ‘achievosaurs’ programme in key stage 1 and the character traits programme in key stage 2. Pupils learn about, and then promote these key traits such as resilience or honesty, and are rewarded through the school’s reward system for demonstrating them. This supports pupils effectively to build independence and self-esteem.
• Leaders actively promote healthy eating through the high-quality catering provision and through working with families to ensure that packed lunches are healthy.
• The school’s ‘Kitchen Project’, which employs a number of adults with learning disabilities, helps pupils to understand what it means to be in an inclusive community.
• Pupils have access to a wide range of enrichment activities, including sports clubs and clubs for expressive arts. Pupils take part in a range of competitions with other schools, and the school choir often performs in the local community, for example in homes for the elderly. The number of pupils taking part in these activities has risen over time.
• The school ensures that disadvantaged pupils have equal access to enrichment activities, trips and visits by removing any cost barrier. The school has accessed a range of charitable trust funds for this, as well as using some of the pupil premium grant.
• Pupils know how to stay safe. They are able to describe how to keep themselves safe when out of school and when online.
• Pupils report that bullying is very uncommon. On the rare occasion that it does occur, they always feel confident to report it and staff deal with it quickly. Parents confirm this view both in their conversations with inspectors and in their responses to the online parent questionnaire.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is outstanding. They conduct themselves in a calm and courteous manner at all times in lessons and around the school.
• Pupils report that behaviour is always good. Older pupils relate how they have seen behaviour improve significantly over recent years. Responses from teachers and parents in online questionnaires and discussions with inspectors fully support this view.
• Pupils take pride in their appearance and in their work. They respond positively to teachers’ high expectations of their work, which they take care to present well and look after.
• Attendance is in line with the national average. Attendance had previously been below the national average and large proportions of some groups were persistently absent. Leaders have worked with determination to improve attendance over the last year and the vast majority of pupils now attend regularly. Leaders have also significantly reduced the number of pupils whose parents do not ensure their regular attendance.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• Pupils are making strong progress across all year groups. In key stage 1, pupils make very strong progress in writing and strong progress in reading and mathematics. In key stage 2 they continue to make very strong progress in writing, and strong progress in reading. Progress in the number and calculation elements of mathematics is strong, but pupils are making less progress in reasoning and problem-solving.
• Outcomes in the national tests in 2017 showed that progress in reading fell from above average in 2016 to average in 2017. Leaders analysed the underlying reasons for this fall and have modified the curriculum to address these. Progress of current pupils in reading is strong, including for most pupils who speak English as an additional language. Pupils demonstrate a good ability to infer meaning from the texts they read.
• Many pupils read widely and select age-appropriate books to read in their own time. The school’s work with pupils and their parents to promote reading at home is having a positive impact. Pupils that read to inspectors demonstrated fluency and could talk knowledgably about the books they are reading.
• Pupils’ progress in mathematics in national tests fell from well above average in 2016 to average in 2017. Leaders have introduced a new mathematics teaching scheme across Years 1 to 5 and this is having a strong impact. Pupils are able to articulate their understanding of mathematical ideas and concepts well and their skills in number and calculation are strong. However, pupils’ reasoning and problem-solving skills are less secure.
• The curriculum gives pupils a rich experience of a broad range of subjects. However, their progression in the skills and knowledge specific to these subjects, such as scientific or historical enquiry skills, are not fully tracked. In art, for example, the current learning is not linked sufficiently to what pupils have learned previously. Consequently, on occasion, teachers do not plan pupils’ next steps of learning precisely which slows their progress.
• Pupils make good progress in phonics. Pupils in Year 1 build well on what they have learned in Reception, and most pupils are able to decode words at the expected level of difficulty in both Year 1 and Year 2.
• Disadvantaged pupils make progress that is broadly in line with, and in some cases greater than, other pupils.
• Other groups make equally good progress. Pupils who speak English as an additional language, who make up a significant proportion of the school population, make progress that is in line with, or often above, that of pupils whose first language is English. Pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities are well supported and make strong progress from their individual starting points.

Early years provision Outstanding

• The provision and outcomes for children in early years are outstanding. Leaders have created a culture of very high expectations for all children, regardless of their starting points. Outcomes for children in the Nursery are consistently strong and provide a firm foundation for those children when they move into Reception. Likewise, children make outstanding progress in Reception and are well prepared for their move into key stage 1.
• Arrangements for ensuring the safety of children are very robust, including the requirements for paediatric first aiders. All staff are fully aware of their safeguarding responsibilities and demonstrate a very strong knowledge of safeguarding practice.
• Leaders have created a vibrant and stimulating environment in which children enjoy a rich range of learning and play. Children use the different activity zones with confidence and feel comfortable and safe in their surroundings. The children exude a sense of happiness and enjoyment. They are curious, engaged and concentrate well on what they are doing.
• Staff skilfully advance the children’s development. A good blend of free exploration, skilful questioning, modelling and repetition, and well-planned formal learning sessions, allows children to develop their physical, language and social skills effectively.
• Children’s behaviour is exemplary. Teachers model expected behaviour highly effectively and children respond to requests quickly, understand and follow routines promptly and cooperate with each other willingly.
• Teachers and leaders have established strong systems to track and monitor children’s progress. This includes working well with other providers where a child attends more than one provision.
• As a result of the high-quality provision, children make excellent progress. The proportion of children achieving a good level of development has been above the national average for three years, as have the proportions of children reaching the expected levels in the early learning goals for mathematics, reading and writing. Growing proportions of children also exceed these expected levels.
• The proportion of disadvantaged children achieving a good level of development has been above the national proportion for other children for two years. The proportion of this group achieving the expected levels in the early learning goals for mathematics, reading and writing is above the proportion of other pupils in the school and other pupils nationally.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 141671 Bournemouth 10042648 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 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 685 Appropriate authority Board of trustees Chair Principal Telephone number Website Email address Kay Errington Lauren Dean 01202 395138 www.kingspark-academy.co.uk kpa@kingspark-academy.co.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• King’s Park Academy is a significantly above average-sized school. It is sponsored by the Ambitions Academies Trust, which officially took over the running of the school in March 2015 and which sponsors several other academies in the local area.
• The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is above the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is in line with the national average.
• The majority of pupils are either of White British heritage or of Any Other White background, though 20% of pupils come from another 11 of the 17 ethnic groups.
• The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is just over double the national average.
• The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations of pupils’ attainment and progress by the time they leave school.
• The principal is a local leader of education.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning across a range of subjects and age groups, some of which were conducted jointly with senior leaders, and scrutinised a wide range of pupils’ written work.
• Inspectors looked at a range of documentation, including minutes of governors’ meetings, development plans, analysis of pupils’ progress, attendance and behaviour information, safeguarding documents and the school’s review of its own performance.
• Inspectors held meetings with the headteacher, governors, the chief executive of the trust, senior and middle leaders, groups of teachers and groups of pupils
• Inspectors took account of 62 responses to the online questionnaire, Parent View, and 42 responses to the staff questionnaire.

Inspection team

Jeremy Law, lead inspector Jenny Boyd Andrew Lovett Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Marcia Northeast Ofsted Inspector