Holly Meadows School

Holly Meadows School Vong Lane, Pott Row, King's Lynn, PE32 1BW

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Requires improvement 3 This inspection: Good 2 Leadership and management Good 2 Behaviour and safety of pupils Good 2 Quality of teaching Good 2 Achievement of pupils Good 2 Early years provision Good 2

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 The headteacher is an effective leader who, ably supported by her deputy, has created a friendly, welcoming and inclusive school. Her commitment to the school – its pupils, staff and parents is outstanding.  Leaders and managers have had a strong impact on improving the quality and effectiveness of teaching and raising achievement. There has been rapid improvement in the last year.  Rigorous checks on teaching have ensured that this is now good across the school. As a result, attainment is rising and progress in all year groups is accelerating rapidly.  Pupils enjoy coming to school and are provided with a wide range of opportunities to help them develop into well-rounded young people who are well prepared for the next stage of their education.  Teaching assistants make a valuable contribution to pupils’ learning.  Pupils behave well and feel safe in school. Their’ positive attitudes to learning make a strong

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

contribution to their progress and development.  The governing body has been strengthened since the last inspection, following a review of governance. Governors are well informed and provide a good level of challenge and support for school leaders. They have a good understanding of the schools’ strengths and the challenges it faces.  Provision in the early years is good. Children make good progress and are well prepared for moving up to Key Stage 1.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 There are not enough opportunities for teachers to improve their skills by learning from best practice in the school and elsewhere.  Teachers do not all insist that pupils are consistently neat in the way they present their work.  Pupils’ cultural development, through first-hand experience of the diverse make up of modern British society, is limited.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspector observed pupils’ learning in 12 sessions of teaching. All of these were made jointly with either the headteacher or deputy headteacher.  The inspector looked at work in pupils’ books and their learning journeys in the early years.  Discussions were held with school staff, three governors and a representative from the local authority.  The inspector talked to pupils about the school’s work and listened to some pupils read.  She observed various aspects of the school’s work and considered a range of policies and documents. These included information about pupils’ attainment and progress, planning and monitoring documentation, the school improvement plan and self-evaluation summary, safeguarding policies, and behaviour and attendance records.  Case studies of the school’s work to support vulnerable pupils were considered.  Account was taken of 52 responses to the online questionnaire, Parent View, and 3 letters from parents.

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Information about this inspection

The inspector spoke to parents as they were dropping off their children at school, and met with a parent at his request at another time. She also joined a group of parents who were attending a “coffee with the head session.”  Twenty questionnaire responses received from staff were also considered.

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Inspection team

Joan Beale, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 The school is smaller than the average-sized primary school.  Children in the early years attend a mixed Reception and Year One class, on a full-time basis.  All pupils are from White British backgrounds.  The proportion of disadvantaged pupils supported by the pupil premium is well below average. This funding is for pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and those looked after by the local authority.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs is lower than average.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 6.  Since the last inspection there have been a number of changes in teaching staff, including in the leadership of literacy and the early years. Two new members of staff started in January 2015 .

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Raise achievement and accelerate progress still further by ensuring that all teachers:  convey high expectations to pupils about how they present their work  have opportunities to learn from the best practice in their own and other schools.  Create more opportunities for pupils to have first-hand experience with their counterparts from different backgrounds both within and beyond the immediate locality.

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The leadership and management are good

 Clear and determined leadership from the headteacher is ensuring that the quality of teaching is improving and achievement is rising across the school. She is well supported by her very effective deputy and good governing body. The school is well placed to develop further and a culture has been established in which teaching can flourish.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school’s self-review is accurate and perceptive. Leaders and managers, including subject leaders keep all aspects of the schools work under careful review. They constantly look for aspects which can be further improved. The school has improved since it was last inspected and all areas for improvement identified then have been rigorously addressed and resolved.

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The leadership and management are good

 The leadership of teaching is good and the school has rigorous systems in place for managing teachers’ performance. The headteacher, with the support of the governing body, has taken firm action in tackling past underperformance. Whilst this has contributed to a high turnover of staff, it has been a key factor in improving teaching and raising achievement.

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The leadership and management are good

 Support for newly appointed teachers is good. However all teachers do not yet benefit from regular opportunities to share and learn from best practice within their own school and other schools.

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The leadership and management are good

 Subject leaders are committed and effective. They know their subjects well and work in a focussed way to ensure the school’s continued development. Subject leaders for mathematics and literacy use data very effectively to track pupils’ progress in their subjects.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school makes good use of its pupil premium funding to support disadvantaged pupils. Leaders have spent the money to provide a range of support through targeted intervention programmes and resources such as tablet devices. The funding also ensures that these pupils are able to take part in residential and educational visits and extended school activities. This exemplifies the schools strong commitment to equal opportunities and ensuring that no child is discriminated against.

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The leadership and management are good

 The primary physical education and sport premium is very well used. It funds membership of the local school sports partnership, which provides qualified sports coaches. The subject leader, who has benefitted form good professional development opportunities, provides outstanding leadership. As a result, pupils benefit form high quality sports provision. They enjoy participating in a wide range of sorts clubs as well as competing against other schools. The school has been recognised for its high level of engagement in physical education.

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The leadership and management are good

 Staff have worked hard to adapt and extend their existing curriculum to reflect the requirements of the new National Curriculum. As a result, the curriculum offered to pupils is lively and engaging. It covers the full range of subjects. Pupils enjoy their lessons and behave well because they are interested and engaged in what they are learning. The school has made good progress in developing their chosen method of assessment.

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The leadership and management are good

 The promotion of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and the school’s work to prepare pupils for life in modern Britain is strong in many aspects. Interesting lessons develop pupil’s ability to reflect and to use their imagination and creativity in their learning. This is particularly evident from artwork displayed in classrooms and around the school and their writing and their problem solving in mathematics.

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The leadership and management are good

 Pupils have a good understanding of right and wrong. They show good social skills, for example, when talking with adults and when working and discussing together. Within school they show tolerance of those who are different from them.

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The leadership and management are good

 The broad curriculum provides opportunities to learn about different people’s social and ethnic backgrounds, customs and beliefs. However opportunities for them to develop a deeper understanding of the nature of British society by interacting with counterparts from different cultural backgrounds are limited.  Partnership with parents is good. Parents welcome the variety of channels of communication such as the website and app for this, regular newsletters, texting and opportunities to meet with the headteacher. The large majority of parents are very happy with the school. One parent commented, “I am delighted with it!”

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The leadership and management are good

 The school has effective systems in place to keep pupils safe and its safeguarding arrangements meet statutory requirements. It makes sure that staff are fully trained and works well with other agencies where there are any concerns. Leaders keep meticulous records in relation to safeguarding and child protection and governors are appropriately involved in checking that health and safety procedures are followed.

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The leadership and management are good

 The local authority knows the school well and provides good support through regular visits to quality assure leaders judgements about the quality of teaching. The school has made good use of this support, in particular that brokered from a National Leader of Education through the London Leadership Strategy.

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The leadership and management are good

 The governance of the school:  Governance is effective. The governing body made good use of the review of its work which followed the last inspection and have undertaken training to develop their role. As a result they now both support and challenge the school more effectively.  The governing body has a good understanding of the school’s work and is now more rigorous in holding senior leaders to account. Governors have undertaken training to support them in interpreting data so that they are better able to check how well the school is doing, including the spending and impact of pupil premium funding. Governors are now linked to subjects and aspects of the school’s work and conduct regular visits to check things for themselves.  The governing body is well informed about the quality of teaching. They make sure that checks on staff performance are thorough and have supported the headteacher in tackling past underperformance.

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The leadership and management are good

They ensure that only the most effective teachers are recognised financially.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is good. Pupils’ positive attitudes to learning and the school in general have a considerable impact on their good learning. Pupils of all ages mostly concentrate well and work hard. Nothing less than good behaviour was seen during the inspection and all available evidence indicates that this is usual at Holly Meadows. Behaviour is good because staff expectations are high and behaviour is managed consistently, with well-established routines.

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Behaviour

 Relationships are very positive, both between pupils themselves and between pupils and adults. Pupils are polite and respectful. They move sensibly around the school, for example when walking to assembly.

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Behaviour

 Pupils enjoy break and lunch times and say that behaviour is usually good. Boys and girls of different ages and backgrounds mix well and they show equal respect to teaching, support and supervisory staff.

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Behaviour

 Pupils understand the school’s clear and effective system of rewards and sanctions, “Going for Gold.” They like this system and the praise they can receive for being in the “Solid Gold” books in weekly Praise Assembly.

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Behaviour

 Pupils do not consistently take as much pride as they should in the presentation of their work.

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Safety

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is good. Pupils feel safe at school and their parents agree with them. The school’s procedures for safeguarding pupils are robust.

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Safety

 Pupils are taught how to keep themselves safe in a variety of situations. They are taught about e-safety and safe use of the internet. They also learn about road and cycling safety and have been educated about the dangers of swimming in the sea and local quarries.  Pupils have a good understanding of what bullying is and what it is not. They know about different types of bullying. Pupils know what they would do if they were being bullied and trust that staff would sort this out for them.

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The quality of teaching is good

 The quality of teaching is good. There has been rapid improvement in the last year and past inconsistencies have been eradicated. Pupils’ learning during the inspection, work in books, the schools own records and the results of recent external tests all confirm that this is the case and is enabling pupils to make good progress in all year groups.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Learning environments are attractive and well organised. Teachers use displays well both in classrooms and around the school to both celebrate achievement and stimulate learning. Within the classroom there is excellent support for pupils’ learning in mathematics, literacy and science as well as their topic work.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers know pupils well as a result of regular and accurate assessments. They have positive relationships with them, creating a calm atmosphere for learning. They plan interesting lessons that engage pupils. Consequently pupils of all abilities show high levels of engagement and sustained concentration. Year 3 pupils were enthused by seeing a dissection of a pig’s leg when learning about the working of muscles and ligaments.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Strong subject knowledge enables teachers to, explain new ideas clearly as to what they want pupils to do and to set work which challenges them at the right level. As a result, all pupils, including those who are disadvantaged or who are disabled or have special educational needs, as well as the most able, make good progress. Teachers make good use of technology to enhance pupils learning. For example pupils in the mixed Year 4 and five class enjoyed using an app to create a crossword. This helped them to reflect on and apply their previous learning about ancient Egypt.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers make good use of teaching assistants who make a valuable contribution to pupils’ learning. Targeted support helps disabled pupils and those with special educational needs to concentrate as well as to make good progress. Teachers and teaching assistants use questioning well to check pupils understanding and to probe their learning.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Reading is taught well. The introduction of reading areas in every classroom, related to pupils’ topic work, is having a positive impact and increasing pupils’ enthusiasm for reading.

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The quality of teaching is good

 The teaching of mathematics is good. Pupils enjoy using their mathematical skills to solve problems. For example, pupils in the Year 5 and 6 class enjoyed the challenge of researching the cost of holidays for people using a range of different criteria. This enabled them to apply their existing skills and develop their problem solving abilities.

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The quality of teaching is good

 The teaching of writing is good. The rich curriculum provides a variety of experiences which enthuse pupils to write. For example role-play was used very effectively to enable Year 2 pupils to identify what it felt like to “be in a pirate’s pocket.” This led to sustained concentration and good quality writing at length. It provided a high level of challenge for the most able pupils.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers mark pupils work regularly and the requirements for the school marking policy are being adhered to. However not all teachers convey high expectations to pupils about their expectations of the quality of pupils’ presentation of work. Consequently this is not consistently good across the school.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Pupils’ attainment in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of Key Stage 2 has been broadly in line with the national average in recent years. Unvalidated results from the 2015 national tests confirm the school’s view that the current Year 6 have secured increased levels of attainment and in particular that an increased proportion have reached the higher levels in all three subjects.  In 2014 the proportions of pupils who made expected and better than expected progress in reading was below that seen nationally. The proportion that made expected progress for writing was in line with that seen nationally but a lower proportion than is seen nationally made better than expected progress. In mathematics, a lower proportion of pupils made the progress expected of them than is seen nationally but a higher proportion than is seen nationally made better than expected progress.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Leaders’ firm actions to improve teaching have brought about improved rates of progress in all subjects this year. Progress is now good in all year groups. The 2015 tests show that pupils in the current year 6 have all made at least expected progress in reading, writing and mathematics and the proportions that have made better than expected progress are much closer to the national for all three subjects.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Attainment in Key Stage 1 dipped at the end of 2014. A much lower proportion of pupils than is seen nationally attained the higher level 3 for all three subjects. This cohort did not benefit from consistently good teaching across the key stage.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 However as a result of strong teaching in Year 3, these pupils have made accelerated progress and gaps have narrowed between their attainment and that expected nationally. Results show that the 2015 Year 2 cohort has attainment in line with that seen nationally at all levels for reading and their attainment is above national for writing and mathematics at all levels.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Achievement in phonics (the sounds that letters represent) is improving rapidly. From a figure that was well below national in 2012 outcomes have risen year on year and 2015 outcomes are well above the national figure.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 In 2014, at the end of Key Stage 2, there were too few disadvantaged pupils to make meaningful comparisons of any attainment gaps between this group and other pupils nationally. Disadvantaged pupils benefit from a range of support and additional teaching. As a result many are making accelerated progress in their reading, writing and mathematics.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The achievement of the relatively small number of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, lags behind that of other pupils in the school but is better than that of these pupils nationally. Overall these pupils make good progress from their varied starting points because they are well supported by teachers and other adults.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The most-able pupils make good progress in reading, writing and mathematics. At both key stages, they nearly always make good progress in lessons. They cover a good amount of work in mathematics and develop their problem solving abilities well. They write extensively, varying their style and using increasingly sophisticated language and grammatical structures.

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The early years provision is good

 Children start in the early years with skills and abilities, which in many cases are below those typical for their age. By the time they leave the Reception class, the proportion who have reached a good level of development is broadly average. Although this represents good progress from these children’s starting points, the school recognises that even more children need to reach this standard.

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The early years provision is good

 Leadership and management of the early years are good. The quality of teaching is good. The early years leader makes regular checks to ensure that this is the case. Staff use assessment information well to plan activities that extend children’s learning experiences. This enables all pupils, including those who are disabled or who have special educational needs to make good progress in all areas of learning.

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The early years provision is good

 The children behave well and feel safe. Routines are well established and children are happy and quickly become absorbed in the interesting activities that are planned for them. During the inspection all were highly engaged in activities related to “under the sea” following on from a trip to the local sea life centre.

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The early years provision is good

 The early years children were observed working with those in years one and two on a range of transition activities to help to prepare them for Key Stage 1. Their confidence in engaging with these activities and readiness to work with Key Stage 1 children showed that they are well prepared to start Year 1

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The early years provision is good

 The early years environment is bright and attractive, providing a wealth of opportunities across the seven areas of learning. The outdoor areas are well resourced and provide appealing and challenging opportunities for children.

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding An outstanding school is highly effective in delivering outcomes that provide exceptionally well for all its pupils’ needs. This ensures that pupils are very well equipped for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Grade 2 Good A good school is effective in delivering outcomes that provide well for all its pupils’ needs. Pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Grade 3 Requires improvement A school that requires improvement is not yet a good school, but it is not inadequate. This school will receive a full inspection within 24 months from the date of this inspection. Grade 4 Inadequate A school that has serious weaknesses is inadequate overall and requires significant improvement but leadership and management are judged to be Grade 3 or better. This school will receive regular monitoring by Ofsted inspectors. A school that requires special measures is one where the school is failing

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Grade Judgement Description

to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the school’s leaders, managers or governors have not demonstrated that they have the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school. This school will receive regular monitoring by Ofsted inspectors.

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School details

Unique reference number 136536 Local authority Norfolk Inspection number 453835

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School details

This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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School details

Type of school Primary School category Community Age range of pupils 4–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 130 Appropriate authority The local authority Chair Terry Kivlin Headteacher Rachael Williams Date of previous school inspection 3 July 2013 Telephone number 01485 600241 Fax number 01485 600241 Email address office@hollymeadows.norfolk.sch.uk guidance ‘raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted. If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234 , or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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School details

You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when and as part of the inspection.

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School details

You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk, or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted

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School details

achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection. Further copies of this report are obtainable from the school. Under the Education Act 2005, the school must provide a copy of this report free of charge to certain categories of people. A charge not exceeding the full cost of reproduction may be made for any other copies supplied. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please

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School details

telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way. To receive regular email alerts about new publications, including survey reports and school inspection reports, please visit our website and go to ‘Subscribe’.

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School details

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted

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