Marathon Science School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 25 February 2025

Pupils make a strong contribution to the calm and respectful environment that exists in the school. They are polite and well mannered. Pupils value the positive relationships that they have with staff, who care for them well. Pupils are happy. They enjoy the opportunities to be with their friends, in school and in the boarding facilities. Pupils behave well. During social times, pupils play well together. For example, they enjoy playing football and basketball games. Since the last inspection, the school has taken swift, decisive action. This has led to improvement in many aspects of the school's provision. Despite these efforts, the quality of education that pupils receive is not consistently high. For example, some teaching is not routinely adapted to reflect the needs of pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who speak English as an additional language. Pupils achieve well by the end of key stage 4. Pupils enjoy the enrichment opportunities the school provides. These include visits to museums, places of worship and sporting activity centres. Pupils highly value the annual visit to Turkey that is closely linked to their Islamic studies.

What the school should improve

• The curriculum offer for pupils to learn is not as broad as it should be, including in creative subjects. This means that pupils do not have opportunities across the curriculum to deepen their knowledge and skills fully. The school should ensure that pupils have opportunities to learn in depth across a broad range of subjects.
• Teaching does not deliver the curriculum consistently well. Sometimes, the checking of pupils' knowledge and understanding is not precise. Occasionally, learning activities do not enable pupils to learn the ambitions of the curriculum deeply. This leads to gaps in pupils' knowledge and understanding over time. The school should continue to support teachers to gain the pedagogical expertise they need to deliver all subjects consistently well, so that pupils are fully prepared for future learning.
• The school's systems for identifying and adapting the curriculum for lower attaining pupils and those with SEND are not secure. Sufficient adaptations to ensure that pupils with SEND achieve as well as they should are sometimes not effective. The school needs to ensure that teachers know how to adapt and support pupils appropriately, so that lower attaining pupils and those with SEND can access subject content successfully.
• Sometimes, structured opportunities for pupils to develop their reading across the curriculum are not securely in place. This means occasionally some pupils are not appropriately supported in strengthening their comprehension skills and vocabulary development. The school should continue to develop the whole school literacy strategy and implement the planned structured approach to reading across the curriculum.

Read the full Ofsted report (opens in a new tab)