Myrtle Park Primary

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 16 July 2024

Myrtle Park Primary is a happy and caring school where most pupils behave well, attend well and have positive attitudes towards learning. Pupils show respectful and tolerant attitudes towards each other. Pupils experience a wider curriculum, beyond reading and mathematics, which is underdeveloped. Some subject leaders lack appropriate training to design and implement the curriculum well. Pupils develop gaps in their knowledge over time due to these inconsistencies. The importance of pupils reading for pleasure is gaining a higher profile at the school. Pupils enjoy additional opportunities to read during the school day. By the end of Year 6, pupils achieve well in reading. However, younger pupils, who are finding learning to read difficult, are not consistently receiving the additional support that they need. Bullying is rare. If it does happen, most pupils, parents and carers are confident that staff will sort out any issues. There is a strong focus on supporting pupils' emotional needs. Pupils can visit the school's nurture room. Here, they are well supported by the school's nurture leader. There are structures in place for pupils to let staff know if they have any worries or concerns. This includes a peg system and 'worry monsters'. Pupils enjoy the wide range of activities that the school offers. These include sporting competitions, forest school and musical opportunities. Many of these help pupils to develop their team-building skills.

What the school should improve

• Pupils who are not keeping up with the school's phonics programme are not consistently receiving the additional support they need. This means they are not catching up with their peers quickly enough. The school should ensure that these pupils receive the timely and targeted support they need to catch up swiftly.
• In the foundation subjects, and in science, the school has not identified the precise knowledge and skills that pupils must learn. Alongside this, teachers do not use assessment consistently well to check pupils' knowledge and understanding. Pupils have gaps in their knowledge as a result. The school should ensure that the curriculum, in every subject, identifies the essential disciplinary and subject knowledge that pupils need to learn and that teachers regularly check the knowledge that pupils remember over time.
• The school has not provided the foundation subject leaders with the training they need to lead their subjects consistently well. This means that some areas of the school's curriculum are in the early stages of development and other areas are not implemented as well as they could be. The school should ensure that foundation subject leaders receive the subject-specific training they need to develop the school's curriculum further and provide support and guidance to staff.
• Pupils, and some staff, do not understand all the risks that pupils may face outside of school. This means that pupils are not as well prepared as they should be to manage these risks. The school should ensure that pupils, and staff, understand all the potential risks that pupils may face in the local and wider communities.

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