Garden House School ISI Report - Flipbook - Page 10
Educational Quality Inspection
10
National Curriculum tests, but the available evidence from lesson observations, scrutiny of pupils’
work, and the school’s own assessment data, show attainment to be well above national age-related
expectations. A high number of scholarships are attained at competitive senior schools and pupils
achieve excellently by the time they leave the school. In the pre-inspection questionnaire, the pupils
who responded agreed they are encouraged to think for themselves and that the teachers help them
to learn and make progress. The overwhelming majority of parents who responded to the
questionnaire agreed that teaching enables their children to make progress and develop skills for the
future. The outstanding progress made by the pupils is in accordance with the school’s stated aims to
provide a stimulating and supportive environment in which children gain an enthusiasm for learning,
enabling them to make excellent progress.
3.8
Pupils’ attitudes to learning are excellent throughout the school. Pupils show extremely high levels of
perseverance and commitment in lessons. They collaborate extremely well and are highly cooperative and competent learners. They are eager to learn and to use their initiative to direct their
own learning from an early age, although their independent learning skills could be further developed
through the provision of increased opportunities to formulate their own ideas and thoughts. When
they take ownership of their learning, outcomes are high, as seen in a Year 6 English lesson where
pupils wrote creatively and excitedly about the jungle. In a Reception personal, social and emotional
development (PSED) lesson, children excelled at working collaboratively and independently, showing
a thirst for knowledge and an ambition to achieve at the highest possible levels. Pupils ask insightful
questions and eagerly take responsibility for their own learning, as seen in a stimulating mathematics
lesson on problem solving. Pupils love their learning; they respond most positively to the learning
dispositions implemented across the school and to excellent teacher feedback, which prompts active
and productive dialogue.
3.9
By the end of their time at the school pupils have highly developed study skills of analysis, hypothesis
and synthesis, which they use to extend their learning. Pupil learn to predict, think critically, recognise
differences and persevere through a variety of activities. This was evident in a Year 3 maths lesson
where pupils’ advanced deduction skills, perseverance and hypotheses about an investigation at a
crime scene resulted in high outcomes in their understanding of fractions. Pupils think critically, as
seen in an art class where they were able to discuss the motivations of specific artists and explain why
they had chosen to create their self-portrait in a particular style. Members of the science club
successfully hypothesised about whether the magic mud they had created was a solid, liquid or gas.
Pupils in Year 2 used advanced hypothesising and reasoning skills as they tried to design and annotate
their own desert islands, showing how they would locate and use all the requirements for basic human
survival.
3.10 Pupils acquire good levels of numeracy, making appropriate and often better than expected progress
for their age, particularly in the younger years. By the end of Year 6, pupils are competent
mathematicians, with the more able often achieving high results, although not all lessons deliver the
pace, challenge and opportunities for independent working needed to ensure high outcomes for all
pupils. When given the opportunity to do so, pupils apply their mathematical knowledge
independently and with skill and confidence. Numeracy is seen as a life skill, as demonstrated in an
art lesson where pupils measured patterns as part of their individual designs. Pupils in Year 3
effectively apply their maths skills to everyday situations through daily questions relating to real life
experiences displayed in the classroom. Pupils develop effective IT skills, benefitting from the start
from the provision offered, as seen in Reception, where children used computers to create timelines.
Pupils are confident and demonstrated high levels of competence when using a music software
package to compose individual and original pieces of music. Pupils produce eye-catching posters and
information sheets and the library monitors showed extremely high levels of skill as they produced,
scripted and directed a film about how to use the library for other pupils to watch. Pupils attending
the computer club develop high-quality skills, writing logical commands using coding to create shapes
and patterns independently. Pupils’ high levels of digital literacy has enabled them to maintain
© Independent Schools Inspectorate 2021
Garden House School – October 2021
