KS1 Pedagogy Improvement: Hemingford Grey Primary’s Success Story

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Hemingford Grey Primary School, a vibrant 1.5 entry Local Authority school in Cambridgeshire, partnered with Early Excellence to improve their KS1 pedagogy. With a diverse cohort and a focus on continuous provision, the school sought expert support to refine their teaching practices and classroom environments. Through a tailored plan involving strategic reviews, bespoke consultancy, and targeted coaching, the school achieved significant improvements in pedagogical approaches and student outcomes.

Download the Hemingford Grey Primary Case Study

Contextual Information

Hemingford Grey Primary School is a 1.5 entry, Local Authority school in Cambridgeshire. Pupils are primarily White-British, with 16.3% of the school cohort being eligible for Pupil Premium, although this proportion is growing. KS1 is formed from three mixed Y1/Y2 classes. Danielle Gaynor, now Co-Headteacher, was previously the KS1 Lead. The current KS1 Team is made up of four class teachers and four teaching assistants. There are three KS1 classrooms with children in these rooms having frequent, easy access to outdoor learning provision.

You can hear more from Danielle about their KS1 pedagogy improvement in this free webinar: Continuous Provision In KS1: How Do We Make It Work?

The Bespoke Plan:

An initial full day review of KS1 provision & practice
3 half day consultancy sessions, blended online & onsite
A further half day consultancy school visit
Coaching for the KS1 Lead – visioning, quality assurance & curriculum development
Room planning for all classrooms & shared areas, indoors & outdoors
Use of free Early Excellence auditing tools
Tailored consultancy & bespoke training for the whole KS1 team
Notes of visit reports
A final visit to discuss transition to lower KS2 (Y3/4)

Project Intent & Implementation

Headteacher, Kirsten Marriott, reached out to Early Excellence using an online enquiry form, and I was delighted to be able to respond to her the very same day!

Kirsten was keen to explore how to drive forward improvement in KS1 pedagogy to better meet the needs of the children in her mixed aged KS1 classes – and we soon arranged a call with Kirsten and her KS1 Leader, Danielle Gaynor.

After initial contextual information sharing, we agreed key priorities around quality assuring current practice, strengthening pedagogy and provision, ensuring progression, and deepening the skills of the team.

A scope of work was planned led by Nova Robinson, one of our highly experienced KS1 Consultants. Nova worked closely with Danielle throughout the project, refining the support offered, based on the progress made.

Working closely with the Hemingford Grey team for over 18 months proved hugely successful in developing the practice and provision in KS1. Take a look at Dani’s feedback about the partnership with Early Excellence and the impact of working together!

Best Wishes

Sarah Carey, Early Excellence School Improvement Lead

Evaluating the Impact

How useful was the Strategic Review?

“Having an initial review was a great start point for the project! It gave a clear benchmark and helped to hone the priorities. Nova was quick to understand our context, children and team dynamic. The review was supportive in recognising the current strengths, and offered a rationale behind the next steps. The fact that Nova has had real experience of teaching in KS1 and mixed age classes with Continuous Provision was very helpful indeed!”

How effective was the Consultancy and CPD?

“Our project was really personalised and having Nova throughout was just amazing! She listened to us, talked about what we could do, designed the learning environment spaces and took us by the hand through the training and developments. Nova was flexible and responsive in her approach, recognising the progress we were making, offering really practical ideas and supporting our longer-term thinking.”

What was the impact on Teaching and Learning?

“Since establishing full and effective Continuous Provision, our end of year outcomes have increased! The delivery of our curriculum is more manageable and more meaningful because it is now fully connected to the Continuous Provision. We now have clear routines, timetables and approaches to documenting learning and progress. Next, we are exploring transition to KS2, seeking to embed key aspects of the approach into Y3 and beyond!”

Our Children

“The developments have made such a difference to our children! They are much more independent, they’re leading their learning and are invested in their own lines of enquiry! The rethinking of our approach has meant that children who perhaps found sitting at a desk challenging, are now fully engaged throughout the day – so now we have ALL children immersed in their learning and they’re ALL making progress.”

Our Environment

“We have been able to optimise the learning space and now the environment is also packed full of rich learning opportunities! The carefully planned and resourced environment means that every day our children get the chance to be a designer, an artist, a writer, a scientist, a musician, a mathematician, a storyteller, a geographer or historian. They can apply knowledge, practice and refine skills and become experts.”

Our Adults

“We know the role of the adult is vital. Our adults have become even more skilled at deepening learning moments and extending children’s play through questions and high-quality interaction. Evidencing learning has become so much more manageable, as has fitting everything in. As a team we have more time to be with the children, to engage with and see their thinking, learning and progress.”