Quality Mark Case Study: Ashton Gate Primary School

Gold Award

Ashton Gate is a larger than average-sized primary school in Bristol. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is below average. Those from minority ethnic groups, with English as a second language, eligible for pupil premium and with special educational needs form groups that are smaller in proportion than those seen nationally.

An HA QM assessor viewed a detailed portfolio from the school and spent a day visiting to gather evidence. A gold Quality Mark was awarded based upon the evidence of both.

1. Teaching and Learning

Pupils throughout the school are enthusiastic about learning History. They have a very good understanding of the purposes of learning History. Year 5 pupils explained eloquently the purpose of a history unit on chocolate, realising that it was about more than the surface content and was also, “helping us to get a better understanding of Bristol.” This was a striking feature in other conversations as well: pupils understand the value not just of the knowledge they are gaining but also the skills that they are developing. Pupils in Year 2 spoke about being History detectives and about using “hints and clues” to find out about people in the past.
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2. Leadership

History is given a very high-status at Ashton Gate. The executive headteacher has a clearly articulated commitment to the importance of History. This commitment has positively informed decisions about curriculum; resource allocation and even recruitment and strategic direction.
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3. Curriculum

Ashton Gate has energetically and thoughtfully reviewed its History curriculum in the past few years.
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4. Achievement

Pupils at Ashton Gate are making striking achievements in History.
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5. Enrichment

History is woven into the school’s cross-curricular approach to learning and so enriches other curriculum areas. This was strongly apparent in its links to English and Art. A Y3 lesson made particularly effective links between History and aspects of Science and DT as pupils learnt about the prehistoric era, through a detailed consideration of flint.
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Quality Mark Evaluation

A Note from Rachael Macleavy (history coordinator Ashton Gate)

At Ashton Gate we felt we were in a good position to go for the Quality Mark award; having recently focused on establishing a new localised history curriculum at the school. Staff at Ashton Gate are passionate about high quality history teaching and were enthusiastic from the outset about taking part.
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