Best Practice

School improvement: A 13-month turnaround

Mayflower Primary School has gone from special measures to outstanding in just 13 months. Emma Lee Potter finds out how.

It is a remarkable achievement by any standards. In September 2012, Ofsted placed Mayflower Primary School in Dovercourt, Essex, in special measures after concluding that it was “failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education”. 

But 13 months later, when the school was re-inspected, Mayflower Primary had been transformed beyond recognition. In October 2013 the school was judged to be outstanding in every category and taken out of special measures.

Led by new headteacher Tony Coppin, who came out of retirement to get the school back on track, the teaching was described as “inspirational”, the pupils’ behaviour and attitudes to learning “exemplary” and the approach to developing teaching skills “excellent”. 

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