Elson Junior School

About Elson Junior School

Elson Junior School, a state primary for children aged 7 to 11 in Gosport, was rated Good in its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2022. That rating marks a clear improvement from its previous inspection in 2018, when the school was graded Requires Improvement. The turnaround is reflected across the board: inspectors awarded Good for quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management. On the key academic metric for primary schools, 45% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined in the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 assessments. That figure sits below the Hampshire local authority average of 61%, and places Elson Junior 12th out of 17 schools in the Gosport local area ranking. Just 4% of pupils reached the higher standard across all three subjects, though individual subject scores tell a slightly more encouraging story: reading and writing both saw around 60% of pupils reach the expected level.

Digging into the individual subject results, 60% of pupils achieved the expected standard in reading and 61% in writing, while maths lagged a little at 56%. Average scaled scores were 102 for reading and 100 for maths, both in line with national benchmarks. The school’s ranking data places it in the bottom 50% nationally, at the 85th percentile, and in the bottom 50% regionally within the South East. For context, the nearest Outstanding-rated primary in Hampshire is Red Barn Community Primary School, 4.3 kilometres away. The school’s progress scores for reading, writing and maths are not available in the data, so it is difficult to assess how much value the school adds relative to pupils’ starting points. However, the Ofsted report from 2022 noted Good behaviour and attitudes, which suggests a settled learning environment.

Elson Junior School has capacity for 360 pupils and currently enrols 313, so there is some room. A significant 29.7% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, well above the national average, indicating a relatively disadvantaged intake. The school offers a range of facilities including playing fields, a gymnasium, sports hall, ICT suite, and a forest school, plus a chapel. Sports on offer include football, cricket, gymnastics, dance and rounders, while clubs extend to gardening, book club and science club. For children with additional needs, the school lists SEND provisions for specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social emotional and mental health needs, speech language and communication needs, and autistic spectrum disorder. This is a school that has demonstrably improved its Ofsted rating in recent years, and while its academic outcomes are below the local average, it serves a community with higher-than-average deprivation and offers a solid range of facilities and support.

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