It’s 11.15am and Vanessa Henry-Edwards is sitting at a table with six of her Year 1 pupils and a deck of A4 cards in her hands. Each card has a number on it. In unison the children chant the numbers as she holds them up in rapid succession.

She gives each of the children another card, this time with a number of dots on it. The original deck is now spread across the table and she asks the children to pick the number card that matches their dots. They pass it to their neighbour to check.

Around the room, the scene is being replicated at five other tables, each with six children and one adult.

You can watch the seconds whirring by on a digital clock on the wall, counting down from a quarter of an hour.

This is number masters, a 15-minute session that takes place at the same time every day for key stage 1. The programme, as its name suggests, aims to develop a mastery of numbers and has been developed by the school itself, consisting of scripted lessons that are followed to the letter by teachers and teaching assistants.

The school takes a similar approach to phonics: a 15-minute burst of small-group scripted teaching every day. Together they are two of the reasons behind the extraordinary success of Vauxhall Primary.

Seven years ago the south London school was put into special measures. Within three years, it was judged to be “outstanding” and it is now one of the best performing schools in England, despite serving one of the most deprived areas of the country. Its rapid success has earned a host of awards, many of them on display in the school’s reception. And this year brought the greatest honour yet, as Vauxhall was declared Primary School of the Year in the TES Schools Awards.

‘It’s not rocket science’

Edison David, who arrived at the school as a Year 5 teacher 11 years ago and is now in his sixth year as headteacher, says that small group teaching is a key part of the Vauxhall philosophy.

“We found it to be very effective in phonics, so we replicated it,” he says.

“The children have more time with an adult who can spot any difficulties early on. It’s not rocket science.”

This approach requires a commitment to staffing, and this is one area Mr David is determined to protect, despite budget pressures. Vauxhall is a one-form-entry school with eight teachers, three non-teaching assistant heads, a PE specialist and 25 teaching assistants. TAs are brought in from other classes to enable number masters and phonics to take place in small groups.

“At the beginning of a Year 5 maths lesson, the teacher is leading and the teaching assistant is watching,” Mr David says. “The teacher doesn’t need an audience, so [the teaching assistant] goes to number masters.”

Community research

The school has also commissioned in-depth research based on pupils’ postcodes to get a better understanding of the issues that are facing them.

This has already helped to propel the creation of a breakfast club, which is now compulsory for Year 6, with the additional effect of adding an extra hour on to their school day in the morning.

A summary of the research is pinned to the wall in Mr David’s office. “It’s a document I use very often,” he says.

The primary’s relentless focus on key stage 1 means that it does not need to bring in extra support in key stage 2. This also helps the school budget.

“A lot of people ask to visit us, but I tell them, ‘If you want to see interventions you will be disappointed.’ We rarely intervene after Year 2, other than for pupils with complex special needs,” says Mr David.

Small group work goes hand-in-hand with a forensic approach to the curriculum. When the new maths curriculum was published, Mr David sat down with maths leaders from a “cluster” of nine local primary schools and devised 360 lessons for years 1 and 2.

These formed the basis for the number masters programme, which is now being used in schools in Norfolk, Devon, Dorset, Brighton and Bristol, bringing in £100,000 to the cluster.

All Vauxhall teachers are trained in phonics. “Even when I was teaching Year 6, it is important to have that knowledge,” says Natalie Graham, who now teaches Year 2.

“You are still going to get children who struggle with their spelling, and you know you can just get the phonics cards out.”

Above all, the teachers know their pupils, and many of the parents as well. As Yasmin Islam, who teaches Reception, says: “If there was one word I’d use to describe the school, it would be ‘family’.”