Grampian Primary Academy Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the quality of leadership and management by:
  • strengthening the skills of the governors so that they consistently and rigorously hold leaders to account
  • working more creatively with parents whose children do not attend school regularly enough
  • broadening pupils’ understanding of religions and cultures that are different from their own
  • developing a system to check the quality of teaching and learning across all subjects and the progress pupils make in subjects other than English and mathematics.
• Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by all teachers:
  • providing pupils with more opportunities to practise their problem-solving and reasoning skills in mathematics
  • keeping a closer eye on pupils who are working independently to ensure that they are sufficiently challenged to make the progress of which they are capable.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• Leadership has been through a time of turbulence. Since the previous inspection, the leadership team has been restructured and some leaders have had periods of absence. Nevertheless, the headteacher and deputy headteacher have a realistic view of the strengths of the school and where improvements can be made. They have identified priorities wisely and act swiftly to bring about the improvements that are required.
• Leaders manage the performance of teachers well. They set appropriate objectives and provide carefully targeted support for teachers to ensure that teaching is at least good throughout the school. Teachers who are new to the profession appreciate the range of support they have received.
• Phase leaders, who have responsibility for different year groups of pupils, are new to their posts this year. They are being very well supported to undertake their responsibilities by two members of the senior leadership team. Senior leaders have worked alongside new phase leaders, providing them with suitable training so that they have improved their skills in checking the quality of teaching and pupils’ attainment and progress.
• The leader with responsibility for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities has an accurate understanding of the provision and outcomes for these pupils. She ensures that any additional funding for pupils is spent well. She meets with staff, parents and external agencies regularly to ensure that interventions to support pupils are effective.
• Leaders use the government funding for primary physical education and sport to ensure that pupils are provided with opportunities to take part in a range of sports, including at lunchtime and after school. Pupils told inspectors that they are proud to represent their school at sporting events.
• Leaders have prioritised the use of government funding for disadvantaged pupils to raise standards among the pupils who are entitled to this funding. They have achieved this by providing additional teachers for most classes to ensure that pupils, including those who are the most able, benefit from spending more time with a qualified teacher. Leaders support disadvantaged pupils in other ways, for example by providing a breakfast club or taking action to improve attendance, but they do not use any of the additional funding for this work.
• The curriculum focuses on developing pupils’ attitudes, skills and knowledge in a variety of subjects and in a range of extra-curricular activities. Displays in classrooms and around school promote some of the important skills that pupils need to be successful learners, such as ‘Thinking for myself’, ‘Aiming high’ and ‘I can do it’. Teachers plan learning through inspiring topics such as ‘Vikings: violent or valiant?’, which engage pupils in their lessons.
• Pupils learn about British values. They learn about democracy by voting for their classmates to represent them on the school council. Around school, pupils demonstrate that they know the difference between right and wrong, and the importance of having rules and rewards, through their very good behaviour. Pupils told inspectors that they are taught the importance of taking responsibility if they do the wrong thing. Pupils learn that people have different opinions through the opportunities they have to listen to each other’s views in class. Pupils who spoke with inspectors showed great respect when talking about people whose lifestyles may be different from their own.
• Leaders promote pupils’ moral and cultural development well. Pupils raise money for charity. They visit museums, an art gallery and the theatre. All pupils in Year 4 learn to play a musical instrument. Pupils willingly take responsibility for important jobs around school, such as helping the youngest pupils at lunchtime. However, pupils’ understanding of religions and cultures that are different from their own is very limited.

Governance

• Governance has been through a period of change. Almost all governors have joined the governing body since the previous inspection, many of them during the last 12 months. The recently appointed chair brings useful experience of chairing a governing body to the role.
• Governors are highly ambitious for the school. They are committed to their role.
• The governing body fulfils its statutory duty of ensuring that the headteacher’s performance management is undertaken rigorously.
• Governors have an understanding of pupils’ attainment and progress and the educational provision made throughout the school. In the short time they have been governors, they have undertaken monitoring activities alongside senior leaders to ensure that they know the school well.
• The chair of the governing body provides strong and determined leadership. She is acutely aware that governors need to provide more robust challenge to leaders. She is resolute that new governors will receive the additional training they need to be able to do this effectively.
• During this time of change in governance, the regional director of the CfBT Schools Trust has provided much-needed support and challenge for leaders.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Recently, leaders have introduced a new process for staff to raise concerns about a child’s welfare, should one arise. They have ensured that staff have received the most up-to-date training. Staff speak knowledgeably and confidently about the school’s new arrangements for safeguarding pupils.
• All the appropriate vetting checks take place when staff, governors or volunteers start working at the school.
• Leaders have recently introduced weekly meetings of the school’s safeguarding leadership team to ensure that safeguarding arrangements are robust. They share any necessary information or updates with staff quickly.
• Pupils say they feel safe in school and all parents who responded to a recent school survey agree. Pupils who spoke with inspectors said that there is a trusted adult in school whom they could talk to if they are worried or upset, safe in the knowledge that the adult would help them.
• Leaders ensure that pupils are taught how to keep themselves safe. Pupils learn about road safety, for example. Pupils spoke with clarity about how to keep themselves safe when they are using modern technology. During the inspection, pupils were learning to make sensible choices. Topics of discussion included how to choose a suitable film to watch and the use of social media.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Teachers make effective use of well-considered questions to challenge pupils’ understanding of new concepts. They provide further explanations where pupils may have misunderstood.
• Teachers use their strong subject knowledge to explain ideas clearly to pupils. They make sure that pupils use the correct vocabulary. For example, in a mathematics lesson, the teacher made sure that pupils were using the correct words for multiplication. She made effective use of mathematical information displayed on the classroom wall to remind pupils about the words and methods they had been learning.
• Teachers provide pupils with useful feedback to help them understand their next steps in learning. Pupils act on this information to improve their work.
• Reading is taught well. Pupils use their strong knowledge of phonics to help them read unfamiliar words. When they are reading, pupils go back and check that they have read the words correctly if the sentence doesn’t make sense to them. Fluent readers have good comprehension skills and read with expression. Pupils in Year 6 help to foster a love of reading throughout the school. They act as positive role models, reading to key stage 1 pupils at breaktimes when rain means they cannot play outside.
• Teachers consider carefully what pupils already understand and can do, and provide pupils with learning activities that are well matched to their needs. The most able pupils are provided with additional levels of challenge as teachers provide an extra ‘Impress me!’ task.
• Occasionally, teachers do not step in quickly when the most able pupils are ready to move on to tackle more challenging work. This includes when pupils are working independently of the teacher. Pupils sometimes complete work and mark time, waiting to be reminded what to do next or continuing with tasks that have become easy without intervention from an adult to move them on to something more difficult.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Leaders provide pupils with opportunities that broaden their experiences. Pupils visit a museum, an art gallery and have a residential trip. They travel to London to see a show in a West End theatre. Pupils in Year 6 attend the ‘Graduation Ball’ with their parents. This is a university-style event where pupils wear a cap and gown and enjoy silver-service catering. They celebrate their achievements at primary school and share their ambitions for the future.
• Pupils take great pride in their work. Throughout the school, pupils’ books are neat and well presented.
• Pupils say that bullying is rare. They are confident that an adult would help them if it did happen. School records support this.
• Pupils enjoy taking responsibility around school. Older pupils can apply to be house captains and organise the teams during sports day. They can act as playground helpers for pupils in key stage 1. Pupils told inspectors that taking responsibility teaches them to be ready for the responsibilities they will take when they are older.
• Pupils are confident and self-assured. They are keen learners who engage well when the teacher is talking and show interest in their classmates’ views during class discussions. Very occasionally, when teachers do not move pupils on quickly to challenging work or when pupils are ready to start their work, pupils’ concentration wanders.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Pupils move around school quietly and demonstrate their very good manners in class and around school. The school is calm and orderly.
• In classrooms, pupils’ behaviour is very good. Teachers have high expectations and have established clear routines for pupils to follow. When teachers ask pupils to work is pairs or to listen to each other, they do so respectfully and sensibly. Pupils engage well with their lessons.
• At breaktime and lunchtime, pupils play together sensibly. When it is time to return to lessons, they do so without fuss.
• Pupils’ attendance is above the national average overall. Leaders have successfully tackled the persistent absence of several pupils, including some disadvantaged pupils. The rate of persistent absence at this point in the year is significantly lower than was seen last year. The overall attendance of disadvantaged pupils, however, is stubbornly below the national average.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• The school’s assessment information shows that pupils are making good progress in English and mathematics from their starting points this year, with some pupils making accelerated progress. Most disadvantaged pupils, including those who are most able, are making good progress from their starting points. Leaders check frequently on the progress pupils are making. They take immediate action when they spot that action can be taken to provide additional support for pupils.
• By the end of Year 6 in 2016, a greater proportion of pupils had reached the expected standard for their age in reading, writing and mathematics than was seen nationally. The proportion of pupils reaching a greater depth of understanding in all of reading, writing and mathematics was more than double the national average. Pupils were well prepared to start secondary school.
• By the end of Year 6 in 2016, the progress pupils had made in reading was above the national average, and broadly in line with the national average in writing and mathematics.
• Improvements in the teaching of reading over recent years have resulted in improved standards for pupils. By 2016, a greater proportion of pupils achieved the required standard in the phonics screening check in Year 1 than did nationally.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities make good progress from their different starting points.
• Leaders do not check closely how well pupils achieve in subjects other than English and mathematics. Leaders examine pupils’ work in their books and observe learning in class, but they do not check across a range of subjects that pupils of different abilities are achieving the standards of which they are capable.

Early years provision Good

• Teachers make effective use of resources in the Nursery to support children’s learning and promote high levels of engagement.
• Teachers promote children’s language development well. They develop children’s early vocabulary by modelling the correct use of new words and reminding children of the words during the sessions.
• Teachers in the Nursery make effective use of opportunities to reinforce children’s understanding. For example, during a session involving counting on an abacus, the teacher grasped the opportunity to remind children of the names of colours.
• Adults promote children’s early independence, for example by gently encouraging children to put their wellies on by themselves before going outdoors after it has been raining.
• Teachers promote children’s personal development well. They gently intervene if children fall out over a toy so that the problem is resolved quickly, fairly and with good manners.
• Leadership of the early years is effective. The leader of the early years took up her post in September 2016. She has wasted no time in determining the strengths of this part of the school and what can be done to improve it further. For example, she identified that the method of recording children’s achievements was not providing the information teachers needed to plan learning accurately. The system she introduced this year is proving to be much more effective.
• The school’s assessment information shows that most children start school with skills that are lower than would be typical for a child their age. By the end of the early years in 2016, the proportion of children who reached a good level of development was in line with the national average. The school’s information shows that current children, including pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities and disadvantaged pupils, have made good progress from their starting points, which are often low. This indicates that children achieve well and are ready to start Year 1.
• Occasionally, adults do not have high enough expectations of children. For example, teachers do not always ensure that all children are listening to them when they are talking. Occasionally, teachers do not step in when children could be expected to do something more difficult. This means that children who are not joining in with an activity can continue to opt out and opportunities for them to learn are missed.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 138992 Derby 10034527 This inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was also deemed a section 5 inspection under the same Act. Type of school Primary School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Academy sponsor-led 3 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 248 Appropriate authority Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Academy trust Mary Kerry Melanie Murfin 01332 765 546 www.grampianprimary.org.uk admin@grampian.derby.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 7 8 May 2014

Information about this school

• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• The school complies with Department for Education guidance on what academies should publish.
• The school is a broadly average-sized primary school.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is much higher than average.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is above the national average.
• Most pupils are from White British backgrounds. The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic groups is higher than the national average, as is the proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language.
• In 2016, the school met the government’s floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of Year 6.
• The school provides a breakfast club.
• The academy is sponsored by the CfBT Schools Trust.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning in 16 lessons. Some observations were undertaken jointly with a school leader.
• Inspectors observed pupils during assembly and as they moved around school during the day. They also listened to pupils reading.
• Meetings were held with the headteacher, deputy headteacher, assistant headteacher, lead practitioner, the leader with responsibility for the early years and the special educational needs coordinator. Inspectors met with a group of five staff, including three teachers who are new to the profession.
• Inspectors met with the regional director from CfBT, the education trust that sponsors the academy, and three members of the governing body, including the chair.
• Inspectors spoke with pupils informally in class and during breaktimes, and held discussions with two groups of pupils.
• There were no responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, but inspectors considered the 51 responses to the school’s most recent survey of parents and spoke with parents as they brought their children to school on both days.
• Inspectors examined pupils’ books from across the school with the deputy headteacher.
• Inspectors scrutinised a range of school documentation including that relating to safeguarding of pupils, pupils’ attainment and progress, school improvement and self-evaluation, minutes of meetings of the governing body, monitoring reports from governors and CfBT, and external audits of the school’s provision.

Inspection team

Di Mullan, lead inspector Sarah Chadwick Caroline Evans Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector