Clowne Junior School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the effectiveness of the leadership and management of the school, by:
  • strengthening the quality and accuracy of record-keeping to ensure that the school’s safeguarding practices continue to be effective
  • monitoring more carefully the progress that different groups of pupils are making from their different starting points
  • ensuring that leaders evaluate more carefully the impact of the spending decisions they make to support the learning and achievement of disadvantaged pupils, so that they have a clearer understanding of which strategies are effective and which need further development
  • strengthening the quality of governance by ensuring that all governors have the knowledge and skills necessary to carry out their duties effectively
  • implementing more regular and systematic checks on the teaching provided by teaching assistants for lower-attaining pupils and those who have SEN and/or disabilities, to ensure that it is consistently effective
  • ensuring that the information on the school’s website meets statutory requirements, including information about the school’s governance arrangements.
• Ensure that the improvements that are being secured in reading, writing and mathematics are sustained and accelerated, by:
  • enhancing teachers’ skills in planning learning in reading and writing which fully meets the needs of lower-attaining pupils and those who have SEN and/or disabilities
  • securing greater consistency across the school in the standards of writing pupils produce in their topic work
  • strengthening teaching in mathematics by ensuring that the most able pupils are more quickly moved onto challenging work, in order to develop their problem-solving and reasoning skills more effectively. An external review of the school’s use of the pupil premium should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved. An external review of governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

• The school’s overall effectiveness has declined since the last inspection. Leaders were too slow to adapt teaching and the curriculum to meet the raised expectations of the revised national curriculum. They have not maintained the improved standards reported at the last inspection.
• Leaders have taken action to improve outcomes for disadvantaged pupils and the attainment of these pupils is rising. However, the school’s pupil premium strategy is not precise enough to enable leaders to know that all aspects of spending are effective. This is because the initiatives funded through the pupil premium are not measured against sufficiently clear and precise success criteria.
• Senior leaders make regular checks on pupils’ attainment. However, they do not probe carefully enough how well pupils of different abilities are achieving. This undermines their ability to ensure that teaching fully meets the needs of all groups of pupils.
• Senior leaders and the special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) do not monitor carefully or systematically enough the quality of teaching provided for pupils who receive support through small-group teaching provided by teaching assistants. Consequently, they have not identified where teaching of this kind needs to improve.
• Leaders have now ‘grasped the nettle’ and have made key changes to classroom organisation and the curriculum to ensure that current pupils are being prepared more effectively for the next stage of their education.
• Skilful leadership by the school’s literacy coordinator and the good-quality training she provided for the teaching staff resulted in clear improvements to the quality of pupils’ writing last year. Similar strategies are now in place to improve attainment in reading. They are beginning to work.
• The school has appropriate performance management arrangements in place. This year, staff are being held more carefully to account for the pupils’ academic performance than before. Because most pupils are now taught in single classes by the same teacher, leaders have been able to set teachers clear and precise targets for the achievement of the pupils they teach. Leaders ensure that the other targets set for staff are closely linked to the school’s improvement priorities.
• Middle leadership is improving. The team leaders for each year group monitor the quality of teaching effectively. They ensure through their weekly meetings with staff that pupils who have found the work difficult are identified so that they can receive additional support.
• Provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is strong. The leader responsible plans this aspect of pupils’ learning very carefully. Since the last inspection, pupils have benefited from opportunities to visit diverse places of worship, including a mosque, a Buddhist retreat and a Hindu temple.
• Leaders ensure that pupils are well prepared for life in modern Britain. Initiatives such as democracy week build pupils’ understanding of democratic institutions, civil rights and the importance of the rule of law. Pupils participate in democratic processes in school, for example by voting for their school councillors and team representatives.
• Leaders make good use of the physical education (PE) and sports premium. Well-established strategies have proved to be effective in raising participation and attainment in PE. Funding has been used to improve teachers’ skills in teaching PE and also in training pupils to take on leadership roles in sports. The school ensures that disadvantaged pupils benefit at least as well as other pupils from the school’s extensive provision for sports and leadership.

Governance of the school

• Governors have a broadly accurate view of the strengths and weaknesses of the school. They undertake regular visits to the school to check the accuracy of the information they are given by the headteacher.
• The teaching and learning committee is a particularly effective aspect of governance because it is skilfully led. Members of the committee make regular checks to ensure that leaders’ actions to improve reading are working.
• Governors have not ensured, however, that the necessary information about the school’s governance arrangements is published on the school’s website or that all the required policies are available online.
• Governors do not currently have sufficient oversight of the school’s work to support pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities. A new governor has recently been recruited to fulfil this role but has not yet had the necessary training to carry out this important role effectively.
• Governors undertake an audit of the skills of new governors, but this has not led to a clear plan to provide the training that new governors need.
• Governors’ checks on the school’s safeguarding arrangements did not identify some of the weaknesses in record-keeping identified by inspectors.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• The headteacher and his deputy maintain close oversight of the pupils they know to be at risk of harm. They meet regularly to review whether the actions they are taking are effective. Leaders make appropriate referrals to social care where they have particular concerns and keep a close eye on the cases they refer to ensure that appropriate actions are being taken. However, their records of these referrals are not always maintained carefully enough. Occasionally, for example, the dates when follow-up calls to social care have been made are not recorded. While all the necessary checks are made on staff, not all of these checks were dated, as is required, at the start of the inspection. This was remedied by the end of the inspection.
• Staff receive regular training in safeguarding and know the signs to look out for which may indicate that a pupil is at risk. They receive regular updates about local safeguarding risks and about the well-being of the pupils they teach.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• Since the last inspection, teaching has not been effective enough to ensure that pupils have achieved as well as they should have. Teachers’ expectations and how they teach the curriculum did not keep pace with the raised expectations of the revised national curriculum.
• The teaching of writing has improved. Teachers are now using assessment information more effectively than before to plan tasks which enable pupils to achieve increasingly well. Teachers do not always provide the necessary support for lower-attaining writers, however, to enable them to make consistently good progress.
• Teachers now provide increased opportunities for pupils to use the skills they have learned in their literacy lessons in subjects across the curriculum. However, the work in pupils’ topic books shows that teachers do not always insist on the same high standards of presentation or accurate punctuation as they do in pupils’ literacy lessons.
• While pupils make better progress in mathematics, teaching does not ensure that the most able pupils are consistently challenged. Too often, these pupils spend lesson time practising work they already understand, rather than being quickly moved on to more challenging problem-solving and reasoning tasks.
• The teaching provided for pupils who need extra help varies in quality. While good examples were seen of teaching assistants working effectively to remedy gaps in pupils’ understanding, this is not consistent. In some sessions observed, the work was not well enough matched to pupils’ prior knowledge.
• This year, leaders have made significant changes to the teaching of reading, which has improved as a result. Strong examples were seen of pupils unpicking lengthy and challenging texts as a result of highly effective questioning by their teacher. In a Year 5 lesson seen, for example, the pupils worked very well together as they analysed a biography of CS Lewis, taking on different roles as they scrutinised the text before feeding back to their classmates.
• Teachers now give pupils more opportunities to tackle challenging questions to help develop their reading skills. While this works well for middle- and higher-attaining pupils, lower-attaining pupils often find the work too difficult and do not complete the tasks set.
• Teachers are skilled in cultivating strong and productive relationships with pupils. Pupils enjoy their lessons. They told inspectors that their teachers are always ready to help them and that they are never afraid to say if they don’t understand the work.
• Some teaching inspires pupils to achieve very well. For example, in a Year 6 mathematics lesson, pupils’ enjoyment of their learning was palpable as they recited a rhyme to help them remember how to add and subtract mixed numbers.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Pupils benefit from a well-planned programme of enrichment which contributes well to their confidence, wider experiences and enjoyment of school. High proportions of pupils participate in clubs such as the film club, ICT club, the dance society and Tai Chi.
• Pupils also benefit from good opportunities to undertake educational visits to support their learning. Pupils in all year groups benefit from an annual residential visit. Year 6 pupils learn about opportunities for higher education through their visit to the University of Sheffield.
• Pupils take their social responsibilities seriously. For example, the annual ‘charity week’ enables pupils in each class to select a charity they wish to support and then plan activities to raise funds.
• Pupils are tolerant of others’ differences because the curriculum ensures that they learn about cultures and religions other than their own. As a result, there are very few incidents of prejudice-based behaviour or name-calling.
• Pupils have good knowledge and understanding of how to stay safe. They describe confidently how they can manage risks when using the internet, for example. Pupils benefit from additional teaching in how to stay safe delivered by the NSPCC, for example.
• Bullying is rare and pupils report that it is quickly ‘nipped in the bud’ when it does occur. Pupils know they can use the CHAT (‘Come and have a talk’) referral box if they want to discuss their worries with a teacher.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Learning takes place in a calm, orderly atmosphere and pupils get on well with the tasks set by their teachers. Pupils are increasingly skilled at working collaboratively, and are learning to take turns, to listen to others’ views and to share their ideas.
• The pupils are polite to their teachers, to visitors and towards each other.
• Pupils play well together at breaktime and lunchtime, making the most of the good range of equipment and games that are provided, some of which are organised by the Year 6 ‘sports crew’.
• The school is well regarded by the local authority for its willingness and effectiveness in working with pupils who have been at risk of exclusion elsewhere. Good pastoral support enables pupils who have struggled to behave well in their other schools to manage their behaviour more effectively.
• Attendance has improved and is very close to the national average. Strategies to improve the attendance of disadvantaged pupils have proved to be effective. Almost all disadvantaged pupils attend as well as their peers in the school.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• The improved attainment and achievement reported at the last inspection have not been sustained. Pupils’ progress in reading, writing and mathematics has not been good enough in the last two years.
• Attainment rose last year, but the proportion of pupils attaining at age-related expectations in reading, writing and mathematics combined remained below average.
• Last year, standards in reading were too low and reflected pupils’ well-below average progress. Middle- and higher-attaining pupils did not achieve well enough in reading.
• Achievement in mathematics has been better than in reading and writing. Nevertheless, not enough of the most able pupils achieve the higher standard in mathematics.
• Leaders have taken effective action to raise standards in writing. Last year, pupils’ attainment in writing was very similar to the national average and more pupils attained the higher standards in writing than seen nationally.
• The work in pupils’ books shows that the improvements secured in writing are being sustained.
• Improvements made to the curriculum this year are also securing better outcomes in reading for all groups of pupils.
• The school’s assessment information, moderated by representatives of the local authority and across the local cluster of schools, shows that far more pupils are on track to reach the expected standard in reading by the end of the year. Higher proportions of the most able pupils are achieving the higher standard in reading than before.
• Similarly, more pupils are achieving at greater depth in mathematics than before.
• Scrutiny of pupils’ work shows that the attainment of disadvantaged pupils is also rising in reading, writing and mathematics, though it remains lower than for other pupils in the school. Although leaders do not track how much progress these pupils are making from their different starting points, the quality of work seen during the inspection shows that they make similar progress to other pupils in the school.
• The progress of lower-attaining pupils and those who have SEN and/or disabilities is more varied. This is because teaching does not always meet the needs of these pupils well enough, including in reading and writing.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 112532 Derbyshire 10041581 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Junior School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Maintained 7 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 365 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Tony Buckingham Martin Edge 01246 810416 www.clowne-jun.derbyshire.sch.uk info@clowne-jun.derbyshire.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 3–4 June 2015

Information about this school

• The school is larger than average. Almost all pupils are from White British backgrounds.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is above average.
• The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs is above average.
• The school met the government’s floor standards in 2017, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress.
• The school meets the Department for Education’s definition of a coasting school based on key stage 2 academic performance results in 2014 to 17.
• The school does not meet requirements on the publication of information about school admissions, arrangements for charging and remission, the school’s equality objectives and the school’s governance arrangements.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning in all classes, including sessions taught by teaching assistants.
• Inspectors scrutinised a range of documents, including the school improvement plan and the action plan to improve outcomes in reading, minutes of meetings of the governing body and information about pupils’ attainment. They also scrutinised documents relating to safeguarding, the quality of teaching, pupils’ behaviour and attendance.
• Discussions were held with the headteacher and other senior and middle leaders as well as teachers and teaching assistants. Inspectors held a meeting with representatives of the governing body, including the chair of governors.
• Inspectors met with the headteacher of an outstanding primary school who has been commissioned by the local authority to support strategies to improve the teaching of reading in the school. Inspectors also met with a senior adviser from the local authority.
• Inspectors spoke to pupils in formal meetings and informally at breaktime and lunchtime. They listened to pupils read. Inspectors scrutinised a wide range of pupils’ work in reading, writing and mathematics.
• Inspectors took account of the 34 responses to the Ofsted questionnaire, Parent View, and spoke to parents as they brought their children to school at the start of the school day.

Inspection team

Daniel Burton, lead inspector Ann Cruickshank Jennifer Digges Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector