Hasland Infant School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Ensure that assessments in the early years identify accurately the children who are exceeding the expected levels in their learning.
• Increase the opportunities for pupils to achieve greater depth in their learning, in particular by:
  • helping the pupils to improve their comprehension skills when reading
  • ensuring that they develop good skills in handwriting and in spelling
  • developing their understanding of shape, space and measure in mathematics
  • developing the pupils’ language skills, so that they are able to explain clearly the reasoning behind their answers to questions and problems, including in the early years.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• The headteacher and senior leaders are very reflective in their approach to leading the school. The reflectiveness underpins carefully considered self-evaluation, in depth, based on a suitable range of evidence about the work of the school and of the achievement of the pupils.
• The self-evaluation results in sharply and accurately identified areas to be improved. The leaders then work systematically and effectively to bring about the improvements.
• For example, the school has made good progress in dealing with the areas for improvement from the last inspection. As a result, the subject coordinators and other leaders responsible for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, and for the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of the pupils, make effective contributions to the improvement of teaching.
• The headteacher has built a cohesive and well-motivated staff team.
• The performance of the teachers is managed effectively. The staff are provided with regular feedback on their work. Pay progression is based upon evidence of successful performance.
• The curriculum is designed especially to capture the interest of the pupils. It does so effectively and contributes well to the pupils’ positive attitudes to learning.
• The provision for the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of the pupils, including the school’s work to promote fundamental British values, is good. It is coherent, designed well and woven through various aspects of the school’s work, binding together the different parts of the school’s curriculum, using themes such as friendship to provide a focus.
• Consistently, the staff promote values of tolerance and respect for others. These are reinforced through a range of well-considered opportunities for the pupils to learn about and to experience the world beyond Hasland. This is a significant factor in the typically harmonious relationships apparent among the staff and the pupils. Even so, in discussions with the pupils, the inspectors noted a little lack of awareness of some different cultural traditions within the wider British community.
• The school has established good partnerships with parents. Parents’ views are predominantly positive about all aspects of the school’s work. Disagreements are few in number, and tend to be individual and about specific issues.
• The school uses the pupil premium funding considerately. The actions taken have made an important contribution to improving the outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.
• Similarly, the physical education and sport premium has been used appropriately. The school has not, however, evaluated very incisively the impact of the things that it has done with these funds.
• The school contributes to supporting other schools, as much as it uses external support to develop its own work. The local authority contributes to the school’s self-evaluation by providing an external view both to senior leaders and to the governing body. The senior leaders are active in identifying and making use of other sources of support.

Governance of the school

• The governing body is knowledgeable about the school. It keeps itself well informed through a range of suitable approaches, including the local authority’s reports on the school.
• It is influential, particularly in maintaining the strong culture, ethos and values of the school. It helps to ensure that the school does not become complacent. Leaders at different levels throughout the school are aware of the governing body’s interest in what they are doing and it is clear that the governing body’s views carry weight.
• The governing body gives due attention to monitoring the work of the school, from looking at the use made of the pupil premium, to checking on the work to support the pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, and ensuring that safeguarding policies and practices are up to date and working. These matters are the subject of discussions by the governing body regularly and routinely.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• The headteacher has established a culture of vigilance at the school, alert to the particular needs of young pupils and children. The staff are aware of the range of things that may give rise to a concern.
• The school’s practical systems for noting and reporting any concerns are used appropriately by the staff, including supervisory staff.
• The school works productively with external agencies, when appropriate.
• The records kept by the school are detailed. Risk assessments for activities, including trips and visits, are completed carefully.
• The staff are trained regularly in a range of relevant aspects of safeguarding and are kept up to date with the latest guidance from the government. They know about the different types of risks mentioned in that guidance.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• The staff provide the pupils with clear instructions and information about what the pupils should do and what the pupils are intended to learn as a result. The teachers follow up the instructions and information systematically, checking that the pupils have understood.
• The inspectors saw carefully structured and well-organised teaching, based on well-established classroom routines. As a result, the pupils knew fully what was expected of them.
• The teachers identify clearly the things that they want the pupils to learn. They think carefully about the sequences in which they want the pupils to do things, building up the learning step by step. This helps the pupils to learn securely; as one pupil exclaimed in a lesson, ‘Now I get it!’
• The school’s strong focus on developing essential skills begins in Nursery and is continued through the school.
• The staff’s secure subject knowledge enables them to assess the pupils’ learning carefully. The staff demonstrate detailed knowledge about how well each pupil is doing. They use what they know to adapt the teaching to meet the pupils’ needs.
• The tasks pupils are given are matched to those needs, so that the pupils are able to make secure progress over time. In the mathematics work books seen by the inspectors, the teachers’ approaches helped lower ability pupils and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities to complete increasing amounts of work, and work of increasing complexity, successfully.
• The staff do not feed the pupils with answers to their questions. The pupils are expected to think for themselves and, often, the staff challenge them to think more, asking supplementary questions.
• The teachers give the pupils helpful feedback and guidance about their work. For example, the pupils understand how to improve their writing, as a result of the ‘bookmarks’ approach used by the school.
• The pupils who are provided with additional support for their learning are helped to develop their spoken language.
• The pupils who speak English as an additional language get good support and develop their language skills quickly.
• In mathematics lessons, the teachers insist that the pupils use the correct subject vocabulary when answering questions. As a result, the words become common parlance when the pupils talk about mathematics. Even so, the pupils are not able to explain well enough the reasons for the answers that they give, including in mathematics. This is because they are not challenged enough to explain the reasoning behind their answers.
• Reading is taught well. The most able pupils, in particular, make good use of their skills and knowledge when reading aloud, doing so fluently and confidently. The pupils become enthusiastic readers. Even those who manifestly find reading very difficult approach the task with interest and commitment, making use as best they can of the phonics that they have learned.
• The teachers make good links between different aspects of the pupils’ learning. For example, in a mathematics lesson, the pupils were asked to ‘Remember what we’ve learned in science’, helping the pupils to draw on the full range of their experience.
• Until recently, the pupils have not been given enough opportunities to develop learning in greater depth. This reduces the amount of progress that the most able pupils particularly, but other groups of pupils also, are able to make. Specifically, the pupils have not been helped enough to develop their comprehension skills when reading, to work for sufficiently concentrated periods of time on shape, space and number in mathematics, and to improve their handwriting and spelling in writing.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• The pupils’ manner and behaviour around the school show that they feel safe and happy at the school.
• There is little evidence of bullying. For example, the pupils who speak English as an additional language say that they do not get picked on and feel fully included in the school.
• Pupils from different ethnic backgrounds learn and play together well.
• The most able pupils are ‘not backwards at coming forwards’, showing that they too feel secure at the school.
• The pupils are taught and have an emerging sense of how to look after themselves. They are taught first aid, for example.
• The pupils respond very well to the good opportunities that they have to take on various responsibilities. For example, through the work of the school council and activities in which they discuss and agree rules for their classrooms, they feel, correctly, that they make a meaningful contribution to the smooth running of the school and to its sense of community.
• The pupils’ attendance is above average and has improved consistently over time, including among disadvantaged pupils, whose attendance is now reasonably close to that of their peers.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of the pupils is good.
• The school is orderly; good behaviour is encouraged successfully by the school’s rewards systems. Breaks and social times are usually happy occasions, supported by well-resourced outdoor spaces.
• The pupils respond well to instructions from the staff, for example lining up sensibly to go back into lessons.
• Typically, the pupils enjoy learning. They are industrious and take pride in their work. They are not always resilient, however, when faced with having to correct errors.
• The pupils are inquisitive and curious about visitors and the world around them, asking questions politely. They are confident when conversing with adults.
• Combined with the above-average standards of attainment that they reach, their positive attitudes to life and to learning mean that the pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education.
• Occasionally, some of the pupils lack a little self-control, leading to some unhelpful, though not serious, misbehaviour. The staff do not always nip such behaviour in the bud.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• Typically, the proportions of the pupils at the school reaching the standards of attainment expected of them by the end of key stage 1 have been consistently above average.
• Though provisional, the information about the pupils’ attainment, using the new national measures for 2016, shows that the proportion of the pupils reaching the new expected level is still above average.
• The proportions of the most able pupils reaching higher levels by the end of key stage 1 have also been consistently above average.
• In 2016, the proportions of pupils working at greater depth were broadly average in reading and in mathematics, but not in writing.
• The pupils’ attainment in science is above average.
• The attainment of disadvantaged pupils has improved, particularly for the most able in this group. The improvement has been supported by the school’s use of the pupil premium.
• The differences between the standards of attainment reached by disadvantaged pupils and those of other pupils are not wide. Sometimes, these pupils have done better than other pupils nationally, though not consistently. The most able pupils and the most able disadvantaged pupils make good progress in reading and in mathematics. The school has progressively and notably increased the proportion of these pupils reaching higher levels in learning in the time since it was last inspected.
• The most able pupils speak confidently and assuredly, using good levels of vocabulary.
• The patterns of progress made by the different groups of pupils represented at the school have been generally good, but not strong consistently. At certain times, though not usually repeatedly, the most able pupils and disadvantaged pupils have made sometimes more, sometimes less, progress in different subjects than other pupils and similar groups nationally.
• The pupils become confident readers. They use the knowledge that they acquire about phonics to assist them with their reading. The pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities apply that knowledge to words that they find difficult, but often struggle still to read the words successfully without further help.
• The most able readers are set appropriate targets that help them to develop higher order reading skills, such as modes of expression and intonation.
• The most able pupils’ current work shows that they are making reasonable progress.
• The work produced by the pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities shows similarly secure progress by this group currently.

Early years provision Good

• Though appointed only recently, the leader in the early years has a good understanding of the strengths and relative weaknesses in this part of the school. Typically, the children begin in the early years with levels of knowledge, skills and understanding that are similar to those expected for their age, although lower in certain particular respects, such as aspects of their physical skills.
• The children make good progress. By the end of the early years, the proportion of children who have reached the levels expected for their age is consistently above average.
• The proportions of disadvantaged children reaching a good level of development have varied year on year. Sometimes, disadvantaged children have done better than other children and the differences are not usually wide.
• The staff provide useful opportunities for parents to contribute to the assessments of how well their children are doing. The staff monitor how well the children are doing regularly and frequently. A lot of the records that they make focus more on commenting on what the children have done, rather than assessing the quality of the children’s learning.
• The staff’s assessments of children exceeding the expected levels are not always accurate. This leads to some children being identified as exceeding the expected levels who are not actually doing so.
• The staff’s interactions with the children are of good quality, most notably in Nursery. The children are provided with a good range of well-thought-out activities. The staff provide the children with good examples of the language that the children need to learn.
• The staff demonstrate good knowledge of the different areas of learning. For example, they explain and demonstrate phonics for the children well.
• The children are supported well to develop their language skills. For example, when learning outdoors, the children use language constructively and in order to learn cooperatively, develop their understanding together.
• The staff give the children good opportunities to develop their language and confidence in more formal situations as well, by speaking in front of each other as a class. On these occasions, the children listen respectfully to those who are speaking and are supportive of each other, for example by clapping.
• The children are not given enough time to talk about and to explain their thinking. As a result, they lack certain language and vocabulary and so cannot always explain themselves clearly.
• The children are taught phonics well from the outset. They learn to apply their knowledge, breaking unfamiliar words into sounds and then putting the sounds together to read the words accurately.
• The children enjoy being at the school and behave safely. They develop good behaviours for learning, which helps them to make good progress.
• The early years leaders make sure that the curriculum and the planning for children’s learning focus closely on meeting individual children’s needs. The children’s learning is assessed in detail. As a result, staff tailor learning opportunities to meet the particular needs of each individual, including the most able.
• The staff enable parents to contribute to the assessments and ensure that the parents get detailed information about how well their children are doing.
• The staff ensure that their colleagues in key stage 1 get an equally full picture about the achievement and learning needs of each child. The children adapt rapidly to the requirements of learning in key stage 1, helped by the school’s work to support that transition, and continue to make good progress thereafter.
• The staff do not take advantage sufficiently of the opportunities for the children to improve their writing, reading and number skills when the children are learning outdoors. On these occasions, they do not question the children skilfully enough, or involve the children in purposeful conversations. This restricts the progress that the children can make.

School details

Unique reference number 112664 Local authority Derbyshire Inspection number 10003216 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 Infant School category Community Age range of pupils 3 to 7 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 371 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Barbara Arrandale Headteacher Alison Wain Telephone number 01246 234745 Website www.hasland-inf.derbyshire.sch.uk Email address info@hasland-inf.derbyshire.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 21 March 2012

Information about this school

• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• The school is larger than the average-sized primary school.
• The proportion of pupils known to be disadvantaged is below average.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is well below average.
• The percentage of pupils who speak English as an additional language is well below average.
• The headteacher is a local leader of education.

Information about this inspection

• The inspectors observed lessons in all phases of the school and in all classes. They looked at small-group sessions and times when pupils were receiving additional support. They carried out other visits to classrooms to look at particular aspects of the school’s work and scrutinised examples of the pupils’ work.
• The inspectors held meetings with leaders, managers and other staff at the school, and with representatives of the governing body and of the local authority.
• They spoke with pupils in groups, in lessons and around the school. They listened to pupils reading.
• The inspectors checked the 50 responses on Parent View, looked at the text comments submitted by those parents, spoke with parents at the beginning of the school day, and took account of the responses of 112 parents to a survey carried out recently by the school.
• The inspectors looked at the 13 responses to the staff inspection questionnaire.
• No inspection questionnaires were received from the pupils.
• The inspectors looked at a range of documentation, including the school’s development plan and self-evaluation, policies and records relating to safeguarding, records relating to the pupils’ behaviour, the school’s information about pupils’ progress, and records of monitoring work carried out by leaders and managers at the school.

Inspection team

Clive Moss, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Richard Waldron Ofsted Inspector Shaheen Hussain Ofsted Inspector Roary Pownall Her Majesty’s Inspector