The Grove Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

In accordance with section 44(1) of the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management by ensuring that:
  • senior leaders and governors identify clear, precise and measurable actions in their improvement plans
  • senior leaders implement an assessment system that accurately measures pupils’ progress, and quickly identify any pupils who are at risk of falling behind
  • senior leaders establish an accurate view of the quality of teaching, provide teachers with high-quality schemes of work and tailor teachers’ professional development and training to target the needs of individual teachers
  • middle leaders develop their roles so that they support senior leaders in making whole-school improvements
  • senior leaders and governors use the additional funding effectively to increase the progress of disadvantaged pupils and of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities
  • senior leaders and governors use the school’s physical education and sports premium funding effectively
  • governors make sure that the school’s website meets the requirements for the publication of statutory information
  • academy trustees and governors increase the school’s effectiveness in improving the quality of teaching and its impact on accelerating pupils’ progress.
• Improve the quality of teaching, so that all pupils make good progress or better, by ensuring that teachers:
  • provide pupils with a purpose to their learning
  • plan activities that are matched more accurately to the needs and abilities of different pupils, including the small number of most-able pupils and pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities
  • help pupils more consistently to understand how to be successful learners
  • develop their skills in asking probing questions that check on the pupils’ understanding and stimulate pupils’ thinking
  • provide pupils with opportunities to develop their reasoning skills in mathematics and comprehension skills in reading
  • provide opportunities for pupils to apply their skills and to demonstrate sustained knowledge.
• Improve pupils’ behaviour and their attitudes to learning by ensuring that:
  • all staff have the highest expectations of pupils’ attitudes to learning and apply the school’s behaviour policy consistently
  • senior leaders use the behaviour-tracking system to identify targeted and measurable actions which will reduce the high number of behaviour incidents and fixed-term exclusions
  • leaders develop more effective ways of working with parents to increase pupils’ attendance
  • teaching increases pupils’ engagement and confidence, so that they play a greater role in their own learning.
• Improve the effectiveness of the early years provision by ensuring that leaders:
  • identify and tackle all areas of weakness, especially boys’ slow progress
  • develop the outdoor learning environment to provide purposeful learning activities which contribute to developing a range of skills, including literacy and numeracy. An external review of governance should be undertaken to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved. An external review of the school’s use of the pupil premium funding should be undertaken to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

• The headteacher, the governing body and the academy trust have overseen a decline in standards over the last two years and the school is now inadequate overall. Leaders have failed to ensure that key weaknesses in teaching, pupils’ attitudes to learning and attendance and the underachievement of pupils have been effectively addressed.
• Senior leaders do not have robust plans in place to secure the rapid improvement necessary. Staff confidence in the school’s leadership is low.
• Leaders’ actions to improve pupils’ progress and attainment in reading, writing and mathematics are not effective. The school’s arrangements for tracking the achievement of pupils are ineffective. They do not provide leaders, teachers or governors with accurate or reliable information on pupils’ progress. Leaders are, therefore, failing to identify key priorities and to take appropriate action to make their work effective.
• The school’s systems for checking on the effectiveness of staff lack rigour and leaders’ views on the quality of teaching and pupils’ progress across the school are too generous. When leaders visit lessons and review pupils’ work, they do not pay enough attention to pupils’ understanding of their learning. Leaders’ feedback to teachers, following their checks, often lacks focus and targets are not detailed enough to help teachers improve their practice. A new approach to checking on the quality of teaching has yet to demonstrate a positive impact.
• Leaders do not promote equality of opportunity well enough. Governors and senior leaders have failed to use additional funding to support disadvantaged pupils effectively. Actions taken to accelerate these pupils’ progress are not checked on carefully to evaluate the difference that they make.
• The progress of disadvantaged pupils is not rapid enough. Leaders do, however, ensure that disadvantaged pupils are able to access all the resources the school offers, such as its breakfast club, trips and visits.
• The leader responsible for the provision for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities does not track these pupils’ achievement carefully enough to ensure that they make good progress. Improvement plans are not precise enough and actions taken to tackle weaknesses are not checked to see if they have been successful. Parents are not sufficiently involved when their children are identified as requiring additional support, except in cases where their children have a statement of special educational needs, or an education, health and care plan.
• Leaders have not been effective in ensuring that pupils’ behaviour in lessons, and around the school, is good. They have introduced a new behaviour policy to improve behaviour but not all staff use it consistently. The school’s system for tracking incidents of poor behaviour is not used well enough to provide leaders with the information they need to implement effective strategies to improve pupils’ behaviour.
• Leaders do not make effective use of the school’s physical education and sports premium funding. They use it to provide additional sporting activities and this makes some difference to pupils’ fitness and health. They do not, however, check on how effective their actions are and whether the funding is being used successfully. The skills staff have in physical education are not sufficiently well developed and their confidence in teaching these skills remains too low.
• The academy trust’s monitoring visits, which evaluate the impact of the school’s improvement work, indicate that senior leaders do not act quickly enough on recommendations that arise. The academy trust has not challenged school leaders or governors well enough to improve the school.
• When standards fall below those expected, middle leaders do not play a prominent enough role in challenging their teams to make the improvements needed. They are actively involved in checking on the work of their teams and providing support, but their actions are not based on accurate information. Middle leaders are keen to develop their roles and have introduced new initiatives to improve the quality of teaching and learning in their respective subjects.
• Leaders do not plan the curriculum carefully enough to stimulate pupils in their learning, or to develop their knowledge and understanding well enough for them to make good progress. Curriculum planning does not provide teachers with sufficient guidance on how to plan for high-quality learning and to encourage pupils to take responsibility for their own learning. Leaders provide pupils with a broad and balanced curriculum focused on developing creativity.
• The pupils’ opportunities to take part in extra-curricular activities other than sport are limited.
• Leaders do not give enough importance to promoting pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Although pupils have some understanding of spiritual, moral and social issues, there is no sense of any well-established values at the heart of the school. Pupils’ opportunities to learn about other cultures are limited. Pupils are not sufficiently well prepared for life in modern Britain.
• Pupils do benefit, however, from a range of extra-curricular and enrichment activities. Pupils take part in dodgeball, hip-hop, house competitions, and external tournaments.
• Leaders work effectively to foster relationships with parents. The school’s own survey of the views of parents and the opinions of those parents spoken with during the inspection indicate that most parents are happy with the effectiveness of the school. Not all parents, however, shared this view.
• It is strongly recommended that the school does not appoint newly qualified teachers.

Governance of the school

• The governing body does not demonstrate high aspirations consistently for the pupils who attend the school. The governing body is supportive and committed to the school, but this does not translate into actions that have resulted in the school improving.
• The school improvement plan’s success criteria are not suitably measurable and are not referred to enough for the governing body to know if leaders’ actions are making enough difference to pupils’ learning.
• The governing body is aware of many of the strengths and weaknesses of the school. During visits and meetings, governors ask questions about the actions that leaders take to tackle weaknesses. The information that leaders provide about pupils’ attainment and progress has not been accurate enough, however, nor sufficiently detailed, for governors to challenge them effectively. This leads to a mismatch between what the governing body thinks is happening in the school and the reality.
• The governing body ensures that statutory policies are up to date.
• Although the management of teachers’ performance is improving, the governing body has not acted quickly enough to secure improvements in pupils’ progress.
• The governing body has not ensured that the school’s website provides parents with the information that it should.
• The governing body has failed to ensure that school leaders are using the pupil premium, funding for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, and the primary physical education and sports funding effectively.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose.
• Vetting checks are undertaken meticulously, when staff and volunteers join the school, to ensure that they are suitable to work with children. All statutory requirements are met and all policies are up to date.
• All staff are aware of their responsibility to ensure that pupils are kept safe. Staff are provided with regular safeguarding updates, including, for example, training related to extremism and radicalisation.
• The designated teachers for child protection and safeguarding ensure that procedures are implemented effectively and that records are well maintained. Partnerships with external agencies are effective in making sure that all pupils are safe and, when necessary, are supported.
• Pupils who spoke with inspectors said that they feel safe. Parents who responded to the school’s own parental surveys, and those spoken with during the inspection, agreed that their children are safe and cared for well.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

• The quality of teaching is not effective enough to help pupils to make good progress by the time they leave Year 6. Teachers do not have consistently high expectations of pupils and pupils do not routinely adopt positive attitudes towards their learning.
• Low-level disruption prevents pupils from making the progress that they should in many lessons. Teaching does not capture pupils’ imagination, nor encourage them to become keen learners who want to know more.
• Teachers do not provide pupils with purposeful learning. They set activities which keep pupils busy, rather than offering relevant and engaging experiences. Pupils explained to inspectors what task they had been set, but were unable to explain why they were doing it.
• Teachers do not model the learning effectively in order to provide pupils with a sound understanding of concepts and skills. For example, pupils in a mathematics lesson found it difficult to make progress on mathematical arrays because they were not shown how to be successful in the task they were asked to complete.
• Teachers do not provide pupils with structure to their learning, nor do they match work to pupils’ needs. All pupils complete the same tasks or use the same methods, regardless of their different abilities.
• Teachers fail to ensure that the most able pupils, including the most able disadvantaged pupils, complete activities that are suitably challenging. These pupils are often expected to repeat work which they have shown they can do already. This inhibits the progress they make.
• Teachers do not provide enough opportunities for pupils to demonstrate an understanding of their skills and knowledge. Pupils’ work books show a high number of adult-led, overly simple tasks.
• Although teachers’ subject knowledge is strong, they do not use it well enough to ask questions that check on pupils’ understanding, or that stimulate the pupils’ thinking. Neither do teachers use questions well enough to tackle pupils’ misconceptions, which are often left uncorrected.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities and other pupils who need additional support are not provided with effective support by teachers and teaching assistants in the classroom. Teaching assistants do not make use of additional resources to structure pupils’ learning so that pupils are secure in their understanding.
• The pupils are not given enough opportunities to develop their mathematical reasoning skills.
• Phonics is taught effectively. Most pupils apply their phonics skills well in their reading and writing. Lower-attaining pupils, however, including lower-attaining disadvantaged pupils, who read to the inspectors, struggled to use their phonics knowledge successfully.
• Pupils’ understanding of what they are reading about is not well developed. Teaching does not provide sufficient opportunities for pupils to develop their reading comprehension skills.
• Pupils’ handwriting skills are developed effectively. Pupils’ workbooks are well presented and show a variety of opportunities for pupils to write at length.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school's work to promote pupils' personal development and welfare is inadequate.
• Pupils report that incidents of bullying do occur. Although pupils know who to speak to if they have any concerns about bullying, they said that it is not worth doing so because nothing really changes. Parents who spoke with the inspectors agreed that bullying does happen and believed that it was not always dealt with effectively.
• Pupils take little pride in the way they wear their school uniform.
• At times, pupils work cooperatively and share their learning experiences, but not do this often enough, and, at other times, they do not work successfully together.
• The pupils are not yet thoughtful, or confident, learners. Leaders do not place a high enough priority on teaching pupils the importance of being active and caring citizens, nor in promoting a sense of enjoyment or perseverance in learning.
• When prompted by adults, pupils are polite and welcoming. They show some consideration and respect towards each other and adults. Pupils told the inspectors they like being at school.
• Some aspects of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development are helping them to become more reflective and responsible citizens. Pupils learn about the environment and take part in visits to botanical gardens and animal parks.
• Pupils are also provided with some opportunities to experience leadership roles, such as play leaders and peacemakers.
• The pupils have a good understanding of different types of bullying and racism.
• Pupils are generally safe and well cared for by the school. The vast majority of parents agree with this. Pupils understand how to keep themselves safe and have a good understanding of how to keep healthy and fit. The school has achieved the ‘Food for Life’ award.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.
• In lessons, pupils do not routinely demonstrate positive attitudes to learning. Most lessons are interrupted by low-level disruption. Sometimes pupils’ behaviour is more challenging.
• Some staff do not routinely implement the school’s new behaviour policy. The school’s records show that behaviour at lunchtime is not as good as it should be.
• Incidents of poor behaviour are high and the number of fixed-term exclusions has rapidly increased.
• Leaders’ tracking of incidents of poor behaviour is not effective enough to tackle the issues which occur. Training provided for adult supervisors is making little improvement. Pupils’ and parents’ views of behaviour, as shared with the inspectors, match that seen during the inspection.
• Pupils’ rates of attendance are below the national average. The proportion of pupils who are persistently absent is high. Leaders’ actions to tackle the number of pupils who do not attend school are not effective and pupils’ attendance has not improved.

Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

• Pupils currently in the school do not make the progress that they should. The pupils do not develop effective learning techniques, or understand their learning well enough.
• Pupils are not sufficiently well prepared for the transition to secondary school.
• In 2016, pupils’ attainment at the end of key stage 1 was below the national average in reading, writing and mathematics. The school’s current assessment and external moderation indicates that attainment is similar for pupils leaving key stage 1 this year.
• For current Year 2 pupils, progress has been slow, but current assessment information suggests that pupils’ progress in Year 1 is faster.
• In 2016, pupils in Year 6 made slower progress during key stage 2 than the national average in reading, writing and mathematics. Progress was particularly slow in reading.
• The school’s current assessment information and recent unvalidated 2017 national test results suggest that pupils have continued to make slow progress. This is equally true for the other year groups currently in key stage 2.
• Attainment at the end of key stage 2 was also below the national average in reading, writing and mathematics in 2016. Early indications are that teachers’ assessments of pupils’ attainment have not matched the pupils’ actual achievement in the 2017 national tests. Pupils currently in other years in key stage 2 are also working below national expectations.
• Disadvantaged pupils make slow progress, although for disadvantaged pupils currently in Year 1, their progress is more rapid. In almost all year groups in key stage 2, disadvantaged pupils are making slower progress than others in the school.
• Historically, the small number of most-able pupils have made the progress they should in key stage 1. In key stage 2, their progress in writing and mathematics was good, but was slow in reading. Leaders do not track pupils’ progress from their different starting points to establish whether pupils currently in the school are making good progress or whether intervention is needed to address any underachievement.
• The school’s current assessment system shows that the progress that the pupils who speak English as an additional language make varies too much. The pupils who speak English as an additional language are provided with support to develop the language skills they need to access their learning.
• Inconsistencies are also evident in the progress made by boys and girls and in some of the subjects other than English and mathematics that leaders track.
• A high proportion of pupils now reach the expected standard in the phonics screening check at the end of Year 1. This is the result of effective teaching of phonics. However, the progress made by girls in their phonics skills development is slower than it has been in previous years.

Early years provision Requires improvement

• Leadership of the early years provision is more effective than the overall leadership of the school. Even so, the early years leader does not have a fully accurate view of the provision. The early years’ action plan does not provide measurable success criteria for checking how effectively leaders are improving the provision.
• Although many children in the early years are well prepared for their transition to key stage 1, there is a high proportion of boys who are not.
• Leaders have not identified the slower progress made by boys. Their planning, therefore, does not identify what action will be taken to improve this.
• Adults do not make enough use of a large outdoor-learning area to which the children have access. Activities in the outdoor learning area do not provide purposeful learning, nor encourage children to play together. Some activities do not focus enough on the development of particular skills, especially literacy and numeracy skills.
• Overall, children make good progress in their learning and development during their time in the Reception Year. They attain a good level of development and match national averages.
• The learning environment is well organised, bright and stimulating. Teachers assess carefully what individual children can already do and plan stimulating learning activities which meet their needs. Adults do not, however, routinely interact with children to develop their language skills and this slows children’s progress.
• The teaching of phonics is effective and adults model sounds effectively to help the children develop their phonics skills successfully. Children do not, however, apply this knowledge to their writing as well as they could.
• A high proportion of children join the school with skills below those typical for their age. Leaders work closely with the establishments from which the children arrive. They ensure that detailed information is available prior to the children starting school.
• Disadvantaged children perform equally well compared to their peers and outperform them in many instances. Leaders use additional funding to support disadvantaged children by providing targeted support and filling in any gaps in disadvantaged children’s learning.
• Leaders work successfully to engage parents in their children’s learning in the early years. They also make effective use of other agencies and partnerships to provide the children with any additional or individualised support they may need.
• The early years leader is enthusiastic and ambitious for the children in the Reception Year. The children are happy and relationships with adults are good. Children have positive attitudes to learning and cooperate with each other in their work and play. Clear routines promote good behaviour.
• Adults take care to keep the children safe. Statutory requirements are met and safeguarding is effective in the early years.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 141469 Leicestershire 10036053 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Primary School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Academy sponsor-led 5 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 216 Appropriate authority The academy trust Chair Headteacher Ann Whyte Mike Owen Telephone number 01664562554 Website Email address www.thegroveprimary.co.uk admin@meltongrove.org Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• The Grove is smaller than the average-sized primary school. The school converted to become an academy on 1 October 2014 and is sponsored by the Mowbray Education Trust. When its predecessor school, also called The Grove Primary School, was last inspected by Ofsted it was judged to require improvement overall.
• Most pupils are White British. The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is very small. The school has a higher proportion of boys than most schools.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is well above average.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is well above average. The proportion of pupils who have a statement of special educational needs or an education, health and care plan is also well above average.
• The school provides a breakfast club for its pupils.
• In 2016, the school met the government’s current floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 6.
• The school does not meet requirements on the publication of information about its physical education and sports premium funding or its curriculum, including its phonics scheme, on its website.
• The school complies with Department for Education guidance on what academies should publish.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed pupils’ learning in all classes. A little of this learning was observed jointly with the headteacher.
• Discussions took place with school staff, members of the governing body and trustees.
• The inspectors talked with pupils. They observed playtime and lunchtime and listened to pupils in Year 1 and Year 3 reading.
• The 18 responses to a survey completed by staff and responses to the school’s own parental surveys were taken into account. Inspectors spoke informally with parents at the beginning of the school day and formally during the day. There were insufficient responses submitted by parents to Ofsted’s online survey (Parent View) on which to comment.
• Inspectors observed the work of the school and looked at a broad range of evidence, including: the school’s analysis of its strengths and weaknesses; planning and monitoring documentation; the work in pupils’ books; records relating to attendance and behaviour, and the school’s information on pupils’ current attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics and a range of different subjects.
• The school’s child protection and safeguarding procedures were scrutinised. A review of the school’s website was made to check whether it met the requirements on the publication of required information.

Inspection team

Vondra Mays, lead inspector Andrew Lakatos

Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector