Berry Hill Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management by:
  • implementing fully the new system for allocating and evaluating the effectiveness of pupil premium funding to ensure that disadvantaged pupils come to school regularly and make good progress
  • developing the skills of subject leaders so that they can improve the quality of teaching and raise standards in their areas of responsibility
  • ensuring that the arrangements for checking and improving the quality of teaching are sufficiently precise to bring about rapid improvements to teachers’ practice
  • making rigorous and timely checks on pupils’ progress so that additional support and challenge can be provided without delay
  • investigating ways of improving communication with parents, particularly about how well their child is doing at school.
• Improve the quality of teaching throughout key stage 2 so that pupils make faster progress by ensuring that teachers:
  • make better use of assessment information during lessons to challenge pupils and developed them as resilient learners, particularly those who are the most able, so that they can excel
  • provide more opportunities for pupils to apply their mathematical skills in problem solving and reasoning
  • raise their expectations of what pupils can achieve, provide pupils with tasks that will enthuse and engage them, and engender in them a love of learning
  • fully implement the new approach to teaching reading
  • insist pupils correctly use their spelling, punctuation and grammar skills when they write at length in a range of subjects and for a range of audiences
  • provide boys with learning that engages and challenges them so that they can achieve the standards of which they are capable.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

• Leaders have not maintained the high standards that were seen at the end of key stage 2 at the time of the last inspection. Although there have been improvements in some subjects, leaders were not quick enough to respond effectively to the decline in standards. They have not been able to secure consistently strong teaching.
• Leaders have been slow to act decisively and improve standards in key stage 2. They have recently introduced systems and procedures to accelerate the progress pupils make across key stage 2 in reading and mathematics. The new systems have not been in place long enough to have had a sustained impact on standards.
• Subject leaders write action plans and provide some training for staff. Most leaders of subjects other than English and mathematics are new to their posts, taking on their roles either last year or more recently. They are still developing the leadership skills they need to have a noticeable impact on the quality of teaching and standards in their areas of responsibility.
• Leaders have used pupil premium funding to support disadvantaged pupils in a variety of ways to overcome their barriers to learning. There have been some successes. Leaders have tracked the effectiveness of the spending but recognise that this could be more precisely done. This year, the deputy headteacher has drawn up a plan to allocate the funding and check its use much more closely to ensure that it benefits disadvantaged pupils to the full.
• The leader with responsibility for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities has a clear understanding of her role. She ensures that pupils receive the support they need. Teaching assistants provide highly effective support in class or in small groups. She works closely with parents and external agencies to ensure that pupils receive the support they need. Pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities make strong progress from their starting points.
• Leaders use performance management effectively. Targets are set for teachers in line with the school’s priorities for improvement. The headteacher ensures that the governors receive the necessary information. The governing body is willing to withhold a pay rise, should the members feel it is not deserved.
• Leaders ensure that the additional funding for primary physical education (PE) and sport is well used. Teachers benefit from training to improve their teaching of PE. Pupils represent their school at a range of sporting events, such as swimming galas, and netball and football tournaments.
• The curriculum is broad and balanced. Pupils study a range of subjects. Trips, visitors and residential visits enhance their learning. For example, pupils learned about the Romans by dressing up and looking at artefacts from Roman times.
• Leaders promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development well. Pupils can learn to play a musical instrument. They visit the theatre in Mansfield annually to watch a pantomime. Pupils learn about a range of cultures and religions. They have time to reflect on their feelings towards special occasions and music during assembly. They respond well to this. Teachers arrange for visitors from the local community to come into school to provide pupils with unique experiences. For example, an artist, commissioned through a local building society, came into school and helped pupils to design and create a tree to reflect their school’s values. The tree stands proudly outside the main entrance door for pupils, staff and visitors to admire.

Governance of the school

• The governing body provides strong and determined leadership. Several new governors have joined the governing body since the last inspection. The chair has ensured that they bring a wide range of skills that help them to support and challenge leaders with rigour.
• Governors’ understanding of the school’s performance is accurate. They are aware that the governing body needs to hold leaders to greater account than they have done in previous years. Governors have ensured that this is well underway. They now make good use of their skills to ensure that they fulfil this part of their role well.
• Governors are fully supportive of the new strategies that leaders are implementing and demonstrate clearly how they are ensuring rigour in the new processes.
• The governing body is ambitious for the school and for its pupils to do well. Governors are determined that standards will improve.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. All the necessary vetting checks are undertaken when staff and volunteers join the school.
• The headteacher ensures that staff receive up-to-date training and know how to report a concern about a child’s welfare, should one arise. She makes sure that records are well kept. She draws upon external services when they may be able to support families in need of help.
• All pupils who spoke with inspectors agreed that they are safe in school. They could all think of an adult they could talk to if they had any worries. They were confident that the adult would help them. The overwhelming majority of parents felt their children were safe and well cared for at the school. Inspectors agree.
• Leaders provide pupils with opportunities to learn how to keep themselves safe, for example on the roads through the junior road safety officer scheme. Pupils understand how to keep themselves safe when they use modern technology.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• Teaching is not consistently good throughout the school. Over recent years, there has been a high turnover of staff, particularly in key stage 2. Leaders have had some difficulty recruiting high-quality permanent teachers during this time. This has hampered developments and led to inconsistencies in provision and pupils’ outcomes.
• Leaders’ checks on the quality of teaching have had limited success. Leaders provide useful training to improve teachers’ skills but their feedback has not been precise enough to improve the quality of teaching as rapidly. As a result, variations in the quality of teaching remain.
• Too often, teachers, particularly in key stage 2, do not make effective use of assessment information to provide tasks that build progressively on what pupils already understand and can do. In some lessons, teachers are slow to step in and provide extra challenge to pupils when they are ready to move on with their learning.
• Teachers do not engage pupils, particularly boys, well enough in their learning. Too often, pupils in key stage 2 told inspectors that they would like more difficult work to do or that they were ‘bored’ or ‘couldn’t be bothered’. This was because teachers did not excite and enthuse them with the work they provide. For these pupils, their thirst for learning is in decline.
• Phonics is taught well. Leaders have provided training which has improved the teaching of early reading skills. This has led to a marked increase in the proportion of pupils achieving the expected standard in the phonics check at the end of Year 1. Results now exceed the national averages. For too long, however, teachers have not developed pupils’ reading skills well in Years 3 to 6. Leaders have not tackled this issue successfully in the past. As a result, pupils have made slow progress in their reading in key stage 2 for too long. This year, leaders have introduced a new approach to teaching reading throughout the school. Pupils told inspectors that they enjoy the new structure to reading. It is too early to judge its long-term success.
• Teachers use their strong subject knowledge to teach pupils about spelling, punctuation and grammar accurately. They do not, however, provide pupils with enough opportunities to write at length, or to write for different audiences. This means they are not able to practise and consolidate these skills well.
• Teachers in key stage 1 more typically respond to the learning needs of pupils quickly. They provide support and stretch pupils’ thinking, enabling them to achieve well. Some teachers model writing well and encourage pupils to be creative, using the skills that have been taught in their own writing. Pupils, in these better-taught lessons, were clear about what they needed to do to make sure their writing was of high quality.
• Teachers set homework in line with the school’s policy. For example, pupils practise spellings, read and make models to show their understanding of their history work.
• Teachers give pupils the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. Pupils told inspectors that they can go back and correct mistakes or improve on their previous work. Teachers give pupils time and guidance to undertake this work.
• Teaching assistants throughout the school provide high-quality support for pupils, including those who have SEN and/or disabilities. They ask well-considered questions, encouraging pupils to think about the skills they have previously learned to help them with their work. They are skilful at providing the right level of support and then stepping back to encourage pupils to be independent at just the right time. This promotes effective learning.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Pupils feel safe in school. They are taught how to keep themselves safe, for example when they cross roads or ride their bicycles. Pupils are knowledgeable, in a way that is appropriate for their age, about how to be safe when they use modern technology.
• Pupils learn about a range of religions, cultures and lifestyles that may be different from their own. They have a clear understanding of equality. Pupils told inspectors, ‘We are all different on the outside, but all the same on the inside’ and ‘Everyone’s welcome here’. This typified their respectful attitudes towards others.
• Pupils raise money for charities and have the chance to take on responsibilities around school. For example, some represent their classmates on the school council. Pupils understand the importance of helping others who may be less fortunate than themselves.
• Pupils told inspectors that bullying does not really happen at Berry Hill. They enjoy the ‘anti-bullying’ weeks that teachers plan for them. Pupils understand bullying in its different forms, including cyber bullying. Pupils told inspectors that they could tell an adult if anything worried or upset them, confident that the adult would deal with it successfully.
• Pupils have a growing understanding of fundamental British values. They understand about democracy and the rule of law through voting for their school council representatives and through following the school rules.
• Teachers promote the ‘Berry values’ of respect, collaboration, resilience, enjoyment and celebrating achievement well. Some pupils, however, were unsure which ‘berry’ they should be focusing on this month.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good. Pupils are respectful and polite to each other and to adults. They move around school sensibly and without fuss.
• Pupils arrive at their lessons ready to learn. Most pupils apply themselves well to their learning. Pupils only drift off task when teachers do not provide learning that engages them well.
• During breaktimes, pupils play well together. Pupils told inspectors that they make lots of friends at Berry Hill. Pupils are well supervised.
• Pupils’ overall attendance has been in line with the national average for several years. The attendance of disadvantaged pupils, however, has been below the national average for some time. The persistent absence of disadvantaged pupils has improved markedly over the past year, but is still below the national average. Governors and leaders have plans to improve the attendance of this group of pupils.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Leaders’ actions to improve standards in key stage 2 have lacked urgency. The progress pupils make in key stage 2 is not consistently good in all subjects and all year groups. Too many pupils are not as prepared as they should be for the next stage of their education.
• The progress pupils make in reading by the end of key stage 2 has been below the national average for three years. There are signs that this is beginning to improve. By the end of key stage 2 in 2017, more pupils achieved the expected standard in reading, and considerably more achieved a greater depth of understanding, than was seen in 2016 in this subject. The progress pupils make from their starting points, however, remains slow compared with that made by pupils nationally.
• Pupils’ progress in mathematics by the end of Year 6 declined significantly in 2017, so that it was in the bottom 10% nationally. This was a sharp fall on the previous year. Leaders have identified the reason behind this. The leader with responsibility for mathematics, who is also the deputy headteacher, has taken action swiftly. She has provided useful training for teachers to improve this aspect of their teaching. Pupils’ books show that teachers now plan sequences of lessons to build up pupils’ skills systematically. They are making the progress expected of them this year. She is aware that pupils still do not have enough opportunities to develop their problem-solving and reasoning skills.
• Published information shows that boys underperform in reading and writing by the end of key stage 2 compared with girls. The school’s own assessment information shows that, in some subjects in some year groups, boys are making at least the progress leaders expect of them. This is not consistent, however, and boys throughout the school are not making the progress they should.
• Pupils supported through pupil premium funding are making faster progress. The difference between their attainment and that of other pupils in some year groups is diminishing in reading, writing and mathematics. This is not consistent across all subjects and all year groups. Leaders have recently improved their method of allocating pupil premium funding. They have also improved their checks on its effectiveness of raising standards for this group of pupils. It is too early to judge the success of this development.
• Pupils’ books show that most current pupils are making strong progress from their individual starting points. Leaders acknowledge that the progress pupils make could be accelerated, particularly for the most able pupils, if teachers had higher expectations of what they could achieve and more provided opportunities for them to do so.
• The progress pupils made in writing in 2017 throughout key stage 2 improved considerably from that seen in 2016. A new approach to teaching writing was successfully implemented so that, by the end of 2017, pupils were making progress in line with the national average. More pupils achieved the greater depth in writing than had been seen in 2016.
• Improvements to the teaching of early reading have resulted in strong outcomes for pupils by the end of Year 1. The proportion of pupils achieving the expected standard at the national phonics check exceeded that seen nationally in 2017.
• Standards at the end of key stage 1 were broadly in line with those seen nationally in 2016. By the end of key stage 1 in 2017, they had risen, with the proportions achieving both the expected standard and greater depth in writing and mathematics being above the national averages. Pupils make strong progress from their starting points in Years 1 and 2 in each of reading, writing and mathematics.

Early years provision Good

• The early years is well led. The leader has an accurate understanding of the strengths and priorities for improvement across the Nursery and Reception classes. She plans for improvements with precision.
• Teachers form strong relationships with parents. Parents are offered a home visit or time to talk to staff personally so that staff can find out about each child before they start school.
• Parents contribute to their child’s assessment by talking to the teacher and leaving information on the ‘Wow!’ board. Parents of children in the Reception class are encouraged to look at, and contribute to, their child’s learning journey through an online system.
• The leader makes good use of links with external agencies, such as speech and language provision, to support children where this is appropriate. She makes effective use of the early years pupil premium funding to specifically target support so that children can benefit from its use.
• Teachers provide activities that engage children well. Children are keen to have a go at the activities because teachers make learning fun. Children took part enthusiastically in a counting challenge that involved taking turns to bounce a ball. Another group of children enjoyed a word treasure hunt. The teacher provided just the right level of challenge in an activity involving a ‘number machine’ made of boxes to develop children’s early addition skills well.
• Teachers encourage children to learn how to be safe in a variety of situations. Teachers provide equipment in the outdoor area, such as cones and road signs on the painted road markings for children to learn about roads and road safety. This links well with the school’s junior road safety scheme where older pupils remind their peers about the importance of taking care near roads.
• Teaching assistants provide useful and skilled support for children. They take every opportunity to develop children’s language skills. For example, they encourage children to use the correct mathematical language, such as cylinder and cuboid in mathematics.
• Teaching assistants provide a high level of care. They gently encourage pupils to tidy up at the end of a session and to wash their hands. Arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Teaching assistants support learning well, including among children who speak English as an additional language. They provide the right balance of modelling new vocabulary and stepping back to allow children time to think, have a go, and be successful on their own.
• Those parents who expressed a view were particularly complimentary about their child’s experiences in the early years. They praised teachers for being approachable and for the care they provide to children. Inspectors agree.
• Children make good progress in the Nursery and Reception classes. The proportion of children achieving a good level of development is in line with the national average. Children are well prepared to make a strong start in Year 1.

School details

Unique reference number 132242 Local authority Nottinghamshire Inspection number 10037619 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Primary School category Community Age range of pupils 3 to 11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 454 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Ian Pearce Headteacher Susan Brown Telephone number 01623 478477 Website www.berryhillprimary.co.uk Email address office@berryhill.notts.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 30–31 October 2012

Information about this school

• The school is larger than the average-sized primary school.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is lower than average.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is lower than average.
• Most pupils are of White British heritage. A small proportion of pupils speak English as an additional language.
• The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set out the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress by the end of Year 6.
• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning in 27 lessons, some jointly with the headteacher or deputy headteacher. Inspectors observed two assemblies and pupils’ behaviour as they moved around school and at breaktimes.
• Inspectors held meetings with the headteacher, the deputy headteacher, and the leaders for English, mathematics and the early years. Inspectors met with three members of the governing body, including the chair. One spoke with a representative of the local authority by telephone. Inspectors spoke with other members of staff, including a newly qualified teacher, an early years teacher and the teacher responsible for the school’s ECO award and the Artsmark award bid.
• Inspectors spoke with parents as they brought their children to school and considered their views through the 105 responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View. Inspectors also spoke with groups of pupils. There were no responses to the online survey for pupils. Inspectors considered the 14 responses to the staff survey.
• Alongside the headteacher and deputy headteacher, inspectors examined a range of pupils’ books from every class. An inspector heard three pupils read.
• Inspectors examined a range of documentation, including that relating pupils’ attainment and progress and the management of teachers’ performance. Minutes of meetings of the governing body, the school’s self-evaluation and its improvement plans, and documents relating to the safeguarding of children were also examined.

Inspection team

Di Mullan, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Christopher Wheatley Ofsted Inspector Jeannie Haigh Ofsted Inspector