John Hunt Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management by:
  • developing the role of middle leaders to ensure that pupils are being taught well
  • closely monitoring the impact of the pupil premium funding so as to be able to accelerate the progress of disadvantaged pupils, including the most able disadvantaged pupils
  • further promoting the professional development of staff in order to improve the quality of teaching, particularly in key stage 1
  • ensuring that the governing body holds school leaders to account for the allocation of the pupil premium funding and for how well this improves the outcomes of disadvantaged pupils.
• Improve the quality of teaching and learning, particularly in key stage 1, by:
  • ensuring that all teachers hold high expectations for all pupils, particularly the most able pupils, and the most able disadvantaged pupils
  • using the pupils’ prior attainment to ensure that they are challenged well and make better progress
  • developing pupils’ mathematical skills to reason and problem solve
  • increasing the opportunities for pupils to develop their writing skills to become good writers.
• Improve pupils’ behaviour and pupils’ personal development and welfare by:
  • working more closely with families to improve the attendance of disadvantaged pupils
  • ensuring that pupils quickly respond to the instructions of adults in key stage 1 classes
  • encouraging more pupils to present their work as neatly as they can.
• Improve the quality of teaching and learning in the early years by:
  • extending the children’s vocabulary to develop their speaking skills
  • developing the children’s letter formation to improve their writing skills. 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

• Leaders have not ensured that the quality of teaching is consistently good across the school. Previously, leaders had not managed the performance of teachers well enough. Consequently, pupils’ progress in key stage 2 in 2015 for all subjects was poor.
• Leaders have not sufficiently improved the quality of teaching in key stage 1. The most able pupils, including the most able disadvantaged pupils, are not challenged well enough because the teachers’ expectations are too low. The outcomes at the end of 2016 for all subjects at the end of key stage 1 were well below the national outcomes.
• Middle leaders have started to check on the quality of teaching and learning. However, they are not checking frequently enough to see whether their advice is improving the quality of teaching. There is still too much teaching that requires improvement.
• Previously, leaders had not regularly analysed the progress of disadvantaged pupils or allocated the pupil premium funding well to accelerate the progress of this group of pupils. Consequently, there are still some wide differences between the outcomes of disadvantaged pupils and those of the other pupils in most year groups. However, these differences are now diminishing.
• School leaders and the governing body commissioned a review of pupil premium funding in April 2016, following a recommendation from the local authority. Leaders have responded well to the review and the funding is now closely targeted to meet the learning needs of disadvantaged pupils. These pupils are now making good progress from their different starting points, with many making accelerated progress through the school.
• The acting headteacher has led the school well during the last 11 months. She has been determined to improve the quality of teaching. She, and the able assistant headteachers, have raised teachers’ expectations of pupils’ progress. Consequently, the proportion of inadequate teaching has reduced markedly.
• The school leaders have promoted the professional development of teachers well. Teachers have had extensive support to improve their practice. In addition, the appraisal process to manage the performance of teachers is now robust. As a result, the quality of teaching is improving rapidly and the progress that current pupils are making, particularly in key stage 2, is good. Staff morale is good.
• The school has implemented a new curriculum and pupils are achieving well in many curriculum areas. The pupils in Year 4 have investigated the viscosity of liquids in science. The curriculum is complemented by residential visits and extra-curricular activities that promote football, netball and hockey.
• Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is promoted well. Pupils are pen pals with pupils in Gambia, and have raised money to help buy furniture to set up a school in Gambia. The Year 5 pupils lead a Remembrance Day service each year to remember those who have lost their lives in wars.
• The school promotes British values, such as democracy, well. The pupils understand how democracy works through voting for representatives on the school council. Pupils enjoyed their recent Diwali workshops where some made diyas (lamps). However, school leaders recognise that pupils need to have more contact with people from different religions to develop further their knowledge of other religions.
• The school has used the physical education and sport premium funding well to increase the participation levels of pupils in sport, particularly disadvantaged pupils. The school is part of a local cluster of schools and this enables the pupils to participate in competitive sports. The school has had recent success in the local hockey and netball tournaments.
• The coordinator of special educational needs and/or disabilities works well with families and outside agencies to meet the needs of pupils. The leader has recently worked with a specialist leader of education to develop a clear process for the identification of pupils who have special educational needs. This process is in line with the code of practice for special educational needs. The coordinator has reviewed the provision of special educational needs to ensure that only the intervention programmes that accelerate pupils’ progress are being implemented. As a result, pupils are making good progress through the school.
• The large majority of parents are positive about the school. The views expressed on Parent View, or in speaking to the inspectors, showed that parents appreciate the contact that they have with teachers and leaders. In addition, most parents are happy with the information that they receive about their child’s progress.
• The local authority has taken decisive action to improve the school. The adviser raised concerns with the chair of the governing body and ordered a review of the school in late 2015. Following the review, the local authority put in extensive support to improve the leadership of the school and the quality of teaching. Consequently, both leadership and teaching are improving.
• The local authority adviser and the consultant headteacher have provided good expertise to ensure that systems to monitor the performance of teachers are leading to improvements in the quality of teaching. The support now given to improve leadership has reduced because the local authority correctly identifies that the leaders are now capable of leading the school by themselves. The local authority recognises that more support is needed to develop middle leadership, and the quality of teaching to ensure that it is consistently good across the school.

Governance of the school

• The governing body has not held senior leaders to account well enough until recently. Governors had not checked that systems for the performance management of teachers were in place. The governing body has also not checked closely how the pupil premium funding had been allocated and the impact it was having on raising the performance of the disadvantaged groups. These pupils have underachieved at the school. A review of governance is recommended, to improve governors’ monitoring of the work of school leaders, particularly in relation to the monitoring of the pupil premium funding.
• More recently, the governing body has challenged senior leaders well about the performance management of teachers and the quality of teaching. Minutes of recent meetings record the governors asking pertinent questions about school improvement and following issues up at subsequent meetings.
• The chair of the governing body has led the governing body well through recent times and shows a good insight into the current development of the school. He has liaised well with the local authority to make improvements at the school. He regularly visits the school, speaks to pupils and leads assemblies. New governors receive effective training and are made aware of the school improvement priorities quickly. Consequently, the governing body has become increasingly effective in its role.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. All the necessary checks have been made on the adults who work with the children.
• Leaders are very knowledgeable about the needs of pupils and families and have good relationships with parents. They work extensively with a range of agencies, including the school nurse and social care, to help safeguard pupils. Leaders’ record-keeping is detailed and of high quality. Before every multi-agency meeting, staff prepare reports about the pupils to inform all the agencies about the needs of each pupil.
• Training for staff is comprehensive. New staff receive effective training upon arrival at the school and know how to respond to a safeguarding concern about a pupil. The staff know the school’s whistle-blowing procedures. Many staff have completed training in the ‘Prevent’ duty to help safeguard pupils from being at risk of radicalisation.
• The school responds quickly to any safeguarding concerns. Following an issue with social media concerning some pupils in key stage 2, a letter was sent out to parents to inform them of the issue. This was followed by a workshop for parents who wanted more advice about how to help their child stay safe when using modern technology.
• The school site manager maintains the school site very well. The outdoor environment is well kept and the classrooms are clean and tidy.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• Teachers, when planning lessons, do not check consistently what pupils already know. They do not regularly ensure that the work is set at the right level to meet pupils’ needs. As a result, the most able pupils are not challenged as well as they could be, particularly in key stage 1.
• The pupils’ writing skills are not developed well enough. The teachers do not give enough opportunities for the pupils to develop their writing skills across the curriculum. Teachers’ expectations of how much writing pupils can produce are too low.
• The pupils are becoming confident in completing written mathematical calculations. The school’s calculation policy is followed through the school. However, pupils are not being given enough opportunities to develop their mathematical reasoning skills to deepen their knowledge further, except in Year 6. Consequently, pupils are not challenged well enough in mathematics, particularly the most able.
• The less able pupils in Year 1 struggle to read because their phonic knowledge is underdeveloped. Some of these pupils are not heard to read frequently enough to develop their fluency in reading. In addition, adults do not always insist that pupils, when reading in lessons, clearly pronounce the sounds of words to develop the pupils’ reading skills.
• However, the school does promote reading well for most pupils. The pupils read expressively and talk confidently about their reading. The pupils respond enthusiastically to group and class reading sessions and discuss the texts outside their reading lessons. The teachers promote good-quality texts, such as ‘Warhorse’, and one pupil said, ‘It’s just brilliant.’
• Pupils’ use of grammar in their writing is promoted well. The pupils in Year 4 were confident in using idioms in their work. The pupils in Year 6 could identify poor grammar and could correct it by themselves.
• When teachers have high expectations, the pupils produce work of good quality. The pupils in Year 6 were challenged well to use their knowledge of angles to solve mathematical problems. In addition, the teachers deployed the teaching assistants well to support the learning of the disadvantaged pupils. Consequently, all pupils, including the disadvantaged, were making good progress.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Requires improvement

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare requires improvement.
• Not all pupils in the school take pride in their work. Pupils’ books can be untidy. The pupils’ handwriting is not fluent and some work can be difficult to read.
• Some pupils in key stage 1 do not display positive attitudes to learning. They do not focus well on the learning and therefore do not make as much progress as they should.
• The pupils are well informed about how to stay safe. All pupils have been taught about fire safety. The pupils know not to put their personal details online and to tell an adult if they receive a message that worries them. Older pupils are taught about the dangers of drug misuse.
• The school encourages pupils to be healthy. In Year 4, pupils have looked closely at the effects of tooth decay and how they can try to avoid this.
• The pupils say that bullying does not happen frequently and they are confident that the teachers would help them if they had a problem.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils requires improvement.
• Some pupils in key stage 1 do not consistently respond quickly enough to instructions from adults. Consequently, learning time is reduced and the rate of pupils’ progress slows.
• The attendance of disadvantaged pupils is lower than the national attendance for all pupils. In addition, the number of disadvantaged pupils who are persistently absent is too high. The school leaders are working with families and external agencies to improve the attendance of pupils. Consequently, the attendance of this group has improved rapidly more recently.
• At lunchtimes and breaktimes, pupils cooperate well and the playground is orderly. The ‘lunch bunch’ organises games for younger pupils, which ensures that more pupils are keeping active.
• The school’s behaviour log shows relatively few incidents of poor behaviour. Pupils are given reflection time to think about their misbehaviour. As a result, there are few repeat incidents of poor behaviour. Moreover, the school works well with different agencies to support those pupils at risk of exclusion. Consequently, the behaviour of this group of pupils has improved and exclusions have reduced.
• Pupils work well with each other in lessons. The pupils in Year 1 supported each other well when learning to read. They ensured that their partner read the sounds and words correctly. The pupils are very polite, open doors for each other and socialise well.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Outcomes at the end of key stage 1 have been consistently broadly average. However, the outcomes for pupils in 2016 were well below the national outcomes for all pupils in reading, writing and mathematics. The outcomes for disadvantaged pupils were also well below the outcomes achieved by other pupils nationally.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils who are on track to meet the expected standards in reading, writing and mathematics, in the current Year 2 cohort, is higher than the current national average for other pupils.
• Outcomes at the end of key stage 2 in writing were low in 2016. The progress made by pupils through key stage 2 was below the national average in writing.
• Pupils’ progress in key stage 2 for reading and mathematics was broadly average in 2016. The proportion of pupils who achieved highly in reading at the end of key stage 2 was higher than the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who attained the expected standard in English, grammar, punctuation and spelling was equal to the national average at the end of key stage 2 in 2016. The proportion of pupils who achieved highly in the same test was just above the national average.
• The school’s current performance information indicates that good progress is being made by the vast majority of pupils in all year groups in key stage 2 in reading, writing and mathematics. Those pupils’ books that inspectors looked at confirmed this to be the case.
• Disadvantaged pupils did make more progress than other pupils nationally in reading and mathematics through key stage 2 in 2016. However, the school’s tracking information shows that, currently, there are wide differences between the outcomes of disadvantaged pupils and those of others in many year groups. However, the progress of most of the disadvantaged pupils from their starting points is good, with many making accelerated progress.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities make good progress in reading and mathematics in key stage 2. In addition, this group scored well in the spelling test at the end of key stage 2 in 2016. The current school tracking information shows that this group of pupils are making good progress.
• The outcomes in the Year 1 phonics check in 2016 improved to be just below the national average. The proportion of disadvantaged pupils who passed the check was above that for other pupils nationally.

Early years provision Requires improvement

• The quality of teaching in the early years is not consistently good. Adults do not help to develop the children’s speaking skills well enough. They do not use the opportunities in the curriculum to widen the children’s vocabulary and to encourage the children to speak in full sentences. The proportion of children who are currently working at age-related expectations for communication, language and literacy is low.
• The children’s letter formation is not as well developed as it should be. Consequently, the proportion of children who are working at age-related expectations for writing is low.
• The most able children are not being challenged well enough in the Reception class. Consequently, some of the children do not focus on their learning as well as they should and do not make the progress of which they are capable.
• Although the proportion of children who achieved the early learning goals rose significantly last year, the difference between the attainment of disadvantaged children and that of others was too wide. The early years pupil premium funding had not been targeted well enough to diminish the difference.
• Following the school review of pupil premium funding, disadvantaged children in the early years are now being tracked more closely and support is in place to promote their language skills.
• Children get off to a good start in Nursery. The school staff make home visits to ensure that they have as much information about each child as possible. The children learn new routines and display good learning behaviours both indoors and outdoors. The children were observed making a stage independently so they could perform a dance. Other children were baking cakes in the mud kitchen or collecting leaves to make shapes, such as triangles and squares. Most children make good progress in Nursery from their starting points.
• The learning environment in the Reception class enables the children to access a wide range of activities to promote their learning. The children were making lunch for each other and then sharing books. Other children were painting a picture of a bonfire, trying to match the colours displayed on a bonfire image. The adults capture the children’s learning well in detailed ‘learning journeys’, which cover all aspects of the curriculum. The school predicts that more children will reach a good level of development in 2017 than previously.
• The early years leader is well aware of the strengths and weaknesses in the provision and is continuing to put in support to improve the quality of teaching. The leader works well with other providers to moderate children’s work to ensure that the school’s assessments are accurate. She is knowledgeable and her leadership impacted well on the outcomes at the end of Reception in 2016. As a result, more children were better prepared to start Year 1.
• The early years leader works closely with the school’s special educational needs coordinator to meet the needs of the children when they first start at the school. The school works well with a range of external agencies. Parents spoke positively about how the needs of their children have been met by the school.
• Parents speak highly of the liaison between them and school. The children settle quickly into school routines and parents appreciate the opportunities that they have to speak to school staff regarding any questions they have. In addition, the parents have responded positively to being able to contribute to their child’s learning journey online in the Reception class. This has ensured that the learning journeys are more accurately reflecting the children’s development.
• The school’s safeguarding procedures are effective in the early years. The school has safeguarding policies in place which preclude the use of mobile phones in the setting. Members of the school staff have paediatric first-aid training.

School details

Unique reference number 122614 Local authority Nottinghamshire Inspection number 10019130 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 Community 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 441 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Acting headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Mark Roberts Lisa Mole 01636 682007 www.johnhuntprimary.co.uk head@johnhunt.notts.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 9–10 July 2013

Information about this school

• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• John Hunt Primary School is larger than the average-sized primary school.
• Most pupils are White British. The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic groups is lower than the national average and very few speak English as an additional language.
• The proportion of pupils who receive support for their special education needs and/or disabilities is below the national average. The proportion of pupils who have a statement of special educational needs or an education, health and care plan is also low compared with the national average.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils for whom the pupil premium funding provides support is broadly the same as the national average.
• The school’s previous substantive headteacher has since left the school. The acting headteacher has been in charge of the school for the past 11 months.
• The school accesses support from the Candleby Lane Teaching School Alliance.
• In 2015, the school did not meet the government’s floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils’ outcomes and progress in English and mathematics by the end of Year 6.

Information about this inspection

• The inspectors observed parts of 23 lessons, some jointly with the acting headteacher.
• The inspectors looked at pupils’ work in a range of subjects.
• The inspectors met groups of pupils from key stages 1 and 2. The inspectors also observed pupils at breaktimes and lunchtimes. The inspectors also listened to the less able and most-able pupils reading.
• Meetings were held with the acting headteacher, the assistant headteachers, middle leaders, the consultant headteacher, and two members of the governing body, including the chair of the governing body. The inspectors also spoke by telephone to an adviser from the local authority.
• The inspectors spoke to parents at the start of the school day and to the parents of children from Nursery at the end of the morning session. In addition, the inspectors also considered the 31 responses to the online Ofsted questionnaire Parent View, and the 27 text messages sent to the Ofsted free-text service.
• The inspectors also considered the 48 responses to the staff survey.
• The inspectors looked at a range of documentation including: the school improvement plan; the school’s self-evaluation; the acting headteacher’s reports to the governing body; the minutes of governing body meetings; the school’s most recent information on pupils’ achievement; and information relating to teaching, appraisal, behaviour, attendance and safeguarding.

Inspection team

Martin Finch, lead inspector Gill Weston Lindsay Alldis Fiona Parr Su Plant

Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector