Sherwood Junior School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by:
  • developing an approach to the teaching of reading that helps the pupils to learn the full range of skills needed and which, in particular, enables the most able to develop the more-complex reading skills, and provides the pupils who find reading difficult with the knowledge that they need, such as phonics
  • ensuring that the texts which the pupils read provide a level of challenge appropriate to their abilities and stage of learning
  • ensuring that the staff demonstrate more thoroughly for the pupils the things that they expect them to learn, particularly in writing
  • utilising teaching assistants and the various ways in which the pupils are provided with additional support in a more-focused and more-systematic way
  • enabling the subject and other leaders to evaluate incisively the quality of the learning and effectiveness of the teaching in their areas of responsibility.
• Enable the governing body to evaluate the school’s work more effectively, including, for example, the use of the pupil premium, so that it is able to hold the senior leaders fully to account. 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 Good

• The senior leaders demonstrate clear vision and a strong sense of purpose. They lead from the front, showing others the ways that they want the school to improve. Their priorities for improving the school are well considered, their approach to doing so is well judged and bold when it needs to be, making necessary changes progressively and quickly.
• The senior leaders have established a secure basis from which to improve the school. Essential systems and ways of working, including for safeguarding and managing the pupils’ behaviour, have been put in place, or made fit for purpose.
• The staff is responding well to the leadership. Their ambition to do the best that they can for the pupils is unequivocal. It is apparent particularly in the inclusive culture and level of care provided by the school.
• The subject and other leaders have seized the opportunities created for them by the senior leaders. They are very active in developing the curriculum in their areas of responsibility and in checking on the quality of the work done. They lack the knowledge and tools to be able to evaluate the impact of the school’s work precisely and accurately. As a result, they have more-positive views of some aspects of the school’s work than are fully warranted.
• The school provides a broad and balanced curriculum for the pupils. The curriculum is enriched by a variety of activities chosen well to reflect the needs of the community from which the pupils are drawn and to extend the pupils’ experiences. For example, a group of disadvantaged pupils is soon to visit the Houses of Parliament, others have produced cave paintings after a study visit to Creswell Crags and enjoyed a trip to the seaside. The pupils relish these opportunities.
• The spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of the pupils is good. The school broadens the pupils’ horizons, encourages them successfully to be reflective and self-aware, and develops their sense of right and wrong.
• The school uses additional funding from the pupil premium and the physical education (PE) and sport premium to ensure that the pupils can take part in the broad range of opportunities provided by the curriculum.
• The pupil premium funding and the funding for the pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities are used to provide a good range of additional support for the eligible pupils. The support is provided somewhat haphazardly, however, and so it does not have enough impact on the pupils’ academic progress.

Governance of the school

• The governing body demonstrates a very genuine and deep-seated commitment to the pupils. Its ambition to provide the pupils with a rich educational experience and a caring and welcoming environment is realised in the school’s curriculum and in the relationships between the staff and the pupils.
• The governing body is responding well to the new opportunities being provided by the senior leaders for governors to be more active at the school than they have been.
• The governing body is not as effective as it needs to be in holding the senior leaders to account, particularly for the academic progress of the various groups of pupils at the school.
• The governing body does not evaluate the impact of the school’s use of external funding such as the pupil premium and the funding for the pupils with SEN and/or disabilities, thoroughly enough with regard to the academic progress of those pupils.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• The staff give safeguarding a suitably high profile. They understand and use the school’s procedures for noting concerns. They are kept up to date through regular and sufficiently frequent training about the sorts of things of which they should be aware.
• The school’s records are of good quality.
• The school works well with other agencies to provide support to any pupil who may need it. The family support worker is very effective in picking up potential needs at an early stage and then working with families and the other agencies, so that the families and the pupils get access to specialist services.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• The teaching of reading does not enable the pupils to develop all of the skills needed to reach the expected standard by the end of key stage 2. The teaching does not help the pupils sufficiently, particularly the most able, with the more-complex skills such as inference, prediction and summarising, even though the pupils are able to talk about a mnemonic used by the teachers to make the pupils aware of such things.
• The staff do not demonstrate the intended learning for the pupils consistently, for example in using good language skills and in writing. Sometimes it is done well. Sometimes it is not done at all. As a result, the pupils do not make consistent gains in learning, for example in writing.
• The staff do not give the pupils sufficient information and guidance in response to the pupils’ work and contributions in lessons to help the pupils to make the necessary improvements. This holds back the progress of the most able pupils in particular.
• Too often, the work given to the pupils, or the books that they are given to read, does not allow them to learn as much as they could. For the most able, it is often not challenging enough, while it is often too difficult for the pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities. While the topics on which these pupils are working are usually very suitable, the actual tasks are not.
• The work of the teaching assistants is not guided often enough, or precisely enough, to the particular learning that the pupils need. The teaching assistants are alert to what is happening in lessons and are keen to support the pupils, but their work is not always very focused. Their work is often most effective in supporting the behaviour of the pupils, enabling the pupils to take part in lessons appropriately.
• Generally, the pupils are keen to learn and they respond well in lessons. The best attitudes were seen when the teachers set and maintained high expectations.
• Mathematics is taught well. The teachers identify the pupils’ misconceptions quickly, intervene with a clear purpose to provide additional support when it is needed, and demonstrate carefully the things that they want the pupils to learn, such as place value.
• The pupils learn to use appropriate subject-specific vocabulary, particularly in mathematics.
• The teachers question the pupils thoughtfully, often adding further questions that prompt the pupils to think more. The pupils respond well to these challenges, including the pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities, often answering at length and explaining their reasoning.
• The teachers and teaching assistants develop strong relationships with the pupils. They give the pupils a lot of encouragement and praise. This has a markedly positive effect in keeping the pupils motivated.

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 are friendly, welcoming, and characterful individuals. They are confident and increasingly self-reliant.
• The pupils learn how to keep themselves safe. They are, for example, fully aware of the school’s fire procedures.
• The role of the family support worker is a key component of the school’s support for the pupils, along with the good relationships that the staff forge with the pupils.
• The pupils with SEN and/or disabilities and children looked after are supported well, so that they are able to be fully a part of the school community.
• The pupils show curiosity, like to learn and enjoy a challenge. They do not take enough care with the presentation of their work.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good. This is due in large part to the quality of the relationships that the staff build with the pupils.
• The school is typically calm and orderly.
• The pupils know the boundaries and understand the school’s rules. As one told an inspector, ‘They are hard rules, but we respect them.’
• In lessons, they can become inattentive and fidgety, when they lose concentration, or at times when changes in activities take rather too long.
• Incidents of serious misbehaviour, bullying or racist and homophobic behaviour are rare. The pupils know that such things are wrong and they are often prepared to deal with them themselves.
• The pupils’ attendance is improving. In particular, previously high levels of persistent absence among certain groups, such as the pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities, are now reducing.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• The pupils’ progress in reading by the end of key stage 2 has been well below average for the past few years.
• The pupils with SEN and/or disabilities and others who are weak readers lack the basic knowledge and skills, such as phonics, to read effectively.
• The disadvantaged pupils make less progress in each subject than others, though not markedly so. The differences are not reducing consistently.
• The pupils make good progress in mathematics and reasonable, though not securely good progress in writing.
• Most of the pupils are proficient readers. Often, they read fluently and with good expression. They enjoy reading, as a direct result of teaching that successfully encourages them to take pleasure in it. They do not develop the more-complex skills, such as inference and summarising, which inhibits their ability to reach the expected standard.
• The pupils’ positive attitudes to learning stand them in good stead for the next stage of their education. The current levels of their reading skills may restrict the progress that they are able to make after leaving Sherwood Junior School.

School details

Unique reference number 122501 Local authority Nottinghamshire Inspection number 10041593 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Junior School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Community 7 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 221 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher John Rees Helen Atkins, Executive Headteacher Telephone number 01623 842545 Website Email address www.sherwood.notts.sch.uk headteacher@sherwood.notts.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 8–9 May 2014

Information about this school

• The school has experienced a very difficult period since the previous inspection, involving several changes in senior leadership, which has had a marked impact on the school’s work. With the support of the local authority, the governing body entered into an agreement with another school in January 2016, which has brought stable leadership to the school.
• The school is an average-sized primary school.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is high.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities with a statement of special educational needs or an education, health and care plan is average.
• The school uses no alternative provision.
• The school meets the government floor standard for the attainment and progress of the pupils.

Information about this inspection

• The inspectors observed lessons throughout the school in all year groups. 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 and other staff at the school and with members of the governing body. They spoke with a representative of the local authority.
• They spoke with pupils in groups, in lessons and around the school.
• The inspectors checked the eight responses on Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View. They spoke with some parents at the start of the school day. They looked at the 18 responses to the staff inspection survey.
• The inspectors looked at a range of documentation, including the school’s development plan and self-evaluation, policies and records relating to safeguarding, the school’s information about the pupils’ attainment and progress, and other information about the work of the school and the governing body.

Inspection team

Clive Moss, lead inspector Susan Wilson

Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector