Paston Ridings Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by:
  • ensuring that the school’s curriculum is more precise about what teachers in every year group should be teaching in each subject
  • ensuring that teachers assess pupils’ progress accurately against the school’s curriculum
  • giving teachers more opportunity to observe the best practice in the school.
• Continue to develop strategies to improve overall attendance.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• Since the previous inspection, the headteacher has worked with senior leaders and governors to bring about a significant improvement in the quality of teaching, learning and assessment. This is the result of effective improvement planning based on accurate self-evaluation. This has led to better outcomes for pupils.
• Leaders and governors successfully make clear to pupils and staff the high expectations that they have for academic achievement and behaviour. This means that staff, parents and carers and pupils have a clear understanding of these expectations.
• Leaders have clear expectations of how teachers should teach. This is well understood by teachers. Teachers now consistently base the work they provide for pupils on what pupils already know and can do.
• Monitoring of teaching by senior leaders is rigorous and thorough. This has helped new teachers to integrate quickly, and provides effective advice and support for more experienced teachers. Leaders manage the performance of staff well. Pay progression for teachers is linked to how well pupils achieve.
• Leaders’ spending of the pupil premium funding to support disadvantaged pupils is effective. Recent improvements in the consistency of teaching have significantly benefited these pupils, and the difference between their own progress and that of other pupils has diminished as a consequence.
• The primary physical education and sport premium is spent effectively. Specialist sports coaches are employed to model expertise to teachers, who reported that they are more confident and effective in their teaching as a consequence. A particular benefit has been the widening of pupils’ experiences of different sports such as volleyball, cricket and tag rugby.
• Leaders support the development of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural education well. Pupils learn about their wider role in modern Britain through assemblies and the broader curriculum, and reflect this in the way they conduct themselves, and support each other, in school. As well as having the opportunity to stand for election to the school council, pupils serve as house captains, play leaders and buddies for newcomers to the school who speak English as an additional language. These pupils value the support and friendship of another pupil who speaks their home language. Leaders have ensured that pupils rarely treat each other with prejudice in spite of the wide variety of backgrounds that they come from, and that effective action is taken if this happens.
• The education of pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities is well led. Funding for this group of pupils is spent effectively. The special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) ensures that support is in place for these pupils to make good progress from their starting points.
• Responsibility for subject leadership is widely shared by a number of teachers who ensure that the school’s curriculum is broad and balanced. They can talk accurately about the work that pupils produce in their subjects. However, they are sometimes imprecise about what pupils are expected to achieve in each year group. This means that assessments of pupils’ work can sometimes be inaccurate.
• Most teachers have fully adopted leaders’ improvement strategies. They teach well. Some teachers, however, do not teach as well as the best because they are not yet aware of what they could do to improve their practice.

Governance of the school

• Leaders and governors work well together. Leaders provide governors with clear information about standards in the school, and governors challenge leaders to ensure that standards continue to rise for all pupils.
• Governors are able accurately to explain the improvements to teaching and learning that have taken place as a consequence of school improvement planning since the previous inspection. They are well aware of the next steps that leaders must take to ensure that the school continues to improve.
• Governors visit the school regularly to satisfy themselves that improvement is taking place. They are rightly proud of the improvements in pupils’ behaviour in recent years and the impact that these have had on the atmosphere of the school and the better outcomes that pupils now enjoy.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Leaders are rigorous in the way that they support pupils to be safe in and outside of school. Where pupils are vulnerable, leaders respond decisively to their needs. They engage with parents and agencies outside school to ensure that all appropriate actions are taken.
• Governors are clear about the school’s duty to ensure that pupils are safe. A member of the governing body takes specific responsibility for this and keeps the full governing body informed about how well leaders manage safeguarding.
• School leaders responsible for safeguarding keep their own qualifications up to date. They ensure that all staff receive regular training to make sure that their knowledge is current and effective.
• Leaders maintain records that enable any appropriate member of staff to have access to up-to-date and detailed information about any case. These records are stored securely.
• All necessary checks are undertaken on new staff members and volunteers to ensure that pupils are safe in school.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• The quality of teaching, learning and assessment has improved since the previous inspection. This is because leaders have accurately evaluated weaknesses in the school and addressed them decisively.
• In class, pupils show respect for their teachers and fellow pupils. This has come about because of the consistent approach that teachers have applied to behaviour management in response to the higher expectations of the school’s leaders. Pupils now concentrate more on learning than they used to.
• The calm and orderly learning environment promotes incisive questioning from teachers and supports dialogue between staff and pupils that helps pupils to make progress. For example, in a Year 3 mathematics lesson about money, pupils were able to engage in a challenging discussion about the importance of money in society, and how to treat it wisely and responsibly.
• High standards of reading support learning across the school. In the early years, children are encouraged to associate reading with fun, such as their activities based on the story of the ‘Three little pigs’. Pupils make good progress in their phonic skills in key stage 1. It is common to see pupils in key stage 2 continuing to apply these skills when, for example, given challenging questions in mathematics, or when reading and discussing demanding texts in English.
• A broad and balanced curriculum enables pupils to improve their work over time. For example, Year 4 art books show new skills helping pupils to progress onto their next piece of artwork. Similarly, in French in Year 6, inspectors saw pupils being encouraged to use increasingly sophisticated vocabulary to improve their conversation skills.
• Leaders have worked hard to ensure that the curriculum effectively serves the wide variety of ethnic and social backgrounds of their pupils. For example, the school’s curriculum takes account of the needs of the many pupils who have recently entered the school in the early stages of learning English. These pupils are provided with the necessary support to help them to become proficient in English sufficiently quickly for them to begin to make progress in their learning.
• Pupils generally take a pride in the presentation of their work.
• When leaders make clear what pupils should be learning, teachers usually ensure that most pupils, and particularly disadvantaged pupils, cover the correct topic and make good progress. Sometimes, however, leaders do not make the curriculum content as clear as they could. As a consequence, teachers do not always make sure that pupils cover as much ground as leaders intended. Sometimes, teachers do not address pupils’ misconceptions, because they do not always know what they should have learned.
• Teachers typically provide a range of learning activities that reflect the different starting points of their pupils. This approach has been applied with increasing consistency across the school by leaders. They monitor its implementation and impact closely. Pupils now make better progress because more of them are given challenging activities that are neither too hard nor too easy. In some subjects, in some year groups, there is still more to do to ensure that work consistently and closely matches the needs of different pupils.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Pupils are confident and polite in the way that they speak to adults and each other.
• The school has developed an ethos of mutual support in which pupils help each other in class and in the playground. Pupils are conscious that they have different starting points, sometimes linked to their early stage of learning English, and are often sensitive in the way they support each other in class.
• Pupils said that they feel safe in school because they know that they can ask adults for help. They described how the school helps them to stay safe outside school too, particularly when using the internet.
• Pupils said that bullying is rare and is dealt with well by staff. The school’s records of bullying and other incidents are consistent with this.
• The school has prioritised the provision of a team of well-resourced staff who ensure that any concerns relating to a pupil’s welfare are taken seriously and dealt with effectively, seeking help from outside school if necessary. This means that vulnerable pupils are well protected.
• The school encourages pupils to live healthily. Pupils enjoy a wide range of sports in school and have the opportunity to enjoy sports clubs at lunchtime and after school. Many pupils regularly have the opportunity to take part in the ‘Daily Mile’ challenge, during which they jog for fifteen minutes.
• Attendance of pupils is persistently below the national average. This is exacerbated by a high level of pupil turnover because pupils new to the school have not yet experienced the wide range of strategies employed by the school to promote attendance. Pupils’ attendance usually improves over time because leaders work diligently to improve attendance.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Pupils mostly behave well in class, and are almost always keen to engage with the tasks their teachers have given them.
• Pupils’ behaviour at breaktimes and in the playground is good. Pupils play well together but are confident that any conflict will be dealt with quickly and effectively by staff. Senior leaders are always on hand at breaktimes to support staff with the consistent application of behaviour management policies.
• Leaders keep accurate records of any incidents of misbehaviour so that pupils can be supported where necessary to maintain the school’s usual orderly environment.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• From their low starting points at the beginning of Year 1, pupils make good progress in each of reading, writing and mathematics in key stage 1.
• While the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in the Year 1 phonics screening check was also below the national average in 2017, this figure is improving, because of the high quality of phonics teaching.
• The proportion of pupils achieving greater depth at the end of Year 2 in reading, writing and mathematics was also below the national average in 2017, but still represented good progress from pupils’ starting points.
• In key stage 2, pupils’ progress in each of reading, writing and mathematics has improved in recent years and was in line with the national average for pupils with similar starting points in 2017.
• While key stage 2 attainment was low in each of reading, writing, mathematics and English grammar, punctuation and spelling, these results improved compared with those of previous years for the proportion of pupils at the expected and higher standards.
• The progress of disadvantaged pupils is improving when compared with that of other pupils in the school and other pupils nationally with similar starting points. This is because recent improvements in the consistency of teaching, and the push to match pupils’ learning more accurately to their starting points, have significantly benefited disadvantaged pupils.
• Pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities make good progress. This is because effective leadership ensures that their needs are accurately assessed and that they are provided with the necessary support to achieve the school’s high expectations of them.
• The high-quality teaching of phonics in the early years and key stage 1 has created a reading culture in the school that promotes pupils’ confidence with written text across the whole curriculum. Pupils are expected to read instructions and follow them, and they rise to these high expectations.
• Recent improvements in teaching strategies have enabled the most able pupils to be challenged more effectively from their higher starting points. For example, one Year 6 pupil was challenged to deepen his understanding of 3D shapes by being asked to identify shapes from an increasingly complex collection of nets.

Early years provision

• Children make good progress in the early years. Even though the proportion of children who reached a good level of development declined in 2017, accurate assessments carried out by the school at the beginning of Reception show that children made good progress from very low starting points.
• The early years is managed well. Children are regularly assessed, and these assessments are used effectively to plan learning for children that helps them to make good progress.
• The quality of teaching, learning and assessment in the early years is good. Children are encouraged to read using a wide range of engaging resources. Staff watch them closely to encourage them to make progress. Mathematical activities encourage children to develop an understanding of concepts such as ‘one more than’ or ‘one less than’.
• Leaders deploy adults well. Adults use questioning effectively to encourage children to think about what they are learning and to explore different solutions to problem solving. They support children to engage in early-writing skills effectively.
• Children learn happily in a calm environment. They are comfortable to speak to each other in a friendly manner, and confidently include adults in their conversation. Even when they are involved in an activity without direct adult supervision, children apply themselves to the activity purposefully, taking turns and sharing.
• Children are safe in the early years. Adults supervise them carefully. The good relationships between adults and children mean that children can express any concerns to adults if they need to.
• The school identifies children who have areas of learning that require additional support, often associated with communication and language, and supports them well.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 110778 Peterborough 10044752 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Primary Community 4 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 485 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Joanne Evans Joanna Cook 01733 762742 www.pastonridingsschool.co.uk admin@pastonridings.peterborough.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 11–12 May 2016

Information about this school

• The school is much bigger than the average-sized primary school.
• The proportion of pupils supported by the pupil premium is much higher than average.
• The proportion of pupils whose first language is not believed to be English is much higher than average.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities and require SEN support is slightly higher than average.
• The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of Year 6.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed 27 lessons or parts of lessons, including in Reception, key stage 1 and key stage 2.
• Meetings were held with the headteacher and other leaders, pupils, governors and staff. Inspectors spoke with pupils throughout the day and with parents before school in the morning. The lead inspector spoke with an educational adviser from the local authority.
• Inspectors took into account 24 responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View.
• A range of documents was examined, including the school’s impact plan and self-evaluation, safeguarding policies and records, and senior leaders’ records of the quality of teaching.
• Inspectors looked at the work in pupils’ exercise books. They listened to them read and talked to them about their work.
• Inspectors looked at the school’s assessment data.

Inspection team

Richard Hopkins, lead inspector Mark Carter-Tufnell Paul Copping

Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector