Moss Hall Junior School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve leadership and management by:
  • being more rigorous in the accuracy of self-evaluation and increasing the pace of change
  • providing a clear strategy for checking pupils’ progress, and for evaluating and improving pupils’ outcomes
  • ensuring that governors routinely check the appropriateness and effectiveness of leaders’ plans to improve the school
  • ensuring that the pupil premium funding is used effectively
  • ensuring that all pupils talk to each other appropriately and respectfully
  • improving communication with parents, particularly the parents of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities.
• Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by:
  • ensuring that teachers take account of pupils’ learning needs, particularly those who have SEN and/or disabilities
  • ensuring that teachers have consistently high expectations of all pupils, particularly in mathematics
  • ensuring that staff use appropriate strategies to challenge pupils to achieve their best, especially the most able pupils
  • eradicating low-level disruption in the classroom, especially of boys, so that it does not impede other pupils’ learning.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management

Requires improvement

• Leaders have not responded urgently enough to areas of the school requiring rapid improvement. They do not have an accurate enough understanding of the areas that need to be addressed. While leaders have developed an action plan to improve the quality of teaching, this is based on what other schools are doing rather than what is needed for the pupils at this school.
• Leaders have not communicated their vision for improving the school clearly enough to staff and parents. For instance, they have introduced a weekly teaching and learning focus, but this is not followed consistently by all staff.
• Arrangements for checking pupils’ progress are not accurate enough. As a result, leaders are not confident about how well current pupils are doing. Therefore, they are not able to ensure that all pupils make the progress of which they are capable.
• Disadvantaged pupils achieve less well than their peers and pupils nationally. Although leaders have a plan to improve their progress, it is the same as in previous years when it had limited effect. They do not check that additional funding for this group is used wisely.
• Leaders have managed a period of staffing instability well. A high proportion of staff have left the school over the past two years. Staffing is now more stable. The leadership team has been strengthened with the appointment of a new assistant headteacher and a consultant to support the improvement of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities.
• There has been some improvement in communication between leaders and parents of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities, and systems for supporting this group have also improved. However, there is still more work to be done to ensure that communication is consistently strong.
• Leaders have implemented a broad curriculum, covering a range of subjects. Pupils study English, mathematics and science in depth. In other subjects, work is not always challenging enough.
• Pupils enjoy Physical Education (PE), and they have access to the school’s swimming pool. Leaders record how they use the additional PE and sport premium funding, but they do not routinely measure its impact.
• Provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is planned well across the curriculum. Pupils are offered a wide range of extra-curricular activities. They enjoy visiting local places of interest, such as museums and places of worship. This deepens their appreciation of life in modern Britain.

Governance of the school

• Governors are positive and supportive. They want the school to improve. However, they are not given sufficient information to hold leaders to account effectively.
• Governors do not routinely check the appropriateness and effectiveness of leaders’ plans to improve the school.
• Governors are aware that disadvantaged pupils do not achieve as well as their peers. They are keen for this to improve but have not evaluated how well the pupil premium funding is used. Plans that have not been effective in the past are being used again this year.
• Governors have recently introduced governor-parent workshops. The workshops cover a range of issues, including secondary transition and the school’s approach to homework. Parents find the workshops helpful in supporting their children’s education.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Leaders take their responsibility to safeguard pupils seriously. Staff recruitment procedures are robust, and leaders maintain up-to-date records of those currently employed in the school.
• Staff receive regular training. They know how to keep pupils safe and follow the school’s procedures for recording and passing on concerns. Leaders keep accurate records, and their communication with external agencies is strong. Leaders take swift action and make timely referrals, when required.
• Pupils are taught how to stay safe in school, when they are outside and when they are online. They are also taught how to keep others safe. Pupils say that they feel safe. Parents and staff echo this view.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• The quality of teaching, learning and assessment across the school requires improvement. Teachers’ expectations of pupils are variable. This prevents them from making consistently good progress.
• Teachers do not routinely consider the needs of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities. This is because they do not always have the information they need. In some lessons, the information they have is used well, and teaching assistants are deployed effectively to work with pupils on a one-to-one basis. However, this is not always the case.
• Teachers’ explanations are sometimes unclear. Consequently, pupils are not always sure about what they need to do, and then they make avoidable mistakes.
• Teachers sometimes use questioning to check and develop pupils’ understanding, but this is not typical. Teachers tend to move on to new topics without being certain that all pupils have mastered the initial learning point. Some pupils become lost in their learning, and, subsequently, fall behind.
• Leaders have recently changed their approach to teaching mathematics and now give additional time for pupils to consolidate their skills. Although all staff were trained in this approach last year, the training has not been provided to new staff. Consequently, there is an inconsistent approach to teaching mathematics across the school. In particular, work is sometimes too easy for the most able pupils, which hinders their progress.
• Leaders have introduced a more accurate way of checking the quality of teaching. They visit lessons more frequently. These visits include more robust scrutiny of work in pupils’ books.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Requires improvement

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare requires improvement.
• Leaders have introduced assembly themes promoting values such as respect and equality. However, they do not routinely monitor the impact that this has on pupils’ personal development and well-being.
• Parents who spoke to inspectors, and those who responded to Parent View, Ofsted’s online survey, had mixed views about their children’s experience of school and how situations are dealt with by staff.
• Pupils typically enjoy positive relationships with each other. However, some pupils do not speak to, or treat each other, with enough respect. The school’s behaviour policy is underpinned by three key principles: respect, learning and safety. Staff and pupils understand the policy, but it is not always adhered to.
• Pupils do not always take pride in their work. This is because what teachers expect from them is too variable.
• Pupils are taught how to stay safe in a range of situations, and how to help each other stay safe, including when online.
• Pupils say that they enjoy school, particularly the extra-curricular activities on offer. They are clear about who they can talk to should they have a concern. Pupils value the positive relationships that they have with school staff.

Behaviour

• Pupils’ behaviour requires improvement.
• There is occasional low-level disruption by boys in some lessons. Pupils say that this affects their learning. Some pupils told inspectors that this disrupts their education too often.
• Teachers’ expectations of pupils are not consistently high. Pupils are not always sufficiently challenged. When work is too easy, pupils complete it quickly and can become distracted.
• Pupils attend school regularly, and few are persistently absent. Pupils are punctual at the beginning of the day. However, after breaktimes and lunchtimes, pupils move slowly to their lessons.

Outcomes for pupils

Requires improvement

• Pupils’ progress is variable and requires improvement. Pupils’ provisional key stage 2 results for 2018 are similar to 2017, when progress in mathematics was below that of pupils nationally.
• Work in pupils’ books shows that pupils make some progress over time, but this is too variable. Pupils do not develop their knowledge and skills as effectively as they should, in a range of subjects including mathematics.
• The most able pupils are not given sufficient challenge across a broad range of subjects and this hinders their progress. Disadvantaged pupils and pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities do not achieve as well as their peers.
• Leaders have a plan to improve the quality of teaching. It is beginning to work in some areas. For example, standards in writing are improving, and more pupils are able to write at a greater depth than previously. This trend of improvement in writing has been sustained for three years.
• Leaders have recently introduced a whole school reading scheme. Some pupils are benefiting from reading books that are well matched to their ability. This has improved their reading comprehension skills.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 101294 Barnet 10056180 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 Maintained 7 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 468 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Mrs Kim Politzer Mrs Patricia Flinn 020 8445 7965 www.mosshalljunior.org.uk office@mosshalljnr.barnetmail.net Date of previous inspection 18 April 2018

Information about this school

• Moss Hall Junior School is a larger-than-average junior school.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is in line with the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who have a SEN statement or education, health and care (EHC) plan is above that of other schools.
• The proportion of pupils who speak English as a second language is above that of other schools.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors visited lessons to observe teaching and learning across a range of subjects. More than half of these observations were undertaken jointly with school leaders.
• Inspectors reviewed pupils’ learning over time through scrutiny of pupils’ books, during visits to classrooms and in a meeting with school leaders. Inspectors also spoke with pupils about their experiences at the school, and they listened to pupils read from Years 4, 5 and 6.
• Meetings were held with leaders to discuss their evaluation of the school’s effectiveness and the impact of their work. Discussions were held with members of staff, including those at the early stages of their teaching career.
• Inspectors discussed aspects of the school’s work with governors and the local authority officer who is linked to the school.
• The inspection team reviewed a range of documentation, including information about pupils’ progress and attainment, the curriculum, teaching and learning, safeguarding records and procedures, behaviour records and attendance information.
• Inspectors spoke to parents informally before and after school, and they took account of 228 responses to Parent View, Ofsted’s online survey for parents. Inspectors also considered the 27 responses to the staff survey, and 67 responses to the pupil survey.

Inspection team

Niall Gallagher, lead inspector David Bryant Dawn Titus

Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector