Crofton Junior School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Extend the work under way to improve the curriculum by:
  • reviewing and, where possible, expanding further still the substance and range of learning activities across subjects, most particularly in art, geography and religious education
  • clarifying the purposes and place of educational visits and fieldwork.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

• Senior leaders from the school and trust work very well together. They are practical and get things done quickly. Their roles are complementary and clearly defined. The school is driven by their shared moral purpose, thoughtfulness and dedication.
• Leaders evaluate the school positively and accurately. This, together with their well-constructed vision, enables them to set a precise direction for school development. The school has suitable plans and management systems, but the main driver is the energy and focus of leaders and staff.
• The school develops new leaders very well. Many members of staff have grown their skills, and level of responsibility, within the school and trust.
• The performance management of staff is very effective. Adults feel motivated and well supported. Leaders make excellent arrangements for training and developing their team’s practice. Newly qualified teachers are well supported.
• The school spends its pupil premium funding carefully and effectively. Disadvantaged pupils achieve very well as a result.
• The school’s provision for pupils with SEND is very well managed, and these pupils fare well. Parents are pleased. A few comment that communications from the school deteriorated during a recent changeover of staff members.
• Leaders look outwards. They are keen to gain insights from external expertise, including that in other schools. Staff from many schools visit Crofton to learn. The school works very effectively with the infant school to ensure pupils’ continuity of learning.
• Leaders ensure that pupils learn very well from appealing, well-sequenced learning activities across the different subjects. Staff frequently demonstrate to pupils useful links between subjects and how learning builds up over time. The school provides very well for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
• Subject leaders do a strong and improving job. They set clear and coherent expectations for all subjects, check how well pupils are learning, and very usefully promote improvements. Pupils benefit from learning in well-appointed specialist accommodation, and outdoors.
• Leaders spend the sport funding excellently. Consequently, pupils enjoy a wide range of physical activity. The school also draws very well on the expertise within the local music education hub, providing a very energising music curriculum for all pupils.
• Leaders are nevertheless rightly working to reduce minor shortcomings in the design of the curriculum. In RE, for instance, pupils receive some exceptional moral teaching, without being shown consistently the significance to believers of the religious practices and beliefs taught. The art curriculum for all pupils, while effective, is not as well structured as the superb provision for chosen pupils in the art ‘academy’. The geography curriculum excels in many respects, but has some limitations in the way pupils’ skills are developed and in exploiting the full value of fieldwork. Leaders have cancelled some educational visits, which has caused uncertainty and irked some parents.
• The school offers a broad and inclusive range of clubs and activities which motivate and enthuse pupils.

Governance of the school

• The trustees and the local governing body dovetail their work very effectively. Together they ensure that the school has a clear strategic direction, effective leadership structure, and the resources necessary to be successful.
• The local governing body checks carefully that pupils achieve well. They hold leaders to account appropriately. Rightly, governors have adjusted their work to take increasing note of outcomes for pupils in subjects other than English and mathematics.
• Trustees and governors are sharp in fulfilling their statutory responsibilities. They ensure that the school safeguards its pupils correctly.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• The school’s culture of safety is robust. Staff are regularly well trained. Child protection policies and procedures are well established and effective.
• The school recruits adults correctly, carrying out carefully the procedures to ensure that they are suitable to work with children. Risk assessments are correctly made for activities on and off site. The school site is suitably secure.
• Pupils explain how to keep themselves safe, including when on the internet. Parents comment very positively on safeguarding and their children’s happiness and sense of security.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

• Teaching is consistently challenging and stimulating. Teachers usually show very strong subject knowledge – exceptionally so in English and mathematics – and consequently have very high expectations, which the pupils fully meet.
• Teachers closely structure tasks and give crystal clear explanations at just the right level for all pupils. This is achieved because staff consistently and very skilfully apply the school’s policies, in which they are carefully inducted and trained. As a result, pupils learn very quickly.
• When not being directly taught, pupils get on with their work productively, think for themselves, and help and explain things supportively to each other. Scrutiny of their work shows that teaching, and their learning, over time is invariably strong.
• Teachers test pupils’ learning carefully by asking them excellent, diagnostic questions. These make pupils think hard. Teachers develop pupils’ reasoning very well, by asking, for example: ‘Could you be a little more specific with your explanation?’ Pupils are used to this constant level of challenge and respond quickly and precisely.
• When pupils struggle with aspects of their learning, staff provide helpful interventions to enable them to overcome the difficulties. Typically, these are successful quickly, though a few parents feel that certain interventions, while being effective, go on for longer than needed.
• Teaching assistants typically contribute very well to pupils’ learning. Their work is a key part of the strength in teaching.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is outstanding. Pupils feel very secure and well cared for in school. The school ensures their well-being excellently. The atmosphere in school is happy and upbeat.
• The level of mutual respect among pupils, and between adults and pupils, is terrific. Many parents comment that though the school is large, it feels small and caring.
• The school effectively helps pupils and families to deal with any problems on social media.
• The school provides very effective pastoral care, which is typically much appreciated by pupils and parents. Pupils who become vulnerable, or who are at any particular risk, are looked after very well by staff. The school properly and sensitively involves external agencies and parents as needed.
• Bullying is very rare. It is effectively prevented and addressed by staff.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is outstanding.
• In lessons, pupils consistently behave extremely well. They are very receptive to the teaching and highly engaged. They help each other willingly and concentrate carefully. They present their hard work with pride. They can succeed when given freer open-ended tasks, being able to make mature decisions for themselves.
• Pupils’ conduct is orderly and safe around the school.
• Pupils are polite, friendly and kind. They socialise and play happily with big smiles, enjoying together the range of fun breaktime activities and equipment which promote their happiness. Understandably, they would like more!
• The attendance of all groups of pupils is high. Very few pupils are persistently absent; staff work efficiently and caringly to prevent this.
• Naughtiness or nasty behaviour is so unusual that it really stands out and is clearly noticed by pupils and parents when it occurs. It is dealt with very well by staff. Pupils feel secure.
• The rate of fixed-term exclusion is very low. There have been no permanent exclusions in the past few years.

Outcomes for pupils Outstanding

• Pupils’ writing is excellent. It is interesting, fit for purpose, carefully structured and well presented. Pupils generally apply grammar and spelling rules accurately and effectively.
• Due to the extensive library provision, and carefully structured curriculum, pupils read skilfully and widely, demonstrating enjoyment. The pupils who read to inspectors did so accurately with correct comprehension and evident pleasure.
• Pupils’ mathematical and scientific understanding is very strong. In science, pupils helpfully evaluate their own work specifically as biologists, chemists and physicists. A parent was understandably ‘impressed by the variety of science subjects covered, the depth of detail learned and the number of hands-on experiments’.
• In the 2018 national assessments in English and mathematics, Year 6 pupils did very well. Most pupils achieved the expected standard and very many pupils exceeded this. They made marked further progress, building on their prior high attainment in Year 2. This is the consistent pattern over several years for all groups of pupils.
• Pupils generally attain highly in other subjects, in all year groups. For instance, pupils learn to make sophisticated and sensible deductions from historical evidence. They sing, compose and play instruments all to a high musical standard.
• Many higher-attaining pupils benefit significantly from the selective ‘academy’ provision in sport, art, language, French, performing arts and music. The quality of their work is exceptional.
• Pupils are very well prepared for their secondary education.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 137683 Bromley 10058971 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 Academy converter 7 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 718 Appropriate authority Board of trustees Chair of trustees Chair of governors Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Scott Pinder Naureen Khalid Susie King 01689 821716 www.connectschoolsacademytrust.com headteacher@crofton-jun.bromley.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 27 November 2013

Information about this school

• This is very large junior school, with six classes in each year group, situated in the outer London suburb of Petts Wood.
• Most pupils are White British, though the school has an ethnically very diverse population, with small numbers of pupils from many different heritages.
• About one in every ten pupils receives pupil premium funding; this is below the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who the school assesses to have special educational needs and/or disabilities is below average.
• The school is within the Connect Schools Academy Trust. The trust also contains Crofton Infant School, with which the junior school works closely and has the same headteacher. The junior school also shares with the infant school some other staff members, policies and its local governing body. Governors carry out some functions on behalf of the trustees, especially holding the school leaders to account. The trust’s chief executive officer and an executive headteacher oversee both Crofton schools as well as others within the trust.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed lessons across the year groups and in several subjects, often jointly with senior leaders. They observed around the school before and after the school day, at playtimes and lunchtimes and during assemblies.
• They sampled pupils’ work in many subjects, often alongside senior leaders.
• They held discussions with the headteacher, executive headteacher, other senior and middle leaders, trustees, governors and many members of staff. They met with officers of the Connect Trust, including the chair and chief executive officer.
• They met with several groups of pupils, formally and informally, and heard pupils from Years 3 and 5 read.
• Inspectors evaluated documents, including the school strategic plans and evaluations, assessments of pupils, pupil premium information, records of attendance and behaviour, and minutes of meetings.
• They noted the views of parents from the 255 recent responses, including over 100 written comments, to Parent View, Ofsted’s online survey. They also met with parents formally and informally. They analysed the opinions of 60 pupils from confidential questionnaires.

Inspection team

Robin Hammerton, lead inspector Alison Moller Chris Birtles Lando Du Plooy

Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector