Trinity Church of England Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Accelerate progress, particularly for disadvantaged pupils, in order that the proportion reaching the higher standards in reading, writing and mathematics increases in each phase by:
  • ensuring that pupils are given more opportunities to demonstrate a deeper understanding in their learning.
• Continue to develop middle leaders so that they contribute effectively to improvements in their phase, subject or area of responsibility.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• The executive headteacher and the head of school have a clear and ambitious vision which they have communicated well to an increasingly motivated team.
• Leaders have an accurate picture of the school’s strengths and areas for development. They plan coherently to ensure that gains are sustainable. Consequently, teaching and outcomes have improved across the school.
• Staff views, from the survey and from informal discussions with inspectors, are very positive. People understand their roles, have high expectations and put pupils’ well-being at the heart of all they do.
• Leaders meet teachers regularly to check on pupils’ progress. The level of detail discussed at these meetings ensures that staff can quickly identify any pupils who are in danger of falling behind. Staff are then able to discuss ideas for tailoring provision to meet these pupils’ needs. This ensures that pupils are given every chance to catch up.
• Adults work together to build their own skills and share good practice. Leaders provide high-quality training. Within the school and across the trust, there are good opportunities for professional advancement. Staff at the early stages of their career are well supported to develop the skills needed to be successful.
• There are now several tiers of leadership. This helps to spread work evenly and builds strong capacity for further improvement. Leaders in the middle tier are knowledgeable and have drawn up coherent plans for making positive changes in their subjects or areas of responsibility. However, many are very new to their posts. This means that the impact of their work has yet to be felt.
• Leaders use the performance management system to improve teaching, and therefore pupils’ outcomes. They set carefully thought-out targets that support staff to improve their practice.
• The curriculum is well designed to ensure that pupils develop key skills in a range of subjects throughout their time at primary school. This enables them to be ready for moving on to the next phase of their education.
• A range of exciting trips and visitors to school, supplemented by after-school clubs, bring subjects alive and spark pupils’ interest, often giving them a purpose for their learning. For example, when discussing their learning, pupils were particularly excited about their trip to Chislehurst caves as part of their work on the Second World War. This helped them understand what it felt like during the Blitz.
• Leaders have ensured that the curriculum promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development effectively. Pupils have a well-developed sense of right and wrong; they understand that actions have consequences and are able to regulate their own behaviour accordingly. Pupils are interested in and respectful of people from different backgrounds to their own. Their strong moral code and valuing of diversity prepare them well for secondary school and for life in modern Britain.
• Leaders spend the physical education and sport premium funding wisely and have increased the selection of after-school clubs available. Pupils have opportunities to take part in competitions against other schools. Provision for swimming lessons ensures that pupils develop a vital life skill. In this way, leaders promote physical well-being effectively.
• The special educational needs funding is used well. Leaders ensure that eligible pupils have tailored programmes to help them learn. This has resulted in these pupils making strong progress from their starting points. The needs of the pupils in the specialist provision are very well met. They develop a range of key skills which will help them later in life, including, for example, how to use public transport.
• Leaders identify key barriers to learning for pupils eligible for the pupil premium funding. The money is then spent in ways that help overcome these barriers. This has a positive effect on outcomes. For example, disadvantaged pupils made rapid progress across key stage 2 in 2017 in all subjects, which was a marked improvement on 2016.

Governance of the school

• The chief executive officer of the trust, along with the improvement director, initially provided a high level of support to ensure that improvements happened apace. They made judicious use of resources available across the trust. They know the school well and recognise that it now has the capacity to improve without that level of support, so their input is now very light touch. Minutes of meetings confirm that they hold school leaders robustly to account.
• The Aquinas Advisory Council, rooted in the local community, provides guidance and support to school leaders. This role has proved invaluable in helping leaders manage the rapid pace of recent changes.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Leaders have strong systems in place to identify, report and track vulnerable pupils. They work well with a range of other agencies to ensure that pupils who are at risk of harm receive timely support. They keep thorough, detailed records, which ensures that they can easily keep track of individual cases and respond accordingly.
• Staff are confident they know what to do to keep children safe. This is because they receive regular, informative training.
• Recruitment records are well kept and indicate clearly what checks have been made and by whom. Leaders are very clear about how to observe safer recruitment practices because they have regular training to keep their knowledge up to date.
• Pupils overwhelmingly say they feel safe because they trust that adults will take care of them. One pupil put it very clearly when he told an inspector that the school had ‘amazing teachers that protect you from any sort of danger’.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Teaching is good because leaders identify what works well and disseminate this so that all staff use similarly effective strategies.
• This is particularly apparent in phonics. Pupils are familiar with the expectations, for example that they listen to the teacher and then practise themselves. This helps lessons proceed smoothly and outcomes in phonics have risen accordingly. Pupils are now more confident in using phonics when trying to spell ambitious words in their written work.
• Pupils also use phonics to help them read unfamiliar words. This was very apparent when inspectors read with less confident readers in key stage 1. In key stage 2, pupils use their well-developed reading skills to help them with learning across the curriculum.
• Teachers ask effective questions in order to establish what pupils understand. They then provide further explanations where needed. This ensures that pupils are not left with any misconceptions in lessons.
• Pupils from different starting points learn well in English because tasks are designed to offer challenge on many levels.
• The school introduced a new approach to mathematics a couple of years ago. Teachers are becoming increasingly confident at using this approach. Leaders’ evaluations show that it really helps pupils develop a secure grasp of key concepts, such as place value and fractions.
• Teachers give pupils useful guidance as to how to improve their work. Staff adhere closely to the school’s marking policy and pupils state that they find this really helpful. During the inspection, pupils were seen referring to previous comments to support their current learning.
• Teachers make strong links between reading and writing. They choose engaging texts, often with a moral dimension, so pupils engage really well and empathise with key characters. This helps them when they are asked to write in role. For example, pupils in key stage 1 had to explain why a character would want to camouflage himself. They understood that he wanted to hide away because he was very shy. This multi-layered approach develops pupils’ language skills and their moral and social understanding.
• Teachers do not always offer the appropriate provision to support middle-ability learners to make the accelerated progress needed to reach higher standards. Leaders have acknowledged this.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good. Leaders ensure that provision meets pupils’ physical and emotional needs well. Activities at playtime and a good range of after-school clubs promote a fit and active lifestyle. Counselling and therapy practitioners support emotional well-being. Pupils say these services help them tackle any concerns. This makes them feel safe.
• Bullying is rare. Pupils say that the posters all around the school remind them it is hurtful and help them to know what to do if it does occur. They subscribe to the view that you must not be a quiet witness, but a loud witness. They can explain what this means. Pupils and parents feel confident that staff deal with any incidents of bullying quickly and effectively.
• Pupils can cite the range of ways in which adults help keep them safe. They are confident about what to do in a fire and have a good understanding of how to stay safe online.
• Pupils have positive attitudes to learning. They focus well in lessons and respond quickly to teachers’ instructions. They appreciate the guidance teachers give to help them improve their work. They regularly act on that guidance and use it to further their learning. Pupils also take care to present their work neatly.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good. They show good manners and conduct themselves sensibly around the school. They respond well to adults’ high expectations. For example, they line up as soon as they are asked, so playtime finishes promptly and no learning time is lost.
• Pupils in the specialist provision behave well. Techniques such as yoga and playing music ensure a calm atmosphere, which is highly conducive to learning. There is a focus on developing social skills. In this way, pupils are well prepared for moving on to secondary school.
• Behavioural incident logs are well kept. Leaders analyse this information to establish whether there are any patterns, such as particular ‘hot spots’ where poor behaviour occurs. This means they can quickly remedy any such occurrences. Parents, pupils and staff report that behaviour has improved, largely as a result of the new behaviour policy.
• Attendance was below the national average in 2016. Leaders used a range of effective strategies, including working with outside agencies, to improve attendance. As a result, more pupils now come to school regularly. Dedicated staff work with the small number of persistent absentees. The strategies and incentives they have in place have led to significant reductions in the proportion of pupils in this category.
• Leaders work well with pupils who have particular behavioural issues. Records show that this work is effective because there are reductions in the frequency and severity of incidents for those individuals.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• Outcomes have improved under the current leadership. Leaders regularly check how well pupils are doing. They make sure that any pupils who are in danger of falling behind are quickly helped to get back on track.
• The proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in the phonics screening check in Year 1 rose to above the national average in 2017.
• Pupils made rapid progress across key stage 2 last year. The school’s progress rates were well above averages in reading, writing and mathematics. This stands pupils in good stead for moving on to secondary school.
• There have been strong improvements in outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. For example, nearly 30% more pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics combined at the end of Year 6 this year than in 2016. Across the school, disadvantaged pupils are making increasingly good progress to help them catch up and reach expected standards. This is because leaders are using the funding effectively.
• Outcomes are good for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. Across the school, rates of progress are high, with barely any pupils making less progress than is expected of them. Pupils in the specialist provision make strong progress from their starting points, not only in academic subjects, but also in key life skills. A number of parents of pupils in the provision made their views known via the free-text facility. Their praise was universally positive. Comments such as ‘changed the course of my child’s future’ and how staff are ‘amazing’ and ‘miracle workers’ reflect the standard of care and education there.
• The most able pupils make good progress because there is a good level of challenge in lessons. However, not enough pupils in middle-ability groups, particularly disadvantaged pupils, are given the help they need to make accelerated progress to reach higher standards in their work.

Early years provision Outstanding

• Staff are exceptionally skilled at helping children learn. Consequently, children make rapid and sustained progress from the time they start in the early years. This ensures that they are well prepared for moving on to Year 1.
• Inspectors visited every class in the early years and saw a wide range of activities on offer. Children in both Reception and Nursery are highly engaged in their learning. Even the very youngest children concentrate well and listen intently to teachers’ instructions. This was all the more impressive during the inspection, considering many of them had only been at school for three or four weeks.
• Leadership is outstanding. Leaders have ensured that practice is consistently strong across all classes. They have a sound understanding of how young children learn and use this to support teachers to be the best they can be. As a result, the quality of teaching is outstanding.
• Staff provide expertly designed activities that ensure children learn new skills in all areas of the curriculum. There is a strong focus on language development. Adults know exactly when to intervene to support children’s language skills. Equally, they know when to take a step back and let children speak and listen for themselves.
• Adults have very high expectations of what children can achieve. From the outset, they expect children to answer questions in full sentences to support the development of their language skills. Children are familiar with these expectations. Teachers prompt them if they forget. This creates a language-rich environment and prepares children well for writing in full sentences as they move on up through the school.
• Phonics is taught highly effectively. Children are familiar with the routines and join in enthusiastically. Lessons are very well managed, so no time is wasted, for example when distributing boards and pens for children to practise writing new sounds.
• Leaders use the additional funding well to accelerate disadvantaged children’s progress. This often leads to those from low starting points catching up with their peers in many areas, ensuring that they too are ready for Year 1. Historically, no disadvantaged pupils reached the higher standard of ‘exceeding’ by the end of Reception. Leaders have identified children currently in the early years who they know are capable of this with the right support, and are targeting funding accordingly.
• Children behave exceptionally well. They are kind and polite to each other. They often say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when sharing toys. Their enthusiasm for and commitment to learning is evident. These positive attitudes contribute to the rapid progress they make.
• Leaders ensure that safeguarding is highly effective. Children are taught how to take risks safely in their learning, for example on the climbing equipment and when using scissors.

School details

Unique reference number 141352 Local authority Bromley Inspection number 10036279 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Primary School category Academy sponsor-led Age range of pupils 2 to 11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 504 Appropriate authority Board of trustees Chair of the Trust Board Simon Parker Executive headteacher/Head of school Geraldine Shackleton/Anne Illing Telephone number 02084 622443 Website www.trinityceprimary.school Email address info@trinityceprimary.school Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• The school complies with Department for Education guidance on what academies should publish.
• Trinity is a larger than average-sized primary school which opened as a member of the Aquinas Church of England Education Trust in January 2015. There have been a number of staff changes in that time; for example, the executive headteacher took up her post in September 2016.
• The school has a 30-place specialist provision for pupils who have education, health and care plans for severe learning disabilities. This means that the proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is much higher than average.
• The early years provision includes a class for two-year-olds.
• The proportion of pupils who are disadvantaged is slightly above average.
• The school serves a diverse community. Nearly half of the pupils are from minority ethnic groups. This is higher than the national average.
• Less than one in five pupils speaks English as an additional language. This is lower than the national average. A few of these pupils are at the early stages of learning English.
• The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for the attainment and progress of pupils in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 6.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning in every year group. Most of their visits to classes were completed jointly with a senior school leader.
• Inspectors talked with groups of pupils, both formally and informally, to seek their views about the school. Twenty-four pupils responded to the online survey, and these responses were taken into account. Inspectors listened to pupils read.
• The inspection team held meetings with staff at all levels and with representatives of the Aquinas Church of England Education Trust. They also took into account the 17 responses to the staff survey.
• Inspectors considered the 57 responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View, as well as comments made using the free-text facility. They also spoke to parents informally at the start of the school day.
• The inspection team looked at a range of school documents, including the school’s evaluation of its own performance, development plans, minutes of trust board meetings, logs of behavioural incidents and data relating to pupils’ attendance and academic achievement.

Inspection team

Jeanie Jovanova, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector Ogugua Okolo-Angus Ofsted Inspector Clementina Aina Ofsted Inspector