Fleecefield Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve leadership and management, and thereby improve pupils’ outcomes by ensuring that:
  • the assessment system enables leaders and governors to regularly keep checks on the pupils’ progress, particularly that of disadvantaged pupils
  • information gathered to assess children’s starting points in the early years is evaluated accurately by leaders to ensure that progress can be carefully tracked
  • records relating to behaviour and safeguarding are systematic, consistently used and regularly monitored by leaders and governors
  • all adults receive regular and accurate feedback and guidance on their phonics teaching so that they can consistently and effectively recognise pupils’ misconceptions or mistakes and help all pupils to make strong progress
  • leaders and governors regularly evaluate the impact of pupil premium funding on disadvantaged pupils’ achievement
  • phase and subject leaders at all levels accurately evaluate the quality of teaching by focusing sharply on the quality of teaching and its impact on pupils’ progress
  • the leadership and teaching within the early years provision is strengthened
  • all teachers benefit from sharing the good practice that leads to strong sustained progress in reading, writing and mathematics in some classes, across the whole school. An external review of the school’s use of the pupil premium funding should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and governance can be improved.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management

Requires improvement

• Leaders and governors have not sustained a good standard of education since the previous inspection. There has been a decline in standards at the end of key stage 1 and key stage 2. The progress pupils make from their starting points is variable, some of it is weak. All pupils, including those who are disadvantaged, do less well than pupils nationally at the end of their time at Fleecefield. As a result, pupils are not well prepared for the next stage of their education.
• The leadership team has been restructured and refocused. The headteacher and her deputies have put actions in place to halt the decline in pupils’ achievement. There are clear signs that these are beginning to have impact. However, the quality of teaching, learning and assessment is variable. Therefore, pupils’ outcomes across the school vary considerably.
• Assessment systems have been devised and introduced by leaders. They help leaders to support teachers in identifying pupils who are not making expected progress. However, they do not enable leaders to look at the progress of cohorts, phases or groups of pupils across the school. For example, leaders have not yet ensured that the system supports them in looking at the progress of disadvantaged pupils across the school. In turn, leaders and governors are not rigorous enough in their analysis of the impact of the pupil premium funding that they receive.
• Leaders at all levels undertake monitoring activities to assess the quality of teaching across the school. However, not enough of the feedback and guidance given to teachers is sharply focused on the progress that pupils are making as a result of the teaching seen.
• Leaders ensure that pupils’ behaviour is good. They apply the behaviour policy and take swift action to address incidents of poor behaviour. However, records relating to behaviour are not used consistently and effectively by all staff. Leaders do not monitor the behaviour logs regularly enough. Leaders acted to rectify this during the inspection.
• Provision for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is well led and managed. As a result, individual pupils receive appropriate support and make good progress. Leaders are rigorous in working with outside agencies to make sure that these pupils receive the provision they need and are entitled to.
• Leaders have been successful this year in improving attendance. While still below average, it is improving rapidly due to the effective actions put in place by the seconded deputy headteacher.
• Leaders have been successful in improving the teaching of reading and writing this year. The impact of training and support offered to teachers is evident in the school. Pupils who are currently in the school benefit from a good range of reading resources to inspire them to read. They are also given opportunities to write for a range of meaningful purposes across a range of subjects. As a result, there is some strong, sustained progress evident in reading and writing, particularly at the end of key stage 2. However, there is still too much variability across the school. In key stage 1 much of the writing pupils undertake is in phonic workbooks. There are relatively few opportunities for them to write for real purposes and apply their developing phonic knowledge in a sustained way outside of the phonics sessions. This has an impact on the progress that they make in composing their own pieces of writing.
• Leaders are enthusiastic about mathematics and have helped teachers to implement a maths scheme which is being used consistently. Leaders have not ensured that teachers consistently provide work which is challenging enough for pupils and helps them to make consistently strong progress.
• The curriculum promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development well. Pupils benefit from learning about a good range of subjects. Music and art are strengths of the curriculum. The science curriculum is also developing well. The sports premium has been used well to enhance the sports curriculum. Pupils enjoy a good range of after-school sports clubs. Teachers improve their teaching skills through watching specialist sports coaches teach.

Governance of the school

• Governors are skilled and committed. They have a good understanding of the challenges facing the school and of the diverse community which the school serves. Governors involve themselves fully in the leadership of the school. They provide good challenge to leaders through their committee structure. They are reflective and forward thinking. They have used links with partnership schools effectively to improve the senior leadership and management team.
• Governors carry out their safeguarding duties effectively. However, they do not monitor logs relating to safeguarding or behaviour regularly or effectively. The logs lack consistency and organisation.
• Governors understand how pupil premium funding is used to benefit disadvantaged pupils across the school. However, they do not regularly monitor the impact of spending on the current pupils across the school. The assessment system is not fit for purpose in helping them to do this.
• Governors were unaware that the school’s website was not compliant at the time of the inspection. They showed a good understanding of the impact that the sports funding has had even though this information was not available on the school’s website.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Leaders ensure that any referrals relating to safeguarding are acted upon swiftly and that external support is secured. Staff are confident that referrals made are immediately acted upon and they are kept informed about individual pupils in order to support them in their classes. Leaders acknowledge that records relating to safeguarding need to be reorganised to ensure that they reflect the rigour with which leaders respond to any safeguarding issues.
• Leaders ensure that all appropriate checks are made on staff when they are recruited. Governors have committed to attending safer recruitment training.
• Pupils feel safe and well cared for in school and their parents agree that they are kept safe.
• Staff receive appropriate and up-to-date training in all aspects of safeguarding. There are several leaders with responsibility for safeguarding. Staff are clear about who they need to go to if they have concerns.
• Pupils show a good understanding of how to keep themselves safe online. They also show some awareness of the dangers in the local community.
• Staff are vigilant and confident that they know what to look out for in relation to pupils who may be at risk of female genital mutilation, radicalisation or extremism.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• The quality of teaching requires improvement because it is inconsistent and leads to variability in the progress that pupils make.
• Leaders have invested considerable funding into training and resourcing for the teaching of phonics. Over the past three years, staff have implemented the school’s phonics programme. However, there is variability in staff’s confidence and in their phonics subject knowledge. While all staff are able to deliver the programme, not all are confident in identifying or addressing pupils’ misconceptions or errors. Some staff model incorrect skills and strategies which do not support pupils’ progress. Because of this variability in the quality of teaching, there is much variability in the progress pupils make. Some pupils in the school have been working on the same sets of letters and sounds since the programme was implemented three years ago and are yet to make progress or to catch up to age-related expectations.
• Teachers have responded well to the training and support they have received to help them teach reading and writing. As a result, teaching is improving. At the upper end of the school, pupils are beginning to make strong and sustained progress in reading and writing but this is not yet consistent across the school. Teachers are successfully helping pupils to develop a love of books because of the investment which has been made to ensure they read high-quality children’s literature during reading lessons.
• Teachers do not consistently offer appropriate challenge to pupils in mathematics lessons. As a result, most-able pupils identified in teachers’ planning are often working at broadly average standards for their age. Pupils’ starting points are invariably lower than those seen nationally for their age range. Nevertheless, the progress they make from their individual starting points is not consistently strong and much of it is weak.
• Staff work well with leaders to ensure that pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities benefit from good provision and make good progress. Individual and group support meets pupils’ needs well.
• Teachers ensure that pupils enjoy a good range of subjects as well as English and mathematics. Music, sports and art are particular strengths. During the inspection, pupils in key stage 2 were enjoying and making good progress in their science lessons.
• Staff at Fleecefield care deeply about their pupils and want them to be successful learners. They are reflective, take feedback well and work hard to improve their skills. However, leaders do not provide staff with consistently incisive feedback to help them focus sharply on the impact of their teaching on the progress that pupils make. As a result, tasks and activities set are often interesting but they do not challenge pupils to achieve their very best.

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 happy and confident. They are friendly and welcoming and keen to talk about their life and their school.
• Despite the many challenging circumstances some families face, pupils’ attendance has improved rapidly and significantly this year. The rate of persistent absence has also been reduced.
• Pupils work hard and try their best. Even when work is too difficult or too easy they apply themselves to learning and persevere.
• Pupils feel safe at school and know that they are cared for by staff. They also are confident that any worries they have will be taken seriously.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good. Pupils conduct themselves well around the school and in the playground. They behave well in the breakfast club and enthuse about the ‘all you can eat’ ethos.
• Low-level disruption in lessons is rare. It occurs only when teaching does not capture pupils’ interest or when it fails to meet their needs. Pupils are generally quick to refocus when low-level disruptions occur.
• Pupils are aware that there are occasional incidents of poor behaviour in the school, but they also are clear on the implications of poor behaviour. Pupils are confident in staff to deal effectively with any issues that arise.
• Pupils’ behaviour was good during the inspection; they were a credit to their school and to their families.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Outcomes for pupils have declined since the previous inspection. The progress pupils make from their various, often low, starting points when they join the school is variable because teaching does not consistently meet their needs.
• Current pupils’ progress in reading, writing and mathematics is inconsistent. Information gathered by leaders does not help to identify the progress that disadvantaged pupils in the school are making. Books show that it is not strong or consistent and that disadvantaged pupils continue to make weaker progress than their classmates.
• The proportion of pupils that achieve the expected standard in the phonics screening check has been well below the national average for the past two years. Information gathered about the current Year 1 pupils indicates that the school is not on track to improve this attainment this year, despite the high priority given to phonics teaching within the school.
• Pupils leaving key stage 1 over the past two years have achieved standards which have been well below the national average in reading, writing and mathematics.
• At the end of key stage 2, the progress pupils made in reading declined significantly between 2015 and 2017. Following improvements to the progress made in writing in 2016, there was a decline in 2017 and pupils leaving the school made progress which was significantly below that seen nationally. Progress in mathematics declined from 2015 to 2017.
• Leaders’ current predictions for attainment at the end of key stage 1 and 2 are much improved on the 2017 outcomes. However, the very large work analysis which was undertaken during the inspection found progress to be inconsistent and weak in some classes.

Early years provision Requires improvement

• Leaders have found it difficult to recruit experienced staff to the early years provision.
• Leadership of the early years is weak because leaders responsible for this phase lack the necessary expertise.
• The evaluation and analysis of children’s starting points is weak. Practitioners track individual children’s progress, but leaders have little understanding of how classes or cohorts of pupils are achieving from their starting points.
• The proportion of children achieving a good overall level of development at the end of the Reception Year was well below average in 2015. This improved in 2016 but remained below average, as it did in 2017.
• There was no progress information available for children who attended the early years prior to this academic year, because of the changes to leadership and management.
• Teaching across the early years is variable. Practitioners’ questioning skills are not consistently effective in helping children to think deeply about their learning. Sometimes, teachers’ questioning is weak and does not help children to think deeply or expand their developing vocabulary. Teachers sometimes fail to model correct English grammar when they are speaking or to articulate sounds in English correctly. As the majority of children are at the early stages of learning English, this does not help them acquire English rapidly.
• The learning environment reflects all the areas of learning, although there is variability in the quality of role-play areas across the provision. Given the importance given to developing language and communication in the school, there are few opportunities for children to apply their developing literacy skills in the role-play areas or other areas, such as sand and water trays. Children are encouraged to enjoy role-play writing and in some classes their efforts are celebrated well.
• Practitioners in the Nursery class are beginning to help children develop a love of stories, rhyme and song. Practitioners skilfully question children about stories and use visual props and puppets to engage the children who are at the earliest stages of learning English. This aspect of the early years provision is strong.
• Parents value the positive start that their children make to school. Children are safe, happy and well cared for. Teachers and practitioners ensure that they quickly build strong, supportive relationships with the children.
• Children are well behaved and familiar with the routines in the early years. They are delightful, friendly and approachable. Practitioners have ensured that children are settled and secure.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 101990 Enfield 10045397 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Primary School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Maintained 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 469 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Andrew Matfield Antoinette Goldwater Telephone number 020 8807 7899 Website Email address www.fleecefield.enfield.sch.uk headteacher@fleecefield.enfield.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 26–27 November 2013

Information about this school

• Fleecefield is a larger-than-average primary school. The early years provision has two part-time Nursery classes and two Reception classes.
• The school is part of an informal partnership of five local schools who work in collaboration. One of the deputy headteachers has been seconded from one of the partnership schools.
• The school has a mobile population with pupils joining and leaving the school at different points throughout the year.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils who are eligible for pupil premium funding is larger than average.
• Pupils come from a diverse range of backgrounds and a high proportion of them speak English as an additional language.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is above average.
• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website. At the time of the inspection, the school did not have information about their sports funding on the website, but this was rectified during the inspection.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning in all year groups at least twice. Observations were undertaken with the headteacher, the two deputy headteachers, the assistant headteacher and the two leaders who hold responsibility for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities.
• Inspectors met with the chair of the governing body two other governors.
• Meetings were held with pupils to discuss their learning and their views on the school.
• Inspectors met with a group of teachers to discuss their work and their experience at the school.
• All leaders met with inspectors to discuss their roles and the impact of their work.
• Inspectors heard pupils read and talked to pupils in the lunch hall, in lessons, in the breakfast club and as they moved around the building.
• Inspectors examined a range of school documents, including information on pupils’ progress across the school, improvement plans, curriculum plans and checks on the quality of teaching. They also examined school records relating to safeguarding and behaviour.
• Inspectors scrutinised a very large sample of books to look at pupils’ progress in a range of subjects.
• Inspectors considered the 86 responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, and the information gathered from discussions with parents during the inspection.

Inspection team

Ruth Dollner, lead inspector Joan Beale Sally Taggart

Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector