Riverley Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Provide even greater challenge for the most able pupils about the quality of their work.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

• Senior leaders, staff and governors have steered the school skilfully so that it provides an outstanding education for its pupils. This has been achieved by having an inclusive vision, together with a very strong set of values that everyone believes in and strives to reach.
• A fundamental part of the vision is the commitment to high expectations and aspirations. All staff, including senior and middle leaders, class teachers, teaching assistants and governors play their full part in realising the vision. As a result, pupils make excellent progress with their learning.
• The headteacher’s leadership is careful, considered and robust. He is very clear about the school’s direction and how it is going to get there. He is supported ably by the executive headteacher, senior leaders and governors. The headteacher has created a very strong partnership among staff that empowers them to take responsibility. As a result, all staff share in the leadership of the school and are accountable not just to their line manager but also to each other and to their pupils. These strong partnerships among staff have a significant impact on the school’s positive climate for learning in which all pupils are enabled to achieve their potential.
• The school evaluates its work especially well. Senior leaders leave no stone unturned in their determination to ensure that all pupils get the best education possible. This resolute search for improvement, with the intelligent use of a wide range of relevant information about pupils’ progress, is used to identify the school’s strengths and weaknesses. As a result, leaders are able to pinpoint accurately where improvements are needed. They are also able to set clear priorities for improvement.
• Senior leaders make reliable judgements about the quality of teaching based on information from a variety of sources. These include observations, assessments and work in pupils’ books. Regular progress meetings are used to identify those pupils who are falling behind so that the right support can be provided quickly. This ensures that all pupils, including disadvantaged pupils, those who have special educational needs or speak English as an additional language and the most able, are given the help necessary to make rapid progress.
• One of the many improvements has been in the teaching of reading. Senior and middle leaders have put in place a well-organised programme of phonics to ensure that pupils are able to use the sounds that letters make to read increasingly difficult words. Consequently, pupils in Years 1 and 2 are making brisk progress with their reading.
• The curriculum gives pupils an outstanding experience. This is because the school goes out of its way to provide a stimulating curriculum that extends pupils’ learning further than the core subjects of reading, writing and mathematics. For example, the ‘enabling enterprise’ initiative helps to broaden pupils’ horizons, as does the opportunity for individual music lessons. The school is rightly proud of its focus on the arts and provides specialist teachers for music, art and dance. The work to develop pupils’ creativity helps to ensure that they receive a well-balanced experience.
• A wide range of lunchtime and after-school clubs and activities extends the curriculum very effectively. All pupils attend lunchtime clubs, which range from dance and sport to story reading. Many pupils also stay after school for activities such as African dancing, art and singing. The annual Griffin Arts Festival contributes significantly to broadening pupils’ experiences. Trips to places like the Science Museum give pupils a chance to extend their understanding of the world.
• The school provides very well for pupils’ spiritual, social, moral and cultural development. The expectation that pupils always behave well ensures that their social and moral development is first-class. The school’s climate embraces everyone and this ensures that it effectively promotes tolerance and respect for others.
• The additional funding received by the school, including the pupil premium and the physical education (PE) and sport premium, is used very effectively. It provides for a wide range of interventions and activities such as clubs and after-school activities, residential trips, free instrumental music lessons and a Saturday school. These have a strong impact on pupils’ learning and progress and contribute hugely to creating the school’s inclusive and inspiring climate.
• Funding for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is also used to maximum effect. The high-quality support provided for pupils enables them to achieve extremely well, often making better progress than their peers.
• Senior leaders’ approach to recruiting new staff, and providing existing staff with opportunities for professional development, is very strong. For example, the school employs teaching assistants who are graduates and offers them the opportunity to become qualified teachers. This enables the school to ensure that it has enough new teachers to replace those that leave for promotion or work in other schools within the Griffin Schools Trust. Professional development is used as a key driver of teaching quality. Teachers say they are very well supported by senior leaders and many are currently involved in training to develop their leadership skills.

Governance of the school

• The governing board is a fundamental part of the school’s outstandingly strong leadership. Governors have an in-depth understanding of the priorities facing the school because they are in touch with what happens in school and receive helpful information about how well pupils are being stretched and looked after. As a result, governors know how well the school runs on a day-to-day basis.
• Governors challenge and support the school very effectively. Minutes of their meetings show that they ask difficult questions and follow up on important issues. Governors have worked closely with senior leaders to develop the school’s approach to recruitment and the procedures to manage teachers’ performance and pay.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. The school is meticulous in ensuring that its procedures meet requirements and that it uses them to create a safe culture. As a result, pupils feel safe at school and their parents agree that they are safe.
• All staff have been trained in safeguarding and have received up-to-date policies and documents about how to keep pupils safe. They have a good understanding of the right procedures to follow. Leaders are vigilant in following up referrals and make sure that appropriate action is taken by outside agencies. The school maintains good links with the local authority and uses them effectively to ensure that pupils receive appropriate support.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

• Teaching and learning are characteristically outstanding. This is because teachers have high expectations and are skilful in bringing learning to life to make it interesting. Teachers use their secure knowledge of the subjects they teach to motivate pupils and deepen their understanding. For example, in mathematics, teachers are quick to give pupils more taxing work if they judge that they are ready to dig deeper into a particular technique or method. In English, teachers make sure learning is fun so that pupils enjoy their lessons and are keen to do well.
• Teachers are very skilled at managing pupils’ behaviour. They rarely shout or scold but use praise and respect to keep pupils focused on their work. This has a very positive effect, and behaviour in lessons is always excellent. As a result, learning takes place without disruption. This also creates positive relationships between pupils and with teachers. These are fundamental in creating the school’s positive climate for learning.
• Teachers know their pupils well and have an in-depth understanding about their achievements, both academic and personal. They use this understanding well to ensure that all pupils are given work that challenges and stretches, regardless of their starting points. As a result, pupils make very brisk progress with their learning.
• A particular strength of the teaching is the effective way teachers organise and plan learning. Lessons are never dull and pupils experience a range of different ways to learn. For example, pupils might work with a partner to help solve a problem or write a descriptive piece about a character in a book. Equally, they might work on their own to consolidate their learning or with a teacher to reinforce something they find difficult.
• Additional staff are deployed very effectively. In partnership with teachers, they have become skilled in intervening with individual pupils. This has a significant impact on pupils’ achievement, including those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who speak English as an additional language.
• The impact of effective teaching on the development of pupils’ literacy skills, including reading, is especially noticeable. The teaching of phonics is excellent and is helping pupils to become proficient readers. As a result, pupils are able to access other parts of the curriculum with confidence. Similarly, the teaching of mathematics is strong. Teachers help pupils to deepen their mathematical understanding by ensuring that they move pupils on to the next topic only when they are ready.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is outstanding. All staff are highly committed to ensuring that pupils are well prepared for life after school and have excellent social skills. As a result, pupils are confident learners and they relish the challenges that are given to them by teachers. Pupils also understand how to relate to other children and to adults, and they work together very well to share and discuss ideas. Relationships right across the school are excellent.
• Pupils enjoy school ‘very much’. They said they especially enjoy the challenges in mathematics and they feel that they are given demanding work in all their subjects. Year 6 pupils were clear that they are given work that is more difficult and that teachers ‘push you to do your best’.
• Pupils have a very keen understanding of right and wrong. They show great respect to others in the school and to visitors. This is the result of the school’s positive climate together with the topics pupils study in religious education (RE) and personal, social, health and citizenship education (PSHCE). For example in PSHCE, Year 4 pupils look at feelings and relationships, and making good decisions. As a result, pupils develop their personal skills very well and are able to take responsibility for their actions.
• Pupils are enthusiastic about taking on roles of responsibility around the school. For example, ambassadors help to ensure that break and lunchtime arrangements are well organised. They hold doors open and check that other pupils are behaving well.
• Bullying is rare and pupils note that things have got better because the school deals with any incidents very well. They confirmed, too, that there is little racist or homophobic bullying. As one pupil said, ‘diversity is good’.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is outstanding. This is because adults have very high expectations and the school’s PSHCE programme is effective. Pupils know how to behave and take responsibility for behaving well. Their conduct is excellent and they are exceptionally well mannered and polite. Pupils say that behaviour around the school is good because ‘teachers are strict’.
• Pupils behave especially well in classrooms and low-level disruption is infrequent. Pupils maintain excellent concentration in lessons and are keen to show off what they can do well. They are enthusiastic about their work and are willing to answer questions.
• Attendance figures compare favourably to the national picture and there are only a small number of fixed-term exclusions. The attendance of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities has improved significantly.

Outcomes for pupils Outstanding

• Pupils make excellent progress from below-average starting points to achieve standards above the national expectation by the end of Year 6. Throughout their time at school, they make rapid progress each year and this builds up over time to ensure that they are well prepared for secondary school.
• Achievement in the 2016 tests indicates that pupils did very well. The proportion of pupils meeting the expected standard appears well above the national average. More significantly, pupils made excellent progress, especially in writing and in mathematics. Although reading was not as good, progress was still better than expected.
• The weaker readers in Year 2 are able to sound out letters while the most able can read well. Year 6 pupils, including both the weaker and stronger readers, are fluent readers and enjoy reading for fun.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities make excellent progress. This is because the school’s procedures for identifying needs and providing support are highly effective. Pupils are given strong support from both teachers and teaching assistants.
• Disadvantaged pupils, including those who are the most able, are provided for very well through the pupil premium funding. The rich curriculum, the level of support and the range of clubs and activities all help to ensure that disadvantaged pupils make rapid progress with their learning. Early indications suggest that they make better progress than other pupils nationally.
• Outcomes for the most able pupils are very strong. This is because teaching challenges pupils and encourages them successfully to deepen their knowledge and understanding. For example, in mathematics pupils are given ‘digging deeper’ work to do when teachers judge that they have mastered a particular technique.
• Pupils who speak English as an additional language are also supported very effectively to make first-rate progress. Again, this is the result of careful identification of pupils’ needs and the wise deployment of staff and interventions.

Early years provision Outstanding

• The early years provision is excellent. Children begin school with skills that are below expectations and make strong progress so that they catch up and the proportion reaching a good level of development is average. This gives pupils a solid start to Year 1.
• Children develop their emotional and social skills very effectively. They are confident, very well behaved and polite. They have positive relationships with each other and with adults. They are confident learners who are able to stay focused on their work. The consistently high expectations set by staff enable them to settle into the routines of school quickly.
• Children are provided with very good opportunities to practise their speaking and number skills throughout the day. Children use their knowledge of phonics effectively so that by the time they start in Year 1 many are able to blend the sounds that letters make with confidence. Language development is woven through all areas of learning and, as a result, children’s reading and writing skills are developed well.
• There is a wide range of activities that stimulate children very well. The early years provides an inclusive environment that enables children to enjoy their work and concentrate well. For example, Reception children were very engaged in learning about the letter ‘f’ and how to sound and write it. In the Nursery, adults are skilled at engaging and motivating children by asking them interesting questions that help them to learn new words and ideas.
• Work in children’s learning journals show that staff check progress carefully. As a result they pick up those who need extra help or challenge quickly, enabling all pupils, including disadvantaged pupils, to make rapid progress. The large outdoor area is used well and provides good opportunities for pupils to experience a variety of activities. Leaders rightly recognise that they could do more to ensure that it provides children with a highly stimulating environment.
• Partnerships with parents, and with external services such as the local authority, are strong. For example, parents are invited to the Nursery singing session each Friday. This enables them to learn about how they can help their children with their learning at home.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority 139723 Waltham Forest Inspection number 10019636 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 Academy sponsor-led 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 449 Appropriate authority The Griffin School Trust Chair Executive headteacher Head of school Telephone number Website Email address Ange Tyler Anne Powell Justin Creasey 020 8539 4535 www.riverley-gst.org/ Office@riverley.waltham.sch.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• The school complies with DfE guidance on what academies should publish.
• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• The school is part of the Griffin School Trust.
• The school is larger than the average primary school.
• The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is above average.
• The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is very high.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is above average.
• The school meets the current government floor standards.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning in each year group, including in the Nursery and Reception classes. Many of these were jointly observed with school leaders.
• Inspectors looked at pupils’ work across the range of subjects.
• Inspectors listened to pupils from Years 1, 2 and 6 reading.
• Inspectors looked at behaviour at break and lunchtime.
• Discussions were held with senior leaders, governors, subject leaders, pupils and parents.
• A range of documentation and policies was scrutinised which included the school’s self-evaluation, records of pupils’ behaviour and attendance, assessment information and the minutes of governing body meetings.
• Inspectors scrutinised records relating to the quality of teaching, and the school’s website, including information about extra-curricular activities, trips and visits.
• Records, policies and procedures relating to safeguarding were reviewed.
• Inspectors took account of 32 responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View.

Inspection team

Brian Oppenheim, lead inspector Rick Barnes Anna Bosher

Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector