Caton Community Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the quality of leadership and management, by:
  • ensuring that governors consistently follow up concerns which they have identified from their monitoring to check and evaluate the impact of subsequent actions on resolving these issues
  • ensuring that the school website contains all the required information.
• Improve the quality of teaching, particularly in mathematics, so pupils make at least the progress expected of them and greater proportions achieve a greater depth of understanding, by:
  • ensuring that teachers make the best use of assessment data to plan activities that are closely matched to pupils’ abilities
  • increasing the opportunities for pupils to apply their mathematical skills and knowledge to solve problems, including those found in other subjects
  • minimising any wasted learning time in lessons.
• Improve the quality of teaching in science and history, to ensure that pupils deepen fully their knowledge of the topic being studied and are able to apply confidently their new skills in a wide range of contexts.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• Senior leaders have a clear and accurate understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses because of their insightful monitoring. They work closely as a team with staff and governors and have developed a clear vision for improvement. Their determination, commitment and carefully considered appointment of new staff have led recently to rapid improvement in the quality of teaching, particularly in English and mathematics in key stage 2. However, leaders recognise that the school has not yet completed its journey to achieve a good standard of teaching, learning and assessment and that further work is required.
• Leaders hold teachers to account for their impact on pupils’ learning. Leaders challenge rigorously any underperformance and when necessary take appropriate actions in line with employment policies.
• School development planning is clear and includes the correct priorities, focused particularly on developing standards in mathematics and phonics and is based on leaders’ accurate evaluations and the contribution of staff and governors.
• The headteacher has a good understanding of the barriers to learning for each of the very small number of disadvantaged pupils in school. She manages the small amount of pupil premium funding carefully to provide appropriate additional support. Additional teaching assistant hours are used to provide targeted support in class and careful use of funding ensures that disadvantaged pupils benefit from participation in educational visits and after-schools activities.
• Leaders’ good use the additional sport funding promotes pupils’ greater involvement in sport and improves teachers’ confidence and skills in teaching physical education. Additional specialist coaches provide expert training for staff and pupils and the school’s membership of the local sports partnership encourages pupils’ wider experience of competitive and recreational sports including football, orienteering, tennis, dance and cheerleading. This leads to high rates of participation, including local competitions. Pupils, including those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, are leading healthier lifestyles as a result of these experiences.
• This is a caring school where pupils’ spiritual moral, social and cultural understanding is carefully nurtured. This is particularly evident in the way pupils of all year groups interact and care for each other and their community. Pupils who have disabilities participate in the full range of activities and life of school. All pupils are treated with understanding and respect. Pupils actively participate and lead in charitable activities.
• Parents are well informed about life in school and their children’s progress through regular newsletters, individual reports and information events. They overwhelmingly support the school and recognise the caring ethos, strongly promoted by staff, as one of the school’s key strengths.
• The school’s curriculum is broad and balanced to equip pupils well for their next stages of education. It is complemented by a variety of clubs that develop pupils’ sporting, artistic and academic interests.
• Effective promotion of fundamental British values, including opportunities for pupils to experience the wider world of modern British society through a variety of educational visits and residential trips, ensure that they have a good understanding of the rule of law, democracy, and the breath of modern British culture. Consequently, pupils are well equipped for their next stages of education.
• The leadership of the early years is good. The teacher responsible for the early years is clear about their role and responsibilities and has an accurate understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the provision which they use to plan appropriate priorities for further development.

Governance of the school

• Governance of the school is effective. Governors share senior leaders’ vision and commitment to improvement and hold them stringently to account. Governors know their school well because many visit often and because they now more frequently ask deeply probing questions about the impact of leaders’ action on pupils’ progress and outcomes. They receive detailed information from a variety of sources, including external quality assurance professionals and pupils’ feedback.
• Governors take appropriate action to keep their knowledge up to date. Recent appointments to the governing body have significantly strengthened the capacity of the governing body to hold leaders to account and drive improvement.
• Governors, particularly those with educational skills and experience, monitor closely the school’s outcomes, including the impact of additional pupil premium funding and sports funding, to ensure best value.
• Governors have a secure understanding of the school’s policy for managing performance, including its link to teachers’ pay and ensure that it is robustly applied.
• Governors are involved in the planning of school improvement priorities. They monitor the outcomes and impact of actions through frequent and regular meetings with the school’s senior leadership team and the school’s standards and effectiveness committee. However, governors do not always follow up issues which they have identified through their rigorous questioning to ensure that subsequent action has the desired impact and that the issue is fully resolved. For example, governors identified, through their monitoring, that the school website did not contain the required information but did not then check to see if subsequent actions had addressed the issue.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Leaders and governors have ensured that safeguarding arrangements are thorough and followed meticulously. Statutory checks are carried out on the suitability of staff to work with children, including those who have access to your site through their work with the early years provider who shares you building. Appropriate security is in place to ensure the safety of pupils including by the careful management of traffic into and out of the car park adjacent to the school playground. All staff have up-to-date knowledge of safeguarding requirements and are vigilant about the risks posed to pupils.
• Any concerns regarding the safety or welfare of children are acted upon quickly and appropriately. Consequently, the school has a culture of safety where pupils’ welfare is a priority.
• The school has appropriate monitoring and filtering in place for its internet connection and effective online safety procedures.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• Teaching, learning and assessment require improve because the quality of teaching, although improving, is too variable, particularly in mathematics, science and history.
• The quality of teaching in mathematics is improving rapidly and is more systematic because of the training that teachers have received. However, teaching does not yet provide sufficient opportunities for pupils to deepen their understanding of mathematical concepts and apply their knowledge to solve problems, including those found in other subjects such as science, history and geography.
• Teachers have secure subject knowledge and their expectations of pupils are rising, particularly in reading and writing. However, in mathematics teachers do not consistently make the best use of their assessments of what pupils already know to plan activities that are well matched to pupils’ abilities. Consequently, some groups of pupils who have a good understanding of a concept often waste valuable learning time doing work that is too easy for them.
• Teaching does not provide frequent enough opportunities for pupils, including the most able, to deepen their understanding of concepts fully in science or history. There are insufficient opportunities for pupils to study specific topics in depth or apply the skills which they have learned.
• Teachers use questioning well to probe deeply pupils’ understanding and develop their reasoning and knowledge across a wide variety of subjects. Consequently, pupils quickly develop their confidence and are articulate in explaining their answers.
• The teaching of writing is good. Teachers make effective use of cross-curricular links and educational visits to engage pupils in their learning and make it fun. For example, a recent visit to a confectionary museum and factory supported well the study of South American civilisations, and linked closely to the study in of Roald Dahl’s novel, ‘Charlie and the chocolate factory’ in English.
• The effective promotion of reading ensures that pupils develop a love of books. Pupils leave key stage 1 with a good understanding of phonics and quickly become proficient readers who use pace and expression to bring texts to life when reading aloud. Pupils enjoy and regularly use the morning lending library that is run by older pupils and volunteers.
• Phonics is taught well in school by well-trained teachers and committed teaching assistants. Consequently, pupils, including children in the early years, make good progress from their starting points. Those that do not achieve the expected standard in the Year 1 phonics check receive effective targeted support so that nearly all pupils achieve the required standard by the time they leave the key stage.
• Homework is used effectively to support learning in school. Regular tasks include reading and in particular practice of mental calculations skills that are helping pupils in key stage 2 to plug gaps in their knowledge and understanding and improve their rates of progress. Tasks that are more extensive are closely linked to topic themes while the headteacher’s half-termly challenges provide pupils with investigation and enquiry quests.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Pupils’ conduct around the school is exemplary. Pupils are polite and courteous. They hold doors open for adults and nearly all eagerly engage in conversations to share what they have been learning.
• Pupils say they enjoy coming to school and their attendance is consistently better than the national average for all pupils. Very few pupils are absent without good reason and well-established systems are in place to check why pupils are not in school. Leaders challenge unauthorised absence robustly and inform appropriate authorities as necessary.
• Exclusion is used rarely by leaders and only as a last resort. A small number of exclusions have been carried out since the last inspection for wholly appropriate reasons and in line with the school’s behaviour policy. Leaders’ effective evaluation of the circumstances leading to exclusion means that pupils are well supported when they return to school and repeat incidents are rare.
• Pupils have a good understanding of all types of bullying and found it difficult to recollect any such incidents. They are confident that if any bullying or misbehaviour does occur, adults would rapidly take action to address it. Parents’ responses to the online questionnaire highlighted that when fallings-out do occur, parents are well informed and any concern they have are quickly and effectively dealt with by staff.
• Pupils’ attitudes to learning are good because of the improving quality of teaching they now receive. However, some pupils say they find some of the work set for them in lessons is too easy.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Outcomes for pupils have been variable since the last inspection and are not yet good.
• Pupils’ progress in key stage 2 in mathematics was particularly weak. In 2015 and 2016, pupils’ progress in mathematics in key stage 2 was significantly below the national average. Progress in reading and writing was better and in line with national averages.
• The proportions of pupils reaching the expected standards at the end of key stage 2 in reading and writing were in line with national standards and an improvement on previous years. However, the proportion reaching the standards expected in mathematics was below the national average. Attainment in mathematics was low and below the national average and the expected standard. No pupils made sufficient progress to read the high standard in writing or greater depth in mathematics.
• The proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in key stage 1 assessments in 2016 was in line with national averages. However, few pupils made the progress from their starting points to reach greater depth.
• There are currently and have been a low number of pupils in the early years. It is therefore difficult not to identify individuals when making judgements. In 2016, the proportion of pupils who achieved a good level of development at the end of the early years was below the national average. However, children made good progress from their starting points.
• The work in pupils’ books shows improving outcomes, particularly in mathematics, because of the better quality and more systematic teaching they now receive, especially in key stage 2. However, pupils’ work in science and history shows that they do not study topics in sufficient depth to develop deeper knowledge and understanding of concepts.
• The current small numbers of pupils in each year group are too small to make meaningful comparisons with national averages. However, the school’s own data shows that, across the school, approximately seven out of 10 pupils are currently attaining that which is expected for their age in reading, writing and mathematics.
• Increasing proportions of pupils now work towards attaining the highest standards.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 119322 Lancashire 10024169 This inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was also deemed a section 5 inspection under the same Act. Type of school Primary School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Community 5 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 43 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Stephen Clarkson Shabnam Cadwallender Telephone number 01524 770104 Website Email address catoncommunityprimary.org.uk head@caton.lancs.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 7 February 2013

Information about this school

• Caton Primary is a much smaller-than-average primary school.
• Nearly all pupils are of White British heritage.
• The proportion of pupils supported through the pupil premium funding is well below average.
• Very few pupils have special educational needs and/or disabilities.
• The number of pupils currently in the early years foundation stage is very small.
• The school’s website does not meet requirements on the publication of information about the curriculum and governor attendance information.
• The government’s floor standards do not apply to this school.
• There has been significant turmoil and changes in staffing in key stage 2 in recent years that leaders have now successfully resolved.

Information about this inspection

• The inspector observed a range of lessons or parts of lessons and looked at pupils’ work. He listened to pupils reading and talked with pupils about their lessons and school life.
• Meetings were held with the headteacher, the leader of the early years, representatives of the governing body and the local authority’s school improvement adviser who works with the school.
• The inspector observed the school’s work and scrutinised documentation relating to pupils’ progress and to school management, including the arrangements to ensure that pupils are kept safe.
• The inspector spoke with parents and staff and took account of the 16 responses to the online parent questionnaire, Parent View.
• The inspector took account of the responses to the pupil and staff questionnaires.

Inspection team

John Nixon, lead inspector

Her Majesty’s Inspector