Ormskirk West End School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the effectiveness of teaching in Reception to Year 4, by:
  • making more effective use of teaching assistants
  • making sure pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities are challenged by their work and receive the targeted teaching that they need
  • making sure that the most able, and older pupils in mixed-age classes, complete more complex work than the younger pupils
  • making sure that pupils deepen their knowledge and understanding of mathematical ideas before moving on to the next topic.
• Increase pupils’ attainment in phonics in Reception and Year 1, particularly for the boys and pupils who are disadvantaged, by:
  • making sure adults and pupils use correct pronunciation of the different sounds that letters represent
  • teaching phonics in a systematic and progressive way
  • teaching pupils how to pronounce, read and spell real and imaginary words confidently using their knowledge of phonics.
• Increase the impact that the middle leaders have on the quality of teaching, pupils’ outcomes and on the effectiveness of the curriculum in their subjects, by:
  • making better use of pupils’ knowledge and their views
  • having more chances to observe and to improve teaching
  • monitoring the outcomes of groups of pupils, particularly in the early years.
• Make better use of the pupil premium grant to:
  • raise the attendance of pupils who are disadvantaged
  • raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils so that a higher proportion attains the highest standards in each year group. The governing body should commission an external review of the school’s use of the pupil premium grant.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

• Leadership requires improvement because middle leaders do not lead enough improvements to teaching or to pupils’ achievement in the subjects or aspects of the school they are responsible for. They do not always make sure that the curriculum has an impact on pupils’ achievement in their subjects or on wider outcomes such as increasing pupils’ understanding of diversity and citizenship. Some, but not all leaders, check on how well the curriculum is covered across the school. Leaders, however, do not make enough links between how the curriculum is organised and its impact on pupils’ development.
• The use of the pupil premium grant has not been as effective as leaders intended. Disadvantaged pupils’ attainment in phonics has declined in each of the last three years. Their attendance has dropped and very few attained the highest standards by the end of Years 2 and 6 in 2016. The new inclusion manager has recognised a need to reorganise the support for these pupils. Together with the headteacher, he has constructed a new strategy and approach which is already starting to show benefits in Years 5 and 6. The approach is hampered, however, because not all middle leaders monitor this group’s achievement in their subjects and this group’s attendance is not monitored closely enough.
• The spending of the funding to support pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities requires improvement. Teaching assistants who mainly work with this group of pupils have not been successful in accelerating their progress. The new inclusion manager has already identified this weakness. He has started some very well-constructed plans to introduce targeted teaching for this group of pupils and to redeploy staff to have more impact on pupils’ achievement.
• The curriculum requires improvement. It does not have enough impact on raising pupils’ achievement, particularly for the most able and the older pupils in mixed-age classes. In addition, subjects do not prepare pupils well to know about either the full range of diversity in modern Britain or national democratic structures. The school’s theme weeks, however, do provide pupils with a glimpse into other societies, languages and people from different countries and religions. There is a good range of trips and visits which add depth and breadth to pupils’ learning. Pupils have good spiritual, moral, and social development as demonstrated by their good, responsible, caring and respectful behaviour in class and around the school.
• The physical education and sports premium is used well to increase pupils’ participation in sporting activity. Approximately two thirds of pupils said they were involved frequently in clubs and activities. It is also used well to train teachers as well as teaching assistants in how to teach and coach different sports.
• A strength of the school is the headteacher’s leadership. Since his arrival he has improved the security of the site and safety for pupils. He has a very accurate understanding of the strengths and weaknesses in the school and a good plan to improve the school further. He is not afraid to tackle difficult issues or weaknesses in teaching. Underachievement by the end of Years 1, 2 and 6 is being tackled strongly. He has successfully stabilised staffing which has been the main reason for the school’s instability and recent decline. He has introduced a learning culture in the school in which staff learn from each other and from others outside of the school. Training is now a key feature of school life.
• The local authority is taking an active and effective role in helping the headteacher to improve the school. It has helped to increase the governing body’s use of improvement plans to measure the progress of the school. It has also secured teacher appointments to stabilise and improve the quality of teaching. It has been involved in training staff and in reviewing the quality of the school’s work which has led to improvements in leaders’ use of assessment information to track pupils’ achievements.

Governance of the school

• Recent appointments to the governing body, plus the local authority’s training, have helped governors develop improved oversight of pupils’ achievement and of the quality of teaching. Governors now, thanks to detailed reports from the headteacher and first-hand evidence, have an increased awareness of the strengths and weaknesses in teaching in English and mathematics and have started to consider teaching in other subjects. However, the governing body is not up to full speed in its training in how to interpret and use national assessment information.
• The governing body has an oversight of the use of external funding but governors have not taken action in the past to make sure the pupil premium funding raises disadvantaged pupils’ attendance and achievement across subjects.
• The governing body has helped to shape the school’s culture and ethos and has not been afraid to take difficult decisions when tackling weaknesses in teaching or leadership.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. The headteacher has overseen much-needed improvements to site security to make sure parents and visitors do not have free access to the classrooms and to the pupils. He has also correctly identified the need to make sure pupils are kept away from cars around the school car park. He has created a safe and secure culture in which pupils have the potential to thrive. Safeguarding has a high profile and the headteacher is vigilant and responds well to any emerging concerns or issues.
• The school’s documentation is detailed and thorough. There is a good system in place to train staff and to keep them up to date about any national, local or school-specific concerns. The school works well with other agencies and parents to share information to make sure children are protected.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• The overwhelming reason why teaching, learning and assessment require improvement is that there have been too many changes to class teachers which have fragmented pupils’ learning and progress. Similarly, some of the teaching has not been good which means pupils’ achievement prior to September 2016 dipped significantly.
• The teaching of phonics in Reception and Year 1 is not effective enough. Adults make errors when they pronounce the sounds that letters represent and there is no clear progression in teaching sounds. Adults to not use what they know about pupils’ ability to sound out letters to plan their next steps progressively. Adults miss chances for all pupils to decode real and imaginary words into the different sounds and to use the phonics to spell new words.
• Teaching assistants are not effective enough. They work with groups of pupils, mainly those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. However, in some lessons this group was unnecessarily excluded from the rest of the class. Some assistants did not enable this group to extend their thinking or their skills through their teaching.
• Although adequate, teaching in Years 1 to 4 requires improvement. Too often, the older pupils are taught the same skills, concepts and knowledge as the younger pupils which means that older pupils are not challenged. Teachers do not use assessment well enough to plan teaching which builds on what pupils can already do. Around a third of pupils in the survey agree that there is a lack of challenge. In mathematics, for example, the older pupils often complete the same work as the younger pupils despite the fact that expectations should be much higher for the older pupils. They flit from topic to topic too quickly and do not develop, extend or deepen their mathematical understanding enough before moving on to new work.
• Across the school, teaching in art, history, geography and experimental science requires improvement. Teachers have not used the national curriculum aims for each subject to develop pupils’ skills and understanding. Teachers do not maximise chances to discuss the full range of diversity found in modern Britain. The sketch books and pupils’ art work does not indicate a development of understanding of different media, drawing techniques, the work of a range of artists or skills in using different media. Pupils’ key historical skills and knowledge are underdeveloped.
• Teaching in Year 5 and in Year 6 is highly effective. Pupils respond to teachers’ high expectations, good level of subject knowledge, clear explanations and very well-framed questions. Teachers monitor pupils’ understanding well and make good use of assessment to deepen pupils’ thinking and understanding. They use assessment very well to plan pupils’ future learning. There are signs that teaching elsewhere in the school has started to improve now that the headteacher has been successful in stabilising the teaching staff.
• The staff have worked hard to devise ways in which pupils can improve on their work and take account of any feedback from adults. This is successful, particularly in writing. Pupils across the school make good progress in their writing and there are some good chances to extend their writing in subjects such as religious education (RE) and science. Pupils, for example, wrote confidently about life cycles, habitats, and the human body and about phenomena such as light and electricity using increasingly complex vocabulary.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Requires improvement

Personal development and welfare

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils requires improvement because the attendance of disadvantaged pupils is too low. In 2016, their attendance was low compared to other schools nationally and since then their attendance has fallen further. Staff do not track this group of pupils well enough.
• Another reason why behaviour requires improvement is because a significant proportion of pupils in the survey reported disruption in lessons. A few also mentioned this to the inspector and said it sometimes made it difficult to concentrate on their work. These responses were mainly from younger pupils. There were a few occasions where younger pupils lost working time waiting for attention from the teacher. In contrast, pupils’ very good behaviour in Years 5 and 6 played a key part in their good progress. They were fully on task throughout lessons, responsive to the teachers and very keen to learn.
• Most pupils are self-confident, articulate, keen to learn and display respect for others and for the staff. Behaviour is good in most lessons most of the time. In Years 5 and 6, pupils are industrious, polite, respectful and work very hard.
• Around school, including at break and lunchtime, pupils’ behaviour is at least good. They cooperate and work well with each other regardless of gender, background or age. They are responsive to adults, polite, warm and friendly. There are very few behaviour incidents of any kind and almost no exclusions. Pupils said that behaviour around school had improved since the headteacher and the school council purchased new equipment which means they have more to do and they can be more active at breaktimes.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Outcomes require improvement because pupils’ skills in phonics by the end of Year 1 have declined in each of the last three years and are too low. In lessons, pupils incorrectly pronounce the sounds that letters represent because they add an extra vowel on the end of a sound, for example ‘cha’ instead of ‘ch’ and ‘sha’ instead of ‘sh’.
• Too few of the most able pupils in 2016 attained a higher standard by the end of Years 2 and 6. Between Years 1 and 4, the most able pupils and the older pupils are not challenged enough. They complete the same work as the younger and less-able pupils without fully developing their skills. In mathematics, for example, the most able pupils complete the same exercises as other pupils. They are asked to move on too quickly to the next topic before fully deepening their understanding of the mathematics they are learning about.
• A further reason why outcomes require improvement is because pupils’ work in art, history, geography and investigative science is not of a high standard. There is little development, for example, in history of pupils’ different interpretations of first-hand sources or understanding of how events fit into chronological order. In science, pupils develop good knowledge; however, their understanding of key features of investigation and experimentation is not good.
• In 2016, the disadvantaged pupils made average progress in key stages 1 and 2. Very few attained the higher standards. The pupil premium is not used well enough to accelerate disadvantaged pupils’ progress. Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities also made average progress. Their achievement in lessons is sometimes hampered because they are excluded from the rest of the class and access to the teacher, despite being asked to complete the same work.
• The Year 6 pupils in the 2016 national assessments underachieved, particularly boys and disadvantaged pupils. Since then, there have been some significant staffing changes. Boys’ work in Years 5 and 6 now indicates that they make good progress and they use increasingly sophisticated vocabulary and sentence structures in their writing. In Years 3 and 4, the boys make expected progress and their work shows that they make some good gains in their mathematical knowledge. In addition, their use of grammar and punctuation improves across the year in a range of writing activities.
• Pupils’ work across the school indicates that they made good gains in their RE. In a Year 6 lesson, for example, pupils used different sources to discuss very maturely how Jesus was depicted and described. They built up their knowledge and applied their reading skills to find out the meaning of difficult words and to infer the meaning from different religious texts.
• Pupils read at an expected level for their age from Year 2 through to Year 6. By the end of Year 2 almost all pupils are able to decode words using phonics at the expected level. They are also able to comprehend what they have read. Their progress speeds up through key stage 2 so that by the end of Year 6 they are able to explain in depth an author’s choice of vocabulary, how characters and the plot develops, and to deduce meaning from different texts.

Early years provision Requires improvement

• The early years requires improvement because the teaching of phonics is not good. Staff and pupils pronounce the letters that sounds represent incorrectly. There is no systematic plan to teach the different sounds and blends. In lessons, there is no clear progression from one sound to another. There are missed opportunities for children to learn how to pronounce the sounds correctly, use them to decode real and nonsense words, or to use them to spell real and imaginary words.
• The early years leader does not track the attainment and progress of groups of children. The tracking is individual but this means that any trends in boys’ achievement or disadvantaged children’s achievement are not picked up on early enough. The use of extra funding for disadvantaged pupils has not always been successful in raising attainment or accelerating their progress. There is plenty of assessment of children’s skills, knowledge and development. However, the results of the assessment are not used well enough to make sure that subsequent lessons or activities help children to make good progress from what they can already do or already know.
• The leader does analyse the assessment information at the end of the year and use this to improve teaching and provision. She noted, for example, that children did not attain as well as they should in the area of learning associated with people and communities. As a result, she adjusted her plans, the teaching and the curriculum to make sure children have more experiences and are able to gain the knowledge and understanding they need to attain the early learning goal.
• The early years leader has good systems in place to work with parents and early years providers to ease the transition into Reception and to check the accuracy of assessments. A mix of open days, meetings for parents, discussions with early years providers and sessions for children before school starts are successful in making the transition smooth. Parents are invited to contribute to their children’s learning and the early years leader works well with parents to show them the methods the school uses to teach their children.
• Children are well behaved and act safely around the Reception class. They have good attitudes to learning and their work and are keen to learn more. Teaching helps them to concentrate on activities and select resources and methods safely to further their own learning. They are keen, responsive, positive, and enjoy their learning.
• Children enter Reception with skills and levels of development that are typical for children of this age. They make steady progress and by the end of Reception an above-average proportion attain a good level of development, particularly in personal and social development and their physical skills. As a result, most children are ready to start Year 1. In Reception, around the classroom are examples of children’s work which shows keen observation, advanced drawing skills and good creativity.

School details

Unique reference number 119282 Local authority Lancashire Inspection number 10032299 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 Maintained Age range of pupils 5 to 11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 116 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Mr Dave Crowley Headteacher Mr P Clarke Telephone number 01695 574375 Website www.ormskirkwestend.lancs.sch.uk Email address head@ormskirkwestend.lancs.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 26 March 2013

Information about this school

• By the end of the inspection, the school met requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• Ormskirk West End Primary is much smaller than the average-sized primary school. The overwhelming majority of pupils are White British.
• The proportion of pupils identified as disadvantaged is in line with the national average.
• A much smaller proportion than average are identified as having special educational needs and/or disabilities.
• Almost all pupils stay at the school throughout their primary education.
• The school met the government’s floor target.
• The headteacher started at the school in September 2015. There has been significant staffing turbulence because of illness, maternity leaves, an assistant headteacher leaving the school and supply or newly qualified teachers being appointed on short-term contracts.
• The school has received extra support and guidance from the local authority’s specialist officers.

Information about this inspection

• The inspector observed teaching in every class with the headteacher and scrutinised pupils’ work.
• The inspector met with a range of staff including senior leaders, teachers who lead subjects and the teacher who leads provision for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities.
• The inspector met with three members of the governing body and two representatives of the local authority.
• The inspector considered the responses of 27 parents who completed Parent View which is Ofsted’s online survey. He also looked through the three responses from staff and the 27 responses from pupils to the Ofsted surveys. He met with two groups of pupils and observed break and lunchtime.

Inspection team

Allan Torr, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector