Penwortham Broad Oak Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the quality of teaching and learning in order to secure more rapid rates of progress for all pupils by ensuring that:
  • teachers have consistently high enough expectations of what pupils, particularly those who are most able, can achieve
  • teachers consistently provide pupils with opportunities to practise and develop their skills in English and mathematics in other areas of the curriculum
  • the highly effective practice evident in some classes in key stage 2 is shared more widely across the school.
• Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management, including governance, by ensuring that:
  • systems for tracking pupils’ progress more effectively provide leaders with the information that they need to identify areas of strength and weakness and evaluate the impact of improvement strategies
  • targets for pupils’ attainment and progress are more clearly informed by national expectations and are suitably ambitious and challenging.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• School leaders, including governors, have been successful in maintaining a good quality of education in the school and their work is securing further improvements. They have an accurate view of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and ensure that plans are in place to address key areas for development. Leaders, governors and staff have a strong shared vision for the school and work hard to ensure that Broad Oak provides pupils with an inclusive and supportive learning environment.
• Middle leaders are providing increasingly effective leadership and are making a key contribution to ongoing improvements across the school. For example, the teaching of phonics has become more effective over time, and changes to the school’s approach to teaching mathematics are beginning to bear fruit. The work of leaders in supporting potentially vulnerable pupils is effective.
• The school provides pupils with a broad and engaging curriculum covering a range of different subjects, topics and themes. Pupils commented that they particularly enjoy learning about different peoples in history, such as the Anglo-Saxons and Romans, while there is also an impressive range of different art and design work on display around school. The curriculum is further enhanced by a range of after-school clubs and trips to places of interest, while ‘focus weeks’ provide opportunities for pupils to become involved in deeper exploration of subjects such as science.
• Leaders also promote outdoor learning very well, and staff and pupils have worked together to develop an attractive and purposeful outdoor area. They have created wildlife habitats to support learning in science, and also grow their own fruit and vegetables, which they are then able to cook and eat.
• School leaders use the pupil premium funding effectively to support the disadvantaged pupils in the school. A significant amount of funding has been used on developing the school’s library and thus ensuring that pupils who may not have a wide range of books at home are able to access a good variety of reading material in school. Disadvantaged pupils in key stage 1 benefit from having additional teaching support to help them to catch up in areas such as phonics and the school’s very effective learning mentor also provides additional pastoral support. While there are variations between cohorts, disadvantaged pupils in the school are typically making good progress.
• Leaders also make sure that other dedicated funding is used to good effect. The primary physical education and sport funding is used to provide pupils with access to a range of sporting activities, including extra-curricular football, netball and rugby clubs. Pupils also say that they enjoy representing the school as part of sports teams. Funding for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is also well used and is having a positive impact on their learning.
• Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is promoted effectively. Pupils have a good understanding of social and moral issues and actively take part in charitable work. They also develop a good appreciation of British values, are able to talk about some of the different traditions of other religions and understand the importance of showing respect for other people’s beliefs. Older pupils were able to discuss the role played by members of parliament in making laws.
• Arrangements for managing teachers’ performance are robust, and staff appreciate the access that they have to different professional development opportunities. Leaders hold teachers to account for the performance of pupils in their class, but targets that leaders set are not consistently ambitious enough because they do not take enough account of national benchmarks.
• Leaders collect a large amount of information about pupils’ attainment and progress, and individual leaders use this to identify gaps and measure successes within their areas of responsibility. However, the school-wide tracking systems that leaders use are somewhat unwieldy. As a result, it is difficult to analyse swiftly and accurately pupils’ achievement and to check on the impact of different improvement initiatives.
• The local authority has provided the school with general support and is confident that the school is providing a good standard of education. The school benefits from working in a cluster with other local schools on areas such as moderation and curriculum development.

Governance of the school

• Governors share senior leaders’ vision for Broad Oak to be a successful, inclusive and caring school, and talk about their desire for ‘every child’s strengths to be found and nurtured’. They have a clear understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and are becoming increasingly effective in challenging senior leaders and holding them to account for how well the school is performing.
• Governors have made sure that there are suitable procedures in place for managing staff performance and that these are applied effectively, so that decisions that they make about pay progression are fair and well informed.
• Governors have ensured that the school’s finances are well used and have overseen a number of positive recent improvements to the learning environment, such as classroom refurbishments and the creation of an outdoor learning area for Year 1. They have a good understanding of how school leaders spend the additional pupil premium and sports premium funding. However, the complexity of the school’s tracking systems make it difficult for governors to fully evaluate the impact of additional funding or school improvement activities.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• School leaders have been successful in establishing a strong safeguarding culture across the school. Staff and governors receive regular training to ensure that they have up-to-date knowledge of good practice in safeguarding. Staff have a good understanding of the procedures to follow if they are worried about a child’s welfare, and the headteacher and learning mentor work closely together to ensure that any concerns are followed up promptly. The school works well with other agencies to ensure that vulnerable children and families receive the support they need.
• Detailed checks are made on staff, governors and volunteers to ensure that they are suitable people to work with children and records of these checks are of a good quality. Leaders have ensured that the school site is safe and secure and that the school building and grounds are well maintained.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• The quality of teaching across the school is good overall and is particularly effective in the middle years in key stage 2. Teachers typically have secure subject knowledge and use their questioning skills well to check what pupils have understood and thus provide additional support where pupils are less certain. Teaching assistants work well in partnership with class teachers to provide additional support and focus for different groups of pupils. The positive relationships between staff and pupils help to ensure that behaviour in lessons is good, and this has a positive impact on pupils’ learning.
• Reading is taught effectively across the school. Younger pupils are taught phonics in small, focused ability-based groups. They develop a good understanding of how to use their phonic knowledge to tackle unfamiliar words. Teachers then develop pupils’ reading skills effectively and, as a result, older pupils typically become keen and confident readers. The older, most-able readers can talk thoughtfully about their favourite books and authors and read with fluency and expression.
• School leaders have refined and developed the school’s approach to teaching mathematics to meet the latest curriculum requirements and as a result the teaching of mathematics is effective. Teachers ensure that pupils have plenty of opportunities to apply their mathematical skills to problem-solving activities and encourage them to discuss and explain their reasoning when tackling problems. This was well illustrated in Year 6, where a group of pupils developed their understanding of the concept of and use of pi by working collaboratively on a practical activity calculating the circumference and diameter of different circular objects around school.
• The teaching of writing across the school is effective and pupils typically make good progress. Teachers systematically develop pupils’ writing skills, building well on prior learning so that pupils become confident using different types of punctuation, develop a broad vocabulary and are able to write in a range of styles. Pupils respond well to the suggestions that their teachers make.
• Teachers typically make good use of a range of assessment information to help them to plan work that is generally well matched to pupils’ different learning needs. However, while this is effective in making sure that most pupils are well catered for, particularly those who need to catch up, the most able pupils are not consistently provided with the challenge that they need to reach the very highest levels. Teachers do not have consistently high enough expectations of what these pupils can achieve.
• While teaching across the school is good overall and there are notable strengths in the effectiveness of teaching in a number of classes, there are still some inconsistencies. These are most noticeable in the teaching of subjects other than English and mathematics, where challenge for the most able pupils is less regularly evident and where teachers do not make the most of opportunities for pupils to practise and apply their skills in English and mathematics.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Pupils and staff get on well together and relationships are warm and positive. Pupils say that staff look after them well. They say that behaviour in their school is typically good and that staff deal well with any instances of poor behaviour.
• Pupils are also aware of different types of bullying, including racism and homophobia, but say that bullying is rare in their school.
• Pupils say they feel safe in school and explain ways in which the school keeps them safe, such as by carefully checking on visitors coming into school. They also understand how to keep themselves safe in different situations, including road safety and staying safe when using the internet. Pupils understand key rules about e-safety, such as knowing not to give out personal information, and ‘digital leaders’ help to ensure that their fellow pupils stay safe online.
• A small number of parents who responded to Ofsted’s online ‘Parent View’ survey expressed concerns about aspects of behaviour in school. However, inspection evidence, including discussions with staff and pupils, behaviour records and observations of break and lunchtimes, confirmed that behaviour is effectively managed and pupils are well looked after. Staff provide effective support for those pupils who need additional help to manage their behaviour.
• Pupils enjoy taking on different positions of responsibility in school. School council elections give pupils first-hand experience of the democratic process, and those pupils who are elected work hard to help organise events such as fundraising for charity.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Pupils are polite and friendly. They happily welcome visitors to the school and show good manners by holding doors open and talking confidently about their work. Their conduct around school is good and at breaktimes pupils play well together, making good use of the sizeable and well-equipped play areas.
• Pupils across the school display positive attitudes to learning. They listen well to teachers’ instructions and to each other’s views and suggestions, working effectively together to tackle problems or discuss ideas. The great majority of pupils take an obvious pride in their work, and work in English and mathematics in particular is typically well presented.
• Attendance rates are broadly in line with the national average and rates of persistent absence have improved to broadly average too. Leaders track pupils’ attendance carefully and work hard to ensure that no group’s learning is adversely affected by poor attendance.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• Most pupils make good progress during their time at Broad Oak, so that by the time they leave Year 6 they are typically well prepared for the move to the next stage of their education.
• In 2016, an above-average proportion of pupils reached the standard expected for their age by the end of key stage 2 in reading and mathematics, while the proportion reaching the expected standard in writing was broadly average. While provisional results for 2017 show that these proportions are likely to be lower, they show that pupils in Year 6 have still made good progress from markedly lower starting points.
• Outcomes at the end of key stage 1 are improving overall. Over time, pupils have typically reached broadly average levels of attainment in writing but have not done so consistently in reading or mathematics. Provisional data for 2017 shows that pupils’ performance in reading has improved to be broadly in line with the national average. Attainment in mathematics is still below average. Evidence in the school’s tracking and pupils’ books shows that pupils currently in Year 2 have made good progress this year. However, they are still catching up, having made less secure progress previously.
• Pupils’ achievement in phonics has improved over time, so that in 2016 all pupils had reached the expected standard in phonics by the end of Year 2 and an increasing proportion were achieving that standard in the Year 1 phonics screening check. Current pupils’ progress in phonics is continuing to accelerate.
• The performance of disadvantaged pupils fluctuates from year to year because it is heavily influenced by a range of cohort-specific factors. Evidence from the inspection confirmed that, overall, disadvantaged pupils typically make good progress in their learning from their differing starting points and that differences between their performance and that of other pupils nationally are beginning to diminish. For example, the majority of disadvantaged pupils in Year 6 have reached at least the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities typically make good progress from their different starting points. These pupils benefit from well-targeted support that helps them to learn well and ensures that almost all reach their specific, individual targets.
• The most able pupils in school do not consistently achieve the high standards of which they are capable because performance targets that are set are not sufficiently challenging and teachers do not have consistently high enough expectations of what they can achieve. The proportion of most-able pupils reaching the higher standards in national assessments has been below the national average for too long. Provisional results for 2017 show that this is still the case in key stage 2 but that there are green shoots of improvement in key stage 1, where the proportion of pupils working at ‘greater depth’ in writing and mathematics has risen to be broadly average.

Early years provision Good

• Children enter Reception class with levels of skills and understanding that are typical for their age in many respects but which are below that level in areas such as literacy, mathematics and personal and social development. The majority of children achieve a good level of development by the time they leave early years, although the exact proportion fluctuates because of other factors, such as cohorts with an unusually high proportion of summer-born children or children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities.
• Teaching in early years is good. Staff keep a careful check on children’s learning and use their records to identify individual children’s learning needs. Children’s learning in the areas that were identified as needing further development is then targeted through adult-led activities and additional challenges that children can access themselves. Staff use their questioning skills well to check and challenge children’s learning, for example by asking them to find the correct number card that is ‘one more’ or ‘two less’ than a given number.
• Behaviour in the early years is good. There are warm, positive relationships between adults and children and children play well with each other. Staff ensure that the learning environment is safe and that all statutory welfare requirements are met.
• Leadership of the early years is effective. The early years leader brings a good deal of knowledge and enthusiasm to the role. She has ensured that the provision links well with local nurseries and other groups so that children’s transition into school is smooth. The leader also has a clear picture of how the provision can continue to develop. She is aware that, while children’s overall progress is good and most are well prepared for the move into Year 1, there is still further room for improvement in children’s attainment in literacy and mathematics.
• There is a good range of opportunities for parents to get involved in their children’s education, including parental workshops and ‘stay and play’ sessions. The school has also worked hard to provide pre-school experiences for very young children, through its popular ‘Twiglets’ and ‘Little Acorns’ toddler and pre-school groups. Parents who spoke to inspectors were positive about their experiences of early years.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 119337 Lancashire 10024447 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 4 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 198 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Susan Naylor Sarah Barton 01772 749511 www.broadoak.lancs.sch.uk head@broadoak.lancs.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 7–8 February 2013

Information about this school

• The school is smaller than the average-sized primary school.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is above average.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is broadly average.
• The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for achievement in Year 6.
• In the early years, children in Reception class attend on a full-time basis.
• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed teaching and learning across the school. They also looked at pupils’ work in books, records of children’s learning in the early years and other information about pupils’ attainment and progress.
• Inspectors listened to pupils read and held discussions with two groups of pupils. They also talked informally with pupils around the school and in the playground.
• Inspectors considered the 40 responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View, and talked informally with parents at the start of the school day.
• Inspectors met a group of governors, including the chair of the governing body. They also had discussions with staff in school, including the leader responsible for the provision for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, the leader for the early years and the leaders for safeguarding, key stage 1, key stage 2, reading and mathematics.
• Inspectors spoke on the telephone with a representative of the local authority.
• Inspectors examined a range of documents. These included information about pupils’ attainment and progress, the school’s reviews of its own performance, governing body meeting records and adviser reports. The inspector also examined safeguarding documentation and various records of pupils’ attendance and behaviour.

Inspection team

Neil Dixon, lead inspector Tina Cleugh Elaine White

Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector