Britannia Bridge Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Ensure even faster progress in writing by embedding the strategies that have been introduced, so that attainment rises by the end of key stage 2.
• Introduce a suitable assessment tracking system that allows leaders to have a clearer overview of progress and attainment throughout the year across all year groups.
• Make sure that subject leaders produce action plans for developing and improving their subjects that precisely evaluate the impact of their actions on pupils’ achievement.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• The headteacher and his leadership team have created an environment in school where pupils feel well supported and safe. Adults encourage pupils to do their best in all aspects of school life and pupils respond positively. This can be seen in pupils’ good attitudes to learning, their warm relationships with adults and with each other and the good progress they are currently making in their work.
• Senior leaders have a clear view of the school’s strengths and areas for development. After analysing last year’s published assessment information, they have put strategies in place to bring about improvements, such as in writing, and these strategies are having a positive effect. Progress among the current year groups is strong across a range of subjects, including English and mathematics.
• Subject leaders share senior leaders’ ambitions to secure continuous improvement in pupils’ achievement. They check on the quality of teaching and learning in their subjects by observing lessons and scrutinising pupils’ work. Consequently, pupils make good progress across a range of subjects. However, subject leaders do not make a clear link in their improvement plans between the actions that leaders take and the reasons for choosing them. This means that they do not precisely evaluate the impact of their actions on pupils’ achievement.
• The curriculum is broad and balanced and contributes well to pupils’ development. Teachers enhance pupils’ experiences of different subjects by organising interesting activities, such as history visits to the local canal bridge from which the school gets its name. There is also a wide range of extra-curricular opportunities that focus on activities that pupils might be less likely to access outside school. These include cheerleading, fencing and judo.
• Staff provide structured opportunities to develop the spiritual, moral, social and cultural aspects of pupils’ learning and to prepare pupils for life in modern Britain. Formal lessons in, for example, religious education and periodic focuses on feasts such as Diwali, support pupils’ spiritual and cultural development well and foster mutual respect and tolerance of other faiths and beliefs. Pupils show their understanding of right and wrong through their good behaviour and appreciate the basic principles of democracy through the elections to the school council. Staff develop pupils’ sense of responsibility well by, for instance, appointing older pupils as junior librarians and junior play leaders. Pupils apply for the posts and staff interview them and this gives pupils an understanding of the importance of the roles, which increases their self-esteem.
• Senior leaders have effective ways of checking how well teachers and other staff are working. They set targets for staff based on pupils’ achievement and on improving their own skills and knowledge. Leaders regularly observe in lessons and look at the quality of pupils’ work. They feed back the strengths and areas for development and provide training to help staff to make continuous improvements. Staff, including newly qualified teachers, say they appreciate the training and support they receive. Consequently, teaching is effective.
• Senior leaders make effective use of the pupil premium funding. They successfully break down barriers for eligible pupils and, as a result, these pupils make good progress from their starting points. They also use the physical education and sport premium well and provide a wide range of varied activities that engage increasing numbers of pupils in physical activity.
• Leaders use funding for special educational needs and/or disabilities effectively. The special educational needs coordinator organises support for pupils well and closely checks how effective it is. As a result, current pupils make good progress from their starting points.
• Parents are highly supportive and are overwhelmingly positive about every aspect of the school. They feel that their children make good progress and that leaders deal with any issues they have promptly and effectively. Some parents commented that school felt like a community and described it as a ‘pleasant environment’.
• The local authority provides effective support through its schools’ consortium system. A consultant commissioned by the consortium now makes termly monitoring visits, which has contributed well to the good progress in pupils’ achievement.
• School leaders have good assessment procedures in place and teachers know how well their pupils are acquiring the appropriate knowledge, skills and understanding across a range of subjects. They do not have, however, a tracking system that readily gives them an overview of progress and attainment for all year groups. Senior leaders have plans to put a system in place soon.

Governance of the school

• Governors know the school’s priorities well and are aware of the actions being taken to secure further improvement.
• Governors provide a strong degree of challenge and support and hold leaders to account effectively. They ask searching questions about a range of issues, including pupils’ achievement and the effectiveness of the use of funding.
• Governors have a good understanding of the school’s safeguarding procedures and receive appropriate training and updates.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• There is a strong culture of safeguarding in the school. This stems from a number of features. There are warm relationships between pupils and staff, which create a clear sense of trust. Staff are knowledgeable and vigilant about safeguarding issues and respond promptly when required. There is an effective partnership between school and parents that is based on regular communication.
• The single central record of checks on staff is compliant.
• Safeguarding procedures in school are effective. The designated safeguarding lead responds promptly to concerns and pursues issues with social care where needed.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Teachers have good subject knowledge and use it to plan lessons well. They keep pupils interested in their learning and provide most of them with appropriately challenging work. They assess their pupils well and adjust the work they provide accordingly.
• All staff have high expectations of pupils’ behaviour and demonstrate effective behaviour management. Relationships in class are warm and respectful. Staff encourage pupils to show positive attitudes to their work. As a result, little learning time is lost and pupils make good progress.
• Teaching assistants are effective in helping the class teacher by supporting different groups of pupils. They do this by guiding pupils to correct responses and intervening to explain misconceptions in simpler terms when needed. For example, in a mathematics lesson a teaching assistant working with a group changed an activity about coordinates into a revision of knowledge of shape because the original task was too hard. This helped the pupils concerned to understand and they returned to the first task with greater confidence.
• Teachers and teaching assistants question pupils incisively. They probe their understanding well by frequently asking pupils to explain their responses, thus developing their reasoning skills, and challenge them to make improvements.
• Teachers give pupils opportunities to use their English and mathematics skills in other subjects. In science, for instance, they write their own recounts of how fossils form and they use their knowledge of mathematics to make tally charts.
• Teachers stick to the school’s marking and feedback policy consistently. They give pupils time to reflect and respond to their comments. As a result, pupils know what they need to do to improve. This is especially effective in writing and mathematics, where pupils are making strong progress.
• Sometimes teachers do not provide challenge for the most able pupils in subjects other than English and mathematics. For example, in science in lower key stage 2 most-able pupils are limited in what they can write because the teacher provides a resource that prescribes the space pupils have to work in.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Pupils have positive attitudes to their learning and appreciate the support and guidance that adults in school give them.
• Pupils feel safe in school and they know how to stay safe. They are confident that staff will respond promptly to any concerns that they have and will deal with them effectively.
• The school provides good opportunities for pupils to develop their self-confidence. These include celebration assemblies, where pupils’ successes in their work are shared with the whole school, and creating positions of responsibility, such as school prefects.
• Pupils are aware of the various forms of bullying but say that incidents are rare. They know that they can report any kind of bullying or aggression to adults in school and they will respond promptly.
• Pupils know how to keep safe online and feel protected by the school’s in-house e-safety system, known as The Bridge.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Pupils conduct themselves well throughout the school. They are courteous and show it by, for example, holding the door open for an adult without prompting. They move around school in an orderly way and respond quickly to adult instruction.
• Pupils play well together at breaktimes and say they enjoy being on the playground. There are very few incidents of falling out or fighting.
• Pupils behave well in class and there is no disruption to lessons. Consequently, pupils learn well and make good progress.
• Attendance is above average for all groups and persistent absences are below national levels.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• Current pupils make good progress from their various starting points across a range of subjects, including English and mathematics. They acquire appropriate knowledge, understanding and skills because teaching is effective and because of the strategies for continuing improvement that leaders have put in place. For example, in Year 6 writing simple sentences such as ‘I woke up and got dressed’ progress to a more complex and adventurous style, such as a sentence about a character who was ‘impolitely woken from her deep slumber’.
• Typically, a large majority of pupils in Year 1 achieve the expected standard in the phonics check. Staff teach phonics effectively and current pupils use their knowledge well to help them to read unfamiliar words and to support their writing.
• School leaders make effective use of pupil premium funding to ensure that disadvantaged pupils among the current year groups make good progress.
• Validated assessment information until 2015 showed an overall picture of attainment and progress that was in line with national averages. Disadvantaged pupils from various starting points made progress that was broadly in line with the national averages for other pupils and, from some starting points in 2015, above those figures.
• School leaders recognise that some aspects of the published assessment information for 2016 contained percentages that were lower than national averages. They have taken effective action to ensure that pupils make better progress this year, as evidenced by the rapid gains that current pupils make in their skills, knowledge and understanding, particularly in writing. There is scope for even faster progress in this subject, so that attainment increases by the end of key stage 2.
• Pupils read well and show appropriate levels of fluency and understanding for their age and stage of development. Most-able pupils read with a good amount of expression, indicating their comprehension of the text, and can infer meanings. Less-able pupils use their knowledge of phonics well to help them to read words they have not seen before.
• In some subjects other than English and mathematics, most-able pupils do not receive challenging enough work. For instance, evidence in some geography books showed that teachers prevented pupils from making their own decisions about the content of their writing, which limited their scope to think more deeply. Pupils showed they wanted to write more than the space on their worksheet would allow by squeezing words around the outside of the writing box.

Early years provision Good

• Children enter the early years with skills and knowledge that are below what is typical for their age and stage of development. While the percentages of pupils achieving a good level of development by the end of Reception are typically lower than national averages, these represent good or better progress for most children from low starting points.
• The early years leader is effective and has a clear view of children’s achievement. She plans effectively to meet children’s needs and makes effective use of the pupil premium funding to support children who are disadvantaged. As a result, most children make rapid progress.
• Teaching in the early years is good, which leads to rapid progress for the current pupils, including those who are disadvantaged. Teachers and teaching assistants show strong subject knowledge and ask challenging questions to deepen children’s learning. For example, in a session about number some children worked out that they needed to add two to six to make eight. The adult then asked them to find other ways of making eight, such as four add four.
• Teachers plan engaging activities for children, which keep and extend children’s interest. As a consequence, children stay for prolonged periods of time exploring and playing with resources. Children show good social development as they share activities and talk to each other well.
• In the outdoor area, teachers provide opportunities for children to take controlled risks, using appropriate equipment to balance and climb. Children also show good maturity as they return the equipment carefully to its correct place after it has been used.
• While children work independently on tasks in the continuous provision, adults ask children well-considered questions to good effect that develop their thinking and communication skills. They ask, for example, about what might happen to ice when salt is added. When children see the outcome, adults deepen children’s thinking by asking what would happen if the ice were put in an oven. Children are able to explain their thinking in simple but clear sentences.
• There is a good partnership with parents. Teachers keep them regularly informed about their children’s progress and welfare, and parents contribute their comments and observations to children’s ‘learning journey’ books.
• Safeguarding is effective and all welfare requirements are met. As well as a secure knowledge of procedures and policies, adults have warm and caring relationships with the children and have high expectations of behaviour. For their part, children behave well and show that they feel safe by the way they interact with each other and with members of staff.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 106417 Wigan 10024312 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 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 255 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Dorothy Harrison Damon Donaldson Telephone number 01942 760036 Website Email address www.britanniabridge.co.uk enquiries@britanniabridge.co.uk Date of previous inspection 20–21 February 2013

Information about this school

• The school does not meet requirements on the publication of information about the curriculum and some aspects of pupils’ performance. The link on the website to the governors’ information report on the school’s provision for special educational needs and/or disabilities was faulty. School leaders have taken action to address these issues.
• The school is slightly smaller than average in size.
• The proportion of pupils who receive support in school for their special educational needs and/or disabilities is above the national average. The proportion of pupils who have an education, health and care plan or a statement of special educational needs and/or disabilities is below the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who are supported through pupil premium funding is above the national average.
• The percentage of pupils from minority ethnic groups is below the national average. The percentage of pupils who speak English as an additional language is also below the national average.
• The early years provision is part time for Nursery children and full time for Reception children.
• The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress by the end of Year 6.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors carried out observations of learning in all classes. The lead inspector carried out a series of short visits to classes jointly with the deputy headteacher on the first day of the inspection. In addition, the headteacher was present at inspector team meetings.
• A range of documentation was scrutinised, including the school’s self-evaluation summary, action plans for school improvement, records of the monitoring and evaluation of teaching and learning, minutes of meetings of the governing body, behaviour logs and records connected with the safeguarding of children.
• Inspectors had discussions with various stakeholders, including the headteacher and other senior leaders, other members of staff, governors, a representative from the local authority and pupils. They also had informal conversations with parents.
• Inspectors listened to pupils read and analysed pupils’ writing and mathematics, as well as their work in other subjects. They also looked at the work of children in the early years.
• The lead inspector evaluated 12 responses received through Parent View (the online Ofsted survey). There were no other survey responses.
• The school operates a daily breakfast club. This provision was included in the inspection.

Inspection team

Mark Quinn, lead inspector John Shutt Louise Smith Tina Cleugh

Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector