Twyford St Mary's Church of England Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the quality of teaching and learning so that it is always good by: ensuring that tasks in lessons are pitched at the right level of difficulty to challenge pupils to reach their full potential providing teachers and support staff with the opportunity to share good practice with each other across the school ensuring that staff in the early years have the skills to be able to encourage boys to engage in early writing activities.
• Strengthen the effectiveness of the new leadership team by: providing middle leaders with opportunities to engage in activities that will help them use and analyse assessment information to develop their subject further, in order to support senior leaders in moving the school forward developing strategies to help pupils manage their behaviour more effectively at break and lunchtimes.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

• The interim headteacher has galvanised staff in their drive to secure significant and rapid change for the pupils at the school. Staff are unanimous in their opinion that the school has improved since the last inspection. Senior leaders and governors have an accurate view of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and know what needs to be done to improve the school further.
• The interim headteacher has made an incisive decision to check, evaluate and coach teachers in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning. These checks are robust. Joint lesson observations during the inspection showed that judgements were accurate; any underperformance is challenged swiftly and effectively. This has led to an improvement in the quality of teaching and this is consequently having a positive impact on pupils’ progress across the school.
• Middle leaders welcome the new opportunities that are given to them to support senior leaders. They value the extra time provided to them for leading their subject. However, they are not yet confident in using information gathered through monitoring and evaluation to target key priorities and take swift action when necessary.
• The curriculum is being developed to enable all pupils to have access to broad, balanced and enriched learning opportunities across a range of subjects. Work in pupils’ books shows evidence of purposeful writing linked to topics. For example, ‘the day that an alien visited the school’ inspired all pupils, particularly boys, to participate fully in the writing process and led to some creative and imaginative writing. Pupils have developed a joy of learning English because leaders have engaged a range of authors and visiting theatre companies to enhance pupils’ enjoyment. They have made meaningful links to other subjects, for example, religious education (RE), science and history, and have all developed a pleasure in English, which has led to a good standard of writing across the school. Senior leaders have carefully considered trips and visits to enhance the curriculum, for example early years were out on the first day of the inspection visiting a pizza establishment in order to make pizzas as part of their topic on food.
• The English leader has strong subject knowledge and is clearly able to articulate the priorities of the English curriculum and how it is leading to improved pupil progress. Reading is secure and there is a good range of books in the library for pupils to access within school and borrow to take home.
• Pupils are able to articulate clearly what they enjoy about the curriculum. They talk eloquently about displays in classrooms and how they act as prompts to remind them to improve their learning and work more on their own. They enjoy homework that links to topic work. One pupil explained what they liked by saying, ‘We are learning about Brazil and so we have to learn and practise the samba, and explore why the buildings in Brazil are like they are.’
• Shared values underpin the work of the school and are woven through the curriculum to promote pupils’ social, moral, spiritual and cultural development. Pupils show respect and tolerance for each other and believe that there are no racial incidents or bullying. The majority of parents believe that any issues are dealt with swiftly and effectively. One of the children stated, ‘’We are not horrible to one another because we are all family.’
• British values are visible within the curriculum, for example through RE and personal, social, health education, where pupils learn to understand and respect other religions and cultures. Art displays capture key events, such as Remembrance Day, where parents and pupils worked together to create a ‘sea’ of poppies. The school is preparing pupils successfully for life in modern Britain.
• Sports funding is used effectively to improve teachers’ ability to deliver high-quality physical education and sporting activities. A dance teacher has also been engaged to provide specialist tuition for pupils. Leaders plan to improve provision for gymnastics this year. Extra-curricular clubs are provided and the member of staff responsible for PE is working hard to encourage further participation in after-school clubs. The PE leader is aware of the need to develop ways to monitor and evaluate pupils’ skills in order to measure the impact of this additional government funding. However, PE is now clearly better matched to pupils’ needs and a wider range of sports is on offer to all pupils than in previous years.
• Pupil premium funding is used effectively by leaders and is therefore impacting positively on outcomes for disadvantaged pupils. Effective interventions and planned support are leading to improved progress for disadvantaged pupils within the school. As a result, the gaps in the achievements of disadvantaged pupils compared with other pupils are closing rapidly.
• Parents receive appropriate communication from the school and are invited each month to look at their child’s work. Parents value the regular communication from the school and the opportunities available to express their views.
• Local authority support is effective because they know the school well and hold leaders to account when appropriate and provide support where needed. For example, where boys are not writing well enough in early years, the leader is part of a project, which is coordinated by the local authority, to raise standards in boys’ writing.

• The governance of the school

Governance is good. The governing body has high expectations of the school and has had to make some challenging decisions in the past year in order to secure effective leadership and drive standards forward. It has effectively supported and challenged leaders in order to continue to remedy the areas of weakness identified in the last school inspection report. The governing body has worked tirelessly with senior leaders and the local authority to ensure that the behaviour of pupils has improved and offered appropriate support when needed. The governing body has ensured that communication with parents has been strengthened through rigorous monitoring of all communications, support for parental events and being visible themselves for parents. The governing body has ensured that leaders have carried out clear monitoring and evaluation of pupil outcomes, including the use and impact of the pupil premium, PE and sport premium and funding to support those who have special educational needs. Governors also ensure that performance management has an impact on improving the quality of teaching.

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective with clear staff training, systems and procedures in place to ensure pupils are protected and cared for. The procedures for reporting and recording any safeguarding issues are well embedded and swift and appropriate action is taken when needed. Communication with parents and outside agencies is effective and focuses on the needs of the child.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is good

• The interim headteacher is secure in her knowledge and understanding of what needs to be in place for pupils in order to maximise their learning potential. This is underpinned by the use of three Cs that are important for learning: children (focus on their needs), communication and consistency. She has ensured that no time is wasted within the school day to engage pupils in learning. Timetables are easy to read and sharply focused on basic skills, with topic work woven throughout to provide enrichment.
• The vast majority of teaching within the school is consistently good and improving significantly. Teaching is strong in Years 5 and 6 and as a result pupils have a thirst for learning and a passion for challenge. The most-able pupils are stretched at every opportunity and relish these chances to expand their knowledge and apply their skills. All pupils in Years 5 and 6 are provided with appropriate tasks which are well matched to their needs. They thrive on feedback given to them about their work and enjoy opportunities to grapple with problem solving. No pupil in Years 5 and 6 is left behind and the work in their books is a testament to this.
• The use of other adults across the school is effective in providing support for pupils when required. In a mathematics lesson, a group of pupils, who were less secure with the concept of multiplication arrays, were supported with practical apparatus and additional time to carry out the task. Pupils who have special educational needs are provided with highly effective support from trained support assistants with appropriately matched resources to assist their learning.
• Teachers expect pupils to use a wide range of increasingly complex vocabulary in their writing and this is enabling pupils to demonstrate an increasing command of language. There is a clear focus on teaching spelling and pupils are improving their accuracy when attempting to spell unfamiliar words in their writing. Pupils in the infants classes are learning important basic punctuation skills and their work demonstrates fluency and appropriate vocabulary choice.
• Some mathematics seen within the school developed pupils’ skills as well as their ability to think and apply their learning, for example in one mathematics lesson the tasks that were set through ‘fraction challenges’ really enabled the pupils to be challenged by the mathematics. The work was skilfully matched with timely teacher intervention providing clear feedback, challenge and support. A group of pupils in another class clearly enjoyed a lesson on pictograms and the practical and engaging task enabled the pupils to apply the skills they had learned. However, sometimes there are missed opportunities within the curriculum to challenge pupils’ learning further. For example, in some of the books and lessons, the work does not provide enough extended opportunities for pupils to show that they can apply their learned skills to a variety of problems.
• Where activities are matched well to pupils’ abilities, they benefit from structured lessons with clear evidence of skills, practice and application. This, however, is not seen across the whole school and so consistent challenge to further extend pupils’ learning is not always evident.
• A new assessment system has been introduced by leaders and is being developed in line with local authority guidelines. Staff are becoming more secure at making judgements about pupil performance that relate to the new national curriculum. They are working closely in a cluster of schools to share practice and skills and to ensure that the performance of pupils is judged accurately by checking pupils’ work jointly.
• Senior leaders have tailored the training, support and coaching provided to the needs of individual teachers. A programme of monitoring shows clear impact of leaders’ interventions on the quality of teaching.
• Coherent, well-structured lessons across the school provide a clear focus on learning with teachers providing age-related work for the pupils in an interesting and practical way. Clear feedback is provided at timely intervals in accordance with the school assessment policy, although this is not yet consistent across the school. The assistant headteacher with responsibility for assessment recognises this and is supporting teachers with assessment.
• Positive attitudes to learning are evident across the school and pupils’ enjoyment in lessons is plain to see with pupils telling inspectors how much they enjoy school.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare is good

Personal development and welfare

• Leaders’ work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good. Pupils are proud of their school. Parents’ views about the school are far more positive than they were previously. They say that the school is responsive to concerns and has a happy, friendly atmosphere. All parents who responded to the questionnaire or were spoken to by inspectors say that their child is happy at school and pupils are supported to be the best they can. All pupils who were spoken to by inspectors and responded to the questionnaire said that they would recommend the school. They enjoy learning and believe teachers listen to them, support them and help them to do their best. Pupils say that they feel safe and trust the adults in the school to help them when needed. The school’s provision for spiritual, moral, social and cultural education is good because these aspects are threaded throughout the curriculum. This enables pupils to be well-prepared for life in modern Britain. The school has clear Christian values, ‘courage, joy, care and respect’, that permeate throughout the learning and attitudes within school. Pupils are encouraged to explore other faiths and cultures and empathise with others, for example a topic in lower Key Stage 2 explores how it feels to be Muslim.
• Clear themes for collective worship are implemented on a half termly basis and the theme for this term is ‘trust’. During this inspection the interim headteacher skilfully used a parable, prayer and reflective thinking time to consider how pupils would demonstrate trust throughout the day.
• Pupils are adamant that bullying and poor behaviour rarely happens and that if it does occur it is dealt with swiftly and effectively. The significant majority of parents were extremely positive about the care at the school for pupils.
• Pupils are confident, self-assured learners who are able to work either on their own or as part of a group. They take delight in working together to solve problems as evidenced in the mathematics lessons seen. They enjoy talking about their learning and are proud of their achievements, and a number talk with passion about their enjoyment of homework.
• Attendance in the school is good and above the national average. The senior leaders and governing body have worked extremely hard to improve attendance since the last inspection.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good and parents talk about the positive changes in behaviour since the arrival of the interim headteacher. Pupils are polite and courteous, they are articulate and friendly. They listen carefully to their teachers and are respectful of other adults within the school as well as each other. There are some parents who remain concerned about disruptive behaviour.
• Pupils’ behaviour in class is good and they are focused and engaged with their learning, they are polite and courteous to each other and to their teachers.
• Pupils’ behaviour during collective worship was very good and they entered and left the hall calmly and quietly.
• A clear behaviour policy was established in autumn 2015 and this has led to clear structures, rewards as incentives and consequences for poor behaviour. Pupils are clear in their understanding of the policy and parents are supportive of the school’s initiatives.
• Pupils do not always manage their own behaviour on the playground and some boisterous behaviour occurs. This is partly due to the small space available and lack of resources to play with in unstructured times.
• Pupils understand how to keep themselves and each other safe and can articulate what they would like in the playground to make break times better.

Outcomes for pupils are good

• At the end of Key Stage 1, pupils’ attainment is significantly above the national average in reading and above in writing and mathematics.
• At the end of Key Stage 2, pupils reach levels of achievement that are above the national average for reading, mathematics, English grammar, punctuation and spelling and in line with the national average for writing at the expected level and significantly above the national average at higher levels. Pupils in Year 1 achieve well in the phonics (the sounds that letters make) screening test at the end of the year. Achievement is in line with the national average. Additional support is in place in Year 2 to ensure that those pupils who did not meet the expected standard in Year 1 are given every opportunity to catch up.
• Children join the school with skills and knowledge that are typical for their age. They make good progress across early years, leading them to achieve a level of development that is above the national average. This ensures that they are well-prepared to join Key Stage 1.
• Senior leaders have put in place a range of actions to support pupils to make accelerated progress across the year group. This is leading to current pupils’ work evidencing clear progress, particularly in early years and Key Stage 2. There is not enough evidence of challenge to demonstrate strong progress across Key Stage 1. However, significant time and support are being provided by leaders to ensure that teachers’ assessments under the new system are accurate and secure.
• Leaders are determined to ensure that all pupils continue to make good or better progress and individual provision is mapped out. There is a strong focus on the basic skills, including spelling, to ensure that all pupils across the school improve.
• Adults have high expectations of pupils who are disabled and those who have special educational needs. Support is well planned and provided to ensure that pupils have work that is well matched to their ability. There is clear evidence of appropriate progress for these pupils and the current special educational needs coordinator and assessment leader are working together to ensure that the right provision continues.
• From their different starting points disadvantaged pupils are making, and exceeding in some cases, expected progress in reading, writing and mathematics. Well-thought-out provision for these pupils ensures that their needs are being met.

Early years provision is good

• Children in early years make good progress because the leader is accurate in her self-evaluation and consequently the actions taken to improve the provision. Continuous accurate assessment and focused observations of children by practitioners lead to well-planned provision for the children.
• A wide range of activities are available across the setting to develop and encourage writing skills. For example, activities are provided to develop hand control through cutting and using tongs to pick up noodles. There are also opportunities for more sustained tasks such as creating a book. In this instance, the group of children creating the book were able to look back at an example they had made about India. Because of this, they were able to recall how to create a contents page, write ‘blurb’ on the back cover as well as write about areas that interested them, for example about pandas and the Great Wall of China. A significant number of girls chose and sustained this writing for 45 minutes, which is well above expectations for this age. Boys chose to work on their hand control followed by building with bricks and riding bikes. The leader of the early years is fully aware of the need to encourage and challenge boys further to increase participation in learning activities that will improve their writing.
• The outdoor activities also encourage writing, for example with role play areas including a take-away restaurant, notepads and menus, and a table to cut out paper sections to create a dragon and then to write the word ‘dragon’ unaided. A group of girls at this activity worked independently, supporting each other to sound out the word dragon and challenged one who said ‘it is lellow.’ ‘No, no, it is yellow, ‘y’ for yellow’, said another child. The child took the feedback well and said ‘Oh yes, it is.’ And promptly changed it.
• The adults in the setting are highly skilled at questioning to move children’s learning forward. A good example of this was seen by inspectors when the boys making a Chinese mountain using noodles, chopsticks and tongs were challenged to talk about what they were doing. They were encouraged to make it higher and consider how they could do that without it sliding. They were also steered to extend the challenge and make links to mathematics because adults asked questions such as, ‘how tall is it?’ This inspired them to get rulers and very accurately measure it.
• Adults capture evidence of children’s work precisely and unobtrusively using a variety of assessment techniques, including photographs and sticky labels. These are then placed in children’s learning journals to tell the story of each child’s learning. The children are able to talk through these journals extremely accurately and clearly.
• All areas in the setting stimulate opportunities for curiosity and enthusiasm for learning. The thirst for learning is evident because children are focused and engaged. They are actively encouraged and supported by the adults who drive the learning. Children are actively encouraged to explore their own interests as well and one child said, ‘I am going to write about the bullet train in China. It floats!’ The adult discussed this with him and then provided books to support his exploration, thus encouraging his interest. However, the opportunity to encourage him to write something down about his interest was missed.
• Children are encouraged to read, write and count regularly and every child is expected to choose at least one of the writing activities, either an activity to develop hand control or a piece of writing. Specific support is also provided for those who require additional phonics support. The majority of children are accurate in their use of phonic knowledge and are confident enough to ask about sounds that letters make if they do not know them. They read with confidence and books are well-matched to their reading ability. They talk positively about their enjoyment of books and how they love reading at school, with adults at home and to themselves. Their comprehension skills are good.
• The strong teaching in early years has led to an above average number of children reaching a good level of development and good rates of progress.
• The children’s behaviour is respectful, calm and polite, they show independence and resilience. Clear routines and high expectations ensure children feel safe and cared for.
• Safeguarding arrangements for the early years are effective.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number

116320 Hampshire 10002374 This inspection was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

Type of school School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Number of pupils on the school roll

Primary Voluntary Controlled 4–11 Mixed 163

Appropriate authority

The governing body

Chair

Mr Bruce Greig Headteacher/Principal/Teacher in charge Mrs Michelle Stephens

Telephone number

01962 713358

Website Email address

www.twyford-pri.hants.sch.uk admin@twyford-pri.hants.sch.uk

Date of previous inspection

23–24 October 2013

Information about this school

• This school is smaller than the average primary school.
• There have been changes to the leadership since the last inspection, including the appointment of an interim executive headteacher for the autumn term and an interim headteacher for two terms up until April 2016 when a newly appointed headteacher will take up post.
• Pupils are taught in mixed age classes from Years 1 to 6. Pupils in Reception are taught as one year group and attend school full-time.
• The proportion of pupils eligible for support through the pupil premium fund is lower than the national average. (The pupil premium is additional government funding for pupils who are eligible for free school meals or who are looked after by the local authority.) The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs supported by the school or with an educational health and care plan is lower than average.
• The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic groups is below average.
• The school exceeds the government’s current floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in English and mathematics by the end of Year 6.

Information about this inspection

• The inspectors visited 10 lessons and were accompanied by the headteacher during four of these.
• Inspectors held meetings with the headteacher and assistant headteacher, other leaders within the school, two governors, including the Chair of Governors, a representative from the local authority and the previous interim executive headteacher.
• Inspectors gathered pupils’ views through talking to pupils around the school, in lessons, and through a formal meeting as well as from the 22 responses to the Ofsted pupil questionnaire. Pupils’ views were also gleaned from some pupils who escorted inspectors around the school to look at the curriculum, behaviour and safety.
• Pupils’ behaviour was observed in lessons and around the school at the beginning of the day, during break and at lunchtime.
• Pupils’ work was scrutinised across the school in a range of subjects to look at their current achievement. Inspectors listened to a sample of pupils read in Years Reception, 2 and 6.
• Inspectors looked at a wide range of documentation, including that relating to safeguarding, equality, behaviour, attendance, school self-evaluation, school action planning, reports on the quality of teaching, curriculum information, pupil premium analysis, sports premium evidence, science monitoring and assessment information.
• Inspectors took notes of displays around the school and the work in outdoor areas.
• Inspectors spoke to a small number of parents during the inspection and took into account their responses to the online questionnaire, Parent View, as well as the school’s own parent questionnaire.
• Inspectors also took note of the 11 responses they received to the inspection questionnaire for school staff, as well as the school’s own staff questionnaire.

Inspection team

Llyn Codling, Lead inspector Alan Jenner

Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector