Loseley Fields Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve teaching and learning across the school so that it is consistently good or better by ensuring that:
  • teachers use assessments of pupils’ learning precisely in order to plan work that that is at the right level of challenge to meet all pupils’ needs
  • teachers continue to develop their subject knowledge.
• Increase pupils’ rates of progress in English, mathematics and a range of other subjects, by:
  • providing more opportunities for pupils to secure and deepen their mathematical understanding
  • strengthening pupils’ skills to become good writers
  • developing the quality and impact of the wider curriculum to challenge pupils’ thinking.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• The newly appointed headteacher has brought a sense of urgency to the school’s development following a period of turbulence. Parents, staff and pupils welcome the introduction of routines and rigour to the school. With trustees’ support, the headteacher has quickly set about appointing other leaders and new staff to fill the many vacant teaching posts.
• Leaders have prioritised a need to improve pupils’ behaviour, which was a barrier to learning. All staff are fully behind leaders’ efforts and this has helped the school’s rapid pace of development. Although a few parents and carers remain cautious, typical of most of their views was the parent who wrote, ‘I am feeling more confident in the school now with the new headteacher, as I feel her changes already have had a positive effect on both my children.’ Inspectors agreed with staff and parents that an impressive amount has been achieved in a short timescale.
• Leaders have created a positive climate for learning, both for pupils and staff. Whether they are new to the school or not, all teaching staff are keen to increase their professional skills. Teachers welcome the expertise from the newly appointed deputy headteacher to provide them with high-quality training. They value middle leaders’ support to plan learning. Teachers are keen to put into action what they learn. Inspectors saw that teachers’ efforts are beginning to help pupils to make better progress.
• Senior leaders have acted quickly to support accurate assessments for each pupil in reading, writing and mathematics. There are ambitious targets for all pupils to achieve well. Rigorous new systems enable leaders to maintain a clear view of where extra teaching needs to take place to ensure that pupils catch up to where they should be. However, this approach has not had enough time to become routine practice.
• Parents of pupils with SEND say that the recently appointed SEN coordinator has acted swiftly to improve the quality and impact of the school’s provision. They welcome the way in which she listens to parents’ views and involves them in finding strategies that support pupils effectively. The school’s learning and additional resource, the Solar Centre, is well led, and staff expertise is being used to enhance the new inclusion team.
• An identified leader champions the need for disadvantaged pupils to make strong progress. Additional monies for this pupil group are used effectively to improve the quality of teaching. This provides pupils with extra support in the classroom, including for their emotional needs. The school’s revised strategy increasingly ensures that support is more precisely tailored to pupils’ individual academic needs.
• The primary physical education (PE) and sport premium funding is used effectively to increase pupils’ active participation. Professional coaches have enabled teachers to develop confidence when teaching PE. Teachers and coaches ensure that pupils develop a keen interest in sports, including through competitive events. Pupils’ fitness is enhanced by active lessons, initiatives such as running the ‘daily mile’, and a wide range of sports clubs. Trained pupils helpfully run lunchtime sports sessions for others.
• Leaders provide good understanding for pupils to develop their spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding. The school’s ‘golden rules’ help pupils to understand the importance of fundamental British values, such as the right to individual liberty. Clever links are made between these and pupils’ understanding of equalities: for example, Year 6 pupils talked respectfully about how Malala Yousafzai stood up for the rights of girls in Pakistan to have an education.
• Pupils enjoy interesting and relevant visits that bring their wider curriculum topics to life. They appreciate the large variety of interesting extra-curricular activities that cover sports, the arts and hobbies.
• Leaders are aware that the wider curriculum subjects require further development. The curriculum does not provide enough opportunities for pupils to find out things for themselves, to reason and solve problems in mathematics, to make choices in their writing or to investigate in science. Pupils learn across a breadth of subjects, but they do not learn in enough depth to support their overall good progress in learning.

Governance of the school

• Trustees have maintained an accurate view of the school since it joined the Guildford Education Partnership. Their concerns about the school’s performance prompted them to act decisively during the school’s recent period of instability to strengthen the school’s leadership. Local governors are working collaboratively with trustees to support current improvements and hold the headteacher to account.
• Governors are confident that the school has strengthened under current leaders because parents tell them so. The local governing body has an accurate view of current pupils’ attainment. Governors acknowledge that pupils’ progress is not as strong as it needs to be.
• The governing body recognises that leaders’ work to improve the quality of classroom provision has not had enough time yet to raise standards. Working closely with trustees, governors are well equipped to ask searching questions to check that, in the meantime, there are measurable improvements.
• Governors have not maintained a reliable enough overview of the progress that different pupil groups typically make from their starting points. They have recently identified a link governor to challenge the impact of additional funding for disadvantaged pupils.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Recent work has taken place to review and sharpen the school’s safeguarding arrangements. The school’s procedures are fit for purpose. The review has meant that staff are now more vigilant in recording concerns and systematic in their use of purposeful risk assessments for school visits. Leaders make thorough checks regarding suitability when recruiting new staff and volunteers. A link governor maintains a regular overview to ensure that the school’s procedures are consistently followed.
• The school has a dedicated team of designated safeguarding leaders, led by the headteacher. Between them, they ensure that nothing slips under their radar. All staff and governors understand why keeping children safe is a priority. They have been comprehensively trained to understand about child protection. Designated leaders ensure that the school offers early support to families. They work well with other agencies to ensure that pupils’ needs are met.
• The headteacher has recently made site changes to help keep pupils safe. At breaktimes, there are high levels of supervision and purposeful activities to engage pupils. Pupils say that, even if others misbehave, they are not ‘mean’ and consequently there is little bullying. Trusting relationships with staff mean that pupils can easily tell an adult, or put a note in the school’s worry box, if they are upset or someone is bothering them. Pupils told inspectors that they feel safe in school and parents overwhelmingly confirmed that view. Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• Although the profile of teaching and learning is improving as a result of leaders’ support, it does not consistently meet the needs of all pupils. On occasion, learning tasks are not matched to pupils’ differing abilities and starting points. As a result, some pupils move on to new work too quickly, especially in writing, and some are not challenged enough.
• Teaching is variable for different groups of pupils and across subjects. Key stage 2 pupils have fallen increasingly behind in their learning due to having many changes of teaching staff. Pupils are now busy catching up on learning and developing their fluency in basic skills, especially in Year 6.
• Recent changes to leadership have resulted in effective opportunities for teachers to develop subject expertise. However, some gaps remain where teachers do not have a strong understanding of relevant content in each subject.
• In mathematics, there are too few opportunities for pupils to deepen their knowledge and understanding through reasoning and problem-solving. On occasion, their misconceptions are not addressed quickly enough.
• Teachers’ questioning does not consistently probe beyond pupils’ initial responses or make effective use of their misunderstandings to develop thinking and explanation. As a result, questioning does not often stretch pupils, particularly the most able pupils.
• Some pupils do not progressively develop their writing skills as they move through the school. Initiatives to improve the teaching of writing are very recent. There has been too little time for teachers to implement fully the strategies that they have collectively agreed. There are early signs of impact on pupils’ increasing fluency and, when writing is influenced by reading, its content is purposeful.
• Some key stage 2 pupils are becoming adept at editing their work for improvement. Pupils have good opportunities to develop their literacy skills in subjects such as science and religious education. Their writing in these subjects is not as strong as it is in their English lessons.
• Pupils who are lower-attaining, including some with SEND, are supported effectively through mathematical apparatus. They have access to teaching assistants, who develop their confidence and independence. However, learning tasks are not always suitably matched to the pupils’ needs. Pupils in the Solar Centre have teaching and learning that, over time, is carefully tailored to their needs.
• Phonics is well taught and increasingly supports key stage 1 pupils with their early spelling skills. Teachers help pupils to increase their vocabulary and develop interesting sentences for their story writing. Pupils’ strong phonics skills and their interest in books support them to become keen readers as they progress through the school. Teachers select interesting class fiction that challenges pupils’ reading comprehension and motivates their writing. A team of reading volunteers supports less confident pupils to become more fluent.
• In some classes, teachers plan learning well to ensure that pupils make strong progress to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding. Leaders are making effective use of the school’s best practice to support newer teachers, and they are enthusiastically putting into place all that they are told.
• In all classes, inspectors observed pupils to have positive attitudes towards their learning and, when tasks were well matched, they concentrated particularly hard on their learning. Pupils’ handwriting and presentation are good, and they take pride in their work.

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 are welcoming and friendly. They are respectful of each other and towards adults. Pupils help staff to ensure that the school runs smoothly, such as by putting away the playground equipment at the end of breaktime. Key stage 2 pupils enjoy taking responsibilities by being school councillors and acting as ‘playground buddies’ to help pupils who need a friend.
• Pupils understand the school’s rules because they have opportunities to experience them at first hand. They were able to explain the significance of making a whole-school Remembrance Day ‘human poppy’ to respect the soldiers who have sacrificed their lives. Year 6 pupils reflected sensibly about how the artist Frida Kahlo used her experience of disability to paint powerful self-portraits. Her story inspired pupils to create their own.
• Staff personalise support to meet the needs of pupils who have social, emotional and mental health needs. The school’s ‘Flourish’ programme, funded largely by pupil premium funding, is particularly successful in improving pupils’ self-esteem.
• Although it covers necessary content, the curriculum for personal, social and health education (PSHE) is not fully coherent because it does not deepen pupils’ understanding over time. Pupils are routinely taught how to stay safe online and a new leader has been identified to support whole-school development of the PSHE curriculum. Pupils in the Solar Centre learn PSHE through a well-planned curriculum that is carefully adapted to meet individual needs.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Until recently, pupils’ behaviour was a source of concern to staff because it was a barrier to teaching and learning. The headteacher and deputy take a strong lead to promote pupils’ good behaviour and its management. Skilled leadership, newly developed procedures and the combined efforts of all staff have turned behaviour around.
• Whole-staff training has helped ensure that staff consistently reinforce good behavioural choices. Consequently, pupils’ conduct is now typically good throughout the school day. Leaders use expertise from within the school and beyond to develop skilful management of the behaviour difficulties that arise for some pupils with SEND.
• Pupils move about the school sensibly, and older pupils help the younger ones to play happily during breaktimes. In class, pupils listen to teachers and cooperate well with each other. Pupils told inspectors that classroom behaviour has improved during this academic year and their learning is not disrupted.
• There has been a decrease in the number of pupils who present a high level of challenge. Although fixed-term exclusions were initially used to reinforce a clear message about raised expectations of behaviour, they have now declined. Skilful support has helped many pupils to self-regulate their behaviour.
• Pupils enjoy school and want to be there, which means that they attend well. Attendance has improved this term and is in line with the national average. Office staff systematically follow up any unnotified absence the same day, and leaders regularly monitor any patterns. This enables swift action before absence becomes persistent. Pupils arrive punctually in classes, including after break and lunchtimes, and they are ready to learn.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• In 2018, attainment at the end of key stage 2 improved, although in mathematics and writing it remained below the national average. In those subjects, proportionally fewer pupils attained the higher standard than in other schools nationally. Current pupils have not made consistently good progress as they have moved through the school. Leaders’ evaluations show that across key stage 2, pupil cohorts are not achieving in line with their expectations.
• Teachers have not historically understood where individual pupils are in their learning. Leaders have not valued having accurate assessment information or checked on pupils’ progress. Consequently, teachers’ expectations have been variable. Current leaders have implemented new systems with pace and rigour in order to close gaps in teachers’ knowledge about pupils’ learning.
• The assessment of pupils with SEND, including pupils in the Solar Centre, has not been sufficiently detailed to support teachers and leaders to have a clear view of pupils’ progress over time. Although leaders have reintroduced a specialised system, it needs a longer period before it will provide them with useful information to analyse the small steps in progress that pupils typically make.
• Pupils’ attainment in mathematics continues to be below reading and writing because teaching has not previously enabled pupils to understand and remember their learning. As a result, pupils in Years 5 and 6 have had to revisit learning that they have missed. Similarly, pupils have made poor progress in writing because teaching has not developed their skills consistently well.
• Although pupils enjoy learning across a broad range of other subjects, teachers’ understanding of pupils’ progress is not well developed in subjects other than English and mathematics.
• Evidence in pupils’ workbooks and classroom observations shows that all groups of pupils make variable progress, and sometimes within the same class. Progress depends upon how precisely teaching meets pupils’ different needs and abilities. Under leaders’ guidance, teachers are beginning to focus more sharply on individual pupils’ progress from their starting points.
• Leaders’ current analysis shows that disadvantaged pupils make progress that is in line with other pupils at the school who have the same starting points. However, disadvantaged pupils are not catching up to attain as well as other pupils nationally.
• In 2018, Year 6 pupils made rates of progress in reading that were above the national average. Right from their start in Reception, children enjoy reading and use their skills effectively in the wider curriculum subjects. The proportion of pupils who meet the phonics check is above the national average. Pupils in the current key stage 1 classes are making strong progress, particularly in reading and mathematics.

Early years provision Good

• Learning in the Reception class is skilfully organised because adults know children well as individuals. Children enjoy learning because there are so many interesting activities to choose from in their engaging and well-planned environment. They sustain concentration on their learning and develop independence.
• On entry to Reception, children’s achievement is broadly typical for their age in most areas of learning, although it is lower in areas such as writing. In 2018, children made good progress and the proportion who reached a good level of development was higher than the national average. As a result, children were very well prepared to move into Year 1.
• The leader has a detailed understanding of the curriculum for early years children. Adults use their observations of children’s learning to plan learning activities that meet children’s needs. Parents helpfully support the teacher’s assessment of children’s learning by adding their comments to the school’s online programme. Parents who spoke to inspectors commented favourably on how much their children have already learned since the start of the academic year.
• Teaching helps children to develop their literacy skills. They learn to communicate confidently and to extend their vocabulary. When children talk together, they listen carefully and ask each other relevant questions.
• The additional funding the school receives for disadvantaged children is used to provide extra support to develop their communication and language. Children enthusiastically applied their early understanding of sounds into spelling. Pupils enjoyed writing for useful purposes, such as to prepare a shopping list.
• Strong relationships enable children to feel confident and secure. They understand the class routines and keep to the rules. Adults are well trained to understand the particular safeguarding requirements of young children. They are alert to children’s care needs and safety, such as when they use tools and equipment in their child-initiated activities.
• The leader has an accurate view of strengths and weaknesses in learning for each child, based on her analysis of their progress. She has identified the need to ensure that the most able children have the opportunity to exceed the good level of development.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 143625 Surrey 10059276 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Primary School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Academy converter 4 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 345 Appropriate authority Board of trustees Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Andrew Shovelton Amanda Pedder 01483 416477 www.loseleyfields.com mailto:info@loseleyfields.surrey.sch.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• The school is a larger than average-sized primary school. There are between one and three classes in each year group. This is because around 30 pupils join the school in Year 3, adding to those already in key stage 1.
• The new headteacher joined the school on an interim basis during the summer term in 2018 and has since been appointed as the substantive headteacher. The deputy headteacher and seven other teachers joined the school in September 2018.
• The school converted to become an academy on 1 November 2016. Currently, it is one of seven schools within the Guildford Education Partnership, which is a multi-academy trust (MAT).
• The school is governed by a local academy committee that is accountable to the MAT executive team and a board of trustees, who oversee the school’s finances, resources and quality. The MAT is providing interim support from a senior teacher in order to extend the school’s expertise for teaching and learning.
• The school has a learning and additional needs resource provision for 14 pupils for pupils in key stage 2, who are placed in the resource by the Local Education Authority. The school has a higher proportion of pupils who have an education, health and care plan than is typically found in most primary schools. It also has a higher percentage of pupils with SEND than most primary schools.
• The percentage of disadvantaged pupils is in line with the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language or who are from minority ethnic backgrounds is much lower than that found nationally.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors carried out 11 classroom observations to look at teaching and learning. They made other brief classroom visits during four focused learning walks. Most of the observations were carried out jointly with school leaders.
• Inspectors reviewed a large sample of workbooks in English, mathematics and other subjects, representing pupils of different abilities. They discussed pupils’ work and progress with leaders.
• Inspectors spoke with pupils in meetings, and at break and lunchtimes.
• The inspection took account of the views of 87 parents who responded to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View, which included 58 free-text responses. Inspectors also spoke with parents at the gate as they brought their children to school.
• Observations of pupils’ behaviour took place during lessons, in assembly, at playtime and lunchtime, and when pupils were moving around the school.
• Meetings were held with governors, senior and middle leaders and mixed groups of staff from the school. The lead inspector also met with the chief executive of the academy trust and the trust’s improvement partner.
• Inspectors considered a range of school documentation, including the school’s improvement plan and leaders’ evaluations of the school’s current performance. They discussed with leaders their analysis of pupils’ performance information, reviewed governing body minutes, the school’s website and its policies, and the school’s record of safeguarding and recruitment checks.
• Inspectors reviewed attendance and behaviour records and checked safeguarding documentation. Through discussion of case studies, they considered how the school’s procedures work in practice to keep pupils safe.

Inspection team

Linda Jacobs, lead inspector Kusum Trikha Clementina Aina

Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector