Trinity Oaks Church of England Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Further improve pupils’ achievement by broadening their cultural awareness and understanding of the diversity of life in modern Britain.
• Ensure new subject leaders develop their skills and understanding to be able to promote outstanding teaching and outcomes in their subject, across key stages 1 and 2.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• Leaders have worked together well, and with parents and the wider community, to develop a strong Christian ethos and a clear set of values at Trinity Oaks. They are highly ambitious for all pupils, who are encouraged effectively to develop into inquisitive, confident and resilient learners. Leaders never lose sight of what makes Trinity Oaks unique and work hard to preserve this special character, as the school continues to grow.
• Leaders make regular checks on the quality of teaching and learning. They have high expectations of staff and manage their performance effectively. Staff readily engage in the regular training opportunities leaders provide.
• Leaders provide good training and support for newly qualified teachers. Experienced staff members coach new teachers well. Consequently, those new to the profession develop quickly and successfully into good teachers.
• The headteacher has developed a small and effective leadership team. They work together productively across all areas of school development. Leaders are rightly developing teachers’ subject responsibilities to ensure the current curriculum, and the new key stage 2 curriculum for the next academic year, are developed and led effectively. This work is in the early stages of development.
• Leaders have worked collaboratively with staff to ensure rich and varied learning opportunities. For example, Year 1 pupils were learning how to program robot cars to develop their computing skills. As a result, pupils achieve well across a range of subjects.
• Leaders ensure pupils who speak English as an additional language and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities receive high-quality support. They know these pupils very well and ensure that teaching is tailored appropriately to their individual needs. As a result, these pupils make good progress from their starting points.
• Pupil premium funding is used effectively. Leaders use an array of assessment information to successfully identify the needs of disadvantaged pupils and put specific support in place. For example, extra literacy and maths lessons in Year 1 and Year 2 ensure this group of pupils achieve well.
• Leaders ensure that the sports premium funding provides broad and effective opportunities for pupils to be active. Pupils in key stage 1 benefit from swimming lessons. Specialist sports coaches provide additional activities such as football and tennis. Pupils enjoy these opportunities and as a result are successful in keeping fit, active and healthy.
• Parents hold the school in high regard. They appreciate the school’s close-knit community, and staff members’ support and openness in caring for their children. As one parent stated: ‘We love everything about this school. We are lucky to be a part of it.’
• Leaders ensure that pupils develop good spiritual, moral and social awareness. Pupils’ understanding of right and wrong, respect and tolerance are nurtured by the school’s strong Christian ethos. That said, pupils’ cultural awareness of the diversity of modern Britain is less well developed and leaders need to address this swiftly.

Governance of the school

• Governors have been instrumental in defining the culture at Trinity Oaks. They listened closely to the views of a wide range of interested parties to open a school that fulfilled the wishes and desires of the local community. Governors are tenacious in protecting Trinity Oaks’ unique ethos, as the school continues to grow.
• Governors know the school very well. They visit regularly and take care to monitor the work of leaders, challenging and supporting them appropriately. Governors are aware that as the school expands they will need to further develop their systems for analysing trends in pupils’ progress information and be more strategic in their approach. Sensibly, they are already discussing ways in which this can be achieved.
• Governors are adept at overseeing the financial management of the school. For example, they closely monitor teachers’ pay reviews and ensure they are linked to pupils’ progress. As a result, governors are effective in fulfilling their financial duties.
• Governors review their effectiveness well. For example, they seek to strengthen the range of expertise in the wider governing body when recruiting new members. Governors undertake training regularly to ensure they are appropriately skilled to hold school leaders to account well.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Leaders have ensured that all arrangements to keep pupils safe are effective. For example, when recruiting staff and volunteers all appropriate checks are completed. All records are accurate and of a high quality.
• All staff undertake appropriate and up-to-date training, including a thorough induction when they first join the school. Leaders ensure that all staff know what signs to look out for, and what actions to take, to keep pupils safe.
• Staff work together to ensure safeguarding is rigorous. For example, leaders share information about pupils at risk appropriately with other staff members. This unified approach ensures a robust response to keeping pupils safe.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Teachers have strong subject knowledge. They use this well in planning lessons that spark pupils’ natural curiosity. Pupils make good progress and enjoy learning because teachers ensure lessons are purposeful and interesting.
• Teachers use assessment information effectively to plan activities that are well matched to pupils’ needs. They use questioning skilfully in lessons to explore what pupils know. As a result, pupils achieve well because teachers swiftly identify and address misconceptions.
• The most able pupils are usually challenged well. Teachers ensure that activities are tailored appropriately to their higher level of understanding. For example, in mathematics in Year 2, they were required to grapple with more difficult calculations than their peers. Very occasionally, however, teachers miss opportunities to adapt activities for this group of pupils.
• The teaching of phonics (letters and the sounds they represent) is effective. Teachers and support staff work systematically to develop pupils’ knowledge and understanding. Teachers provide individual support to ensure that vulnerable pupils, and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, make the best possible progress.
• Teachers place strong emphasis on developing pupils’ reading and writing skills. No opportunity is missed to enrich pupils’ learning in these subjects. For example, the recent drama presentation of the ‘Burglar Bill’ story was used to inspire pupils’ writing across a range of different subjects. Pupils develop a love of reading and writing because of the imaginative way teachers enable them to learn.
• Teaching assistants are deployed effectively to support pupils’ learning. They usually demonstrate a highly developed ability to help develop pupils’ skills across a range of subjects. Very occasionally, teaching assistants’ explanations lack some precision, which sometimes limits their helpfulness to pupils.
• Specialist teachers ensure pupils achieve well in sport and physical education. For example, in a Year 1 lesson, the gymnastics teacher taught pupils how to complete a backward roll. These activities enable pupils to develop good fitness, and effective balance and coordination skills.
• Pupils develop their creative skills well. In a Year 2 art lesson, pupils explored their understanding of colour, shading and contouring by observing the changing hues within a candle flame. Consequently, they were able to produce powerful silhouette pictures based upon the great fire of London.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is outstanding.
• Pupils embody Trinity Oaks’ core values of friendship, respect, courage and thankfulness. Older pupils take delight in being playground ‘friendship mentors’. Those selected to be members of the school council carry out their responsibilities enthusiastically. Adults ensure every effort is taken to strengthen pupils’ positive attitudes.
• Pupils state that bullying is rare and that staff always act quickly to resolve disagreements. Adults support pupils extremely well to develop effective relationships with their peers. For example, the school is currently working towards achieving a rights-respecting award to further strengthen pupils’ appreciation of equality, dignity and respect for all.
• Pupils are given many opportunities across the curriculum to learn about safety. Year 1 pupils spoke with confidence about how to keep safe on the internet. For example, they knew not to share personal information online, stating, ‘People might not be who they say they are.’

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is outstanding.
• Pupils demonstrate excellent manners at Trinity Oaks. They are courteous and regularly greet adults and visitors with a friendly smile, often wishing them ‘good morning’, or ‘good afternoon’. Staff model these positive attitudes and behaviour, for example by sitting with pupils to eat lunch and promoting well-mannered conversation.
• Pupils’ behaviour in lessons is exemplary and consequently no time is lost through poor conduct. Pupils are keen to learn, listen attentively, and interact well with adults and peers alike.
• Pupils conduct themselves calmly and responsibly in and around the school. They behave equally well at breaktime and lunchtime. Leaders ensure that pupils are always supervised effectively. Adults support them appropriately in playing games and enjoying their free time. Incidents of poor behaviour are rare.
• Overall, pupils’ attendance, including the attendance of disadvantaged pupils and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, is excellent. When an individual pupil’s attendance dips, leaders ensure that appropriate support is put in place to either help them attend more regularly, or to catch up, if their learning has suffered as a result of the absence.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• The proportion of pupils who reached the expected standard in the 2016 Year 1 phonics screening check was similar to that found nationally. Current Year 1 pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, are achieving at least as well.
• Year 1 pupils are making good progress across a wide range of subjects. Pupils’ progress in writing and mathematics is good. Current pupils are making their most rapid progress in reading.
• Year 2 pupils are making typically good progress. A large majority of pupils are currently working at, or above, a standard typical for their age in reading, writing and mathematics.
• The most able pupils make strong progress. This is because teachers usually challenge them to work at greater depth compared with their peers.
• Pupils who speak English as an additional language, disadvantaged pupils, and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities make typically good progress from their starting points. Leaders and teachers accurately identify those pupils not making enough progress and support them well to catch up.
• Pupils typically achieve well across the broad curriculum. For example, pupils are given frequent opportunities to engage in high-quality activities in physical education. Gymnastics lessons and enrichment events such as football and rugby sessions all contribute to pupils’ good outcomes.
• Pupils’ cultural development is not as well developed as their spiritual, moral and social development. For example, with the exception of Christianity, few pupils could talk with confidence about other world religions or cultures present in the United Kingdom.

Early years provision Outstanding

• Children’s learning gets off to the best possible start in the lively and engaging early years setting. Children make excellent progress from their varying starting points. Children leave the early years setting well prepared for the next stage of their learning.
• Children learn enthusiastically and develop their basic skills to great effect. The stunning early years setting provides a wonderful range of learning opportunities both in and outside the classroom. Children learn and play with significant purpose. They respond well to activities led by adults and show high levels of confidence when working independently.
• Leaders place a strong emphasis on developing children’s social and personal development. Children are supported well to develop effective relationships with their peers. As a result, children learn how to behave kindly, and treat each other with a well-developed sense of respect and tolerance.
• Adults have high expectations that ensure children develop exemplary behaviour. For example, children help with the tidying up willingly at the end of the day because staff are consistent in helping them to follow appropriate routines.
• Children develop their basic writing skills extremely well. Adults ensure that there are many opportunities to practise these successfully throughout the day. For example, when children were in their playhouse café they were encouraged to write a menu of the food that they were preparing in the imaginary play.
• Leaders make regular high-quality observations to accurately assess children’s development. Staff use this knowledge to plan exceptionally well for children’s next learning steps. As a result, children make rapid progress in developing their basic skills.
• Leaders have identified that a significant proportion of children, including some who are disadvantaged, join the early years with particularly low speech and language skills. Rightly, they have employed the services of a specialist practitioner to help develop tailored support for these children. This ensures that children who need to catch up are supported well to make effective progress.
• Children learn how to keep themselves safe. For example, when making fruit salad children learned how to use kitchen utensils safely. When using scissors for the first time, adults are mindful to teach children how to hold and carry them with care.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 141036 Surrey 10032502 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 Voluntary aided 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 91 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Mrs Susan Christian Mrs Catherine Johnson Telephone number 01293 776935 Website Email address www.trinityoaks.surrey.sch.uk Office@trinityoaks.surrey.sch.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• Trinity Oaks is smaller than the average-sized primary school. The school opened in September 2014. The nursery opened in September 2015. The school currently has pupils in Nursery, Reception, in Year 1 and in Year 2.
• The majority of pupils are White British and others come from a range of different ethnic backgrounds. The proportion who speak English as an additional language is below average.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is below the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is below average. Within this group the proportion of pupils who have an education, health and care plan is below the national average.
• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.

Information about this inspection

• The inspector observed learning throughout the school, spoke to pupils and looked at work in their books. Some observations were conducted jointly with the headteacher.
• Meetings were held with senior leaders, teachers, a group of pupils, four members of the governing body, and the school’s improvement partner.
• The inspector spoke to parents at the start of the day and took into account 62 responses, including written comments, to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View. The inspector also analysed 49 responses to Ofsted’s questionnaire for pupils, and 16 responses to the questionnaire for staff.
• A range of documents were reviewed, including the school’s development plan; leaders’ evaluation of the school’s effectiveness; information about pupils’ achievement; governing body reports; and records concerning pupils’ attendance, behaviour and safety.

Inspection team

Dom Cook, lead inspector

Her Majesty’s Inspector