Hotwells Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management, including governance, by ensuring that:
  • governors develop their skills to challenge leaders more thoroughly
  • leaders check the impact of their actions through precise and measurable plans
  • middle leaders develop their skills and expertise, so they can support the drive for improvement
  • governors fully evaluate the impact that additional funding is having on improving the outcomes of disadvantaged pupils.
• Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by:
  • ensuring that teachers use assessment information to match learning to the needs of all pupils
  • identifying pupils’ knowledge and understanding accurately so that gaps in learning are reduced quickly
  • ensuring that pupils have a consistent understanding of how they can improve their work, including in the accuracy of spelling and punctuation.
• Improve pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare by continuing to implement strategies to ensure that all pupils attend school regularly. An external review of governance and of the school’s use of the pupil premium should be undertaken in order to assess how these aspects of leadership and management may be improved.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

• Leaders’ strategic overview is detailed but is not precise enough. Leaders have identified the right priorities and have outlined actions to address these. However, evaluation is too generic and lacks the depth to clearly outline how well actions are working. This means that leaders’ understanding of what has been effective is not sufficiently developed to inform future planning. Consequently, leaders have not been swift enough to remedy underperformance.
• Leaders have not ensured that the quality of teaching is strong enough to enable all pupils to make sufficient progress. Reading is a strength of the school but leaders are not clear on the barriers to learning for specific groups of pupils, particularly in the development of their writing skills. This means that strategies have not resulted in the improvement required.
• Leaders track pupils’ progress at regular points in the year. This enables them to have an overview of the progress that pupils are making. Teachers moderate assessments and share practice with staff from other schools, so there is confidence in the accuracy of this information. However, leaders have not fully embedded the use of assessment in classroom practice. This means that teachers do not routinely pinpoint what pupils are doing well and what they need to do next. This slows the progress that pupils make.
• Disadvantaged pupils and those pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities are not catching up quickly enough with their peers. While leaders have implemented actions that have had a positive effect on the social and emotional needs of pupils, they are less incisive on the impact of actions on academic outcomes.
• Pupils who speak English as an additional language do not make the same progress as their classmates. This has been identified by leaders and work to improve the performance of this group is beginning to show impact. However, this is not consistent across all year groups.
• Middle leadership is not developed sufficiently. Leaders are aware of those pupils who do not make the progress they should. However, plans do not specifically outline what will done to improve this. Actions are too generic, often ambiguous and are not closely aligned to pupils’ outcomes. Leaders’ monitoring is not effective in ensuring that strategies are consistently implemented and therefore the intended impact is not achieved.
• The curriculum provides coverage of a wide range of subjects. Pupils are enthusiastic about extending their knowledge and confidently talk about what they have learned. As one pupil said, ‘We learn about really interesting and important things’, and this was evident during the inspection.
• Leaders model and promote the values that underpin the work of the school. They are warm, approachable and clearly know their pupils well. Displays are vibrant and celebrate what pupils have achieved. There are many examples where pupils have benefited from meaningful activities to develop their wider understanding.
• Leaders have developed positive relationships with parents and keep them informed of school activities through regular newsletters and website information. For example, leaders have recently organised a workshop to equip parents with the knowledge they need to support their children’s understanding of mathematics.
• Extra-curricular activities support pupils’ learning well. Leaders ensure that all pupils benefit from the opportunities available to widen their experiences.

Governance of the school

• Governors ask questions of school leaders but have not been rigorous enough in pursuing whether actions are having the desired effect. Therefore, areas of underperformance have not been rectified quickly enough because challenge is not robust and aligned to outcomes.
• Governors meet regularly with leaders to track the use of the additional funding provided for disadvantaged pupils. Therefore, governors have an understanding of the school’s work with this group of pupils. However, this is not yet effective in ensuring that pupils make more rapid progress.
• Governors ensure that they attend training events and reflect on the skills and knowledge they need to evaluate more thoroughly the evidence provided by school leaders.
• Governors are committed to the success of the school. They are supportive of staff and diligent in ensuring that they fulfil their statutory duties. They visit the school and meet with leaders to gain first-hand evidence of the quality of education that the school provides.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. Leaders make the necessary statutory checks and follow government guidelines to ensure that staff are safe to work with children. Governors are well informed of safeguarding issues and meet regularly with staff to ensure that they fulfil their responsibilities.
• Staff know their pupils well and are confident in applying child protection procedures. Training is up to date and includes protecting pupils from radicalisation and exploitation. Staff are aware of the potential signs of concern and understand how to use the school’s system to report this. This means that responses are timely and there is a clear chronology of actions taken. Leaders work with outside agencies to support vulnerable pupils and their families.
• Pupils can clearly explain how to recognise risk, including fire safety and how to keep themselves safe when online. Staff are vigilant about making sure that the site is secure. Pupils say that they feel safe at school and parents agree.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• The quality of teaching, learning and assessment is too variable across the school. There are examples of good practice but typically teachers’ planning is not tailored to pupils’ starting points. This means that pupils are not consistently challenged to move on when they are ready, so they can demonstrate a deeper level of understanding. Therefore, time is not used effectively, as pupils complete work they can already do. Where pupils are unclear about their work, they do not sustain their concentration or produce their best.
• Teachers do not consistently use assessment information to help pupils understand what they need to do to improve the quality of their work. This means that misconceptions are not identified and continue into subsequent work. Additional interventions by teaching assistants are successful in the short term but it is not clear how these are then built upon in the long term. This limits the progress that pupils are able to make.
• Pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities are not catching up quickly enough to remedy historical gaps in their understanding. The recently appointed special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) has a good understanding of the needs of pupils and plans are in place to support their needs. However, it is too early to see the impact of this work.
• Reading is a strong feature of the school. Teachers have clearly promoted a positive culture and love of reading, which encourages pupils to read fluently, with expression and for enjoyment. The majority of pupils read books that are well matched to their level of ability. Younger pupils are provided with many opportunities to share stories and rhymes.
• At key stage 1, the majority of pupils develop their phonic skills well, and this enables them to identify words accurately. Pupils continue to refine their reading skills across key stage 2, developing their skills of inference, comprehension and prediction. Pupils across the school use their reading as a stimulus for writing and pupils demonstrate that they are able to respond creatively.
• Where teaching is effective, pupils show that they are able to write for a variety of audiences and purpose. They have a well-developed lexicon and use adventurous vocabulary as they become confident writers. The most able pupils develop their descriptive skills through using a range of more sophisticated language features. Pupils demonstrate that they can reflect on their work, respond to each other and use sentence structure and punctuation to create effect. The ‘Big Write’ encourages pupils to develop and sustain their writing regularly as they respond imaginatively to the texts they have read.
• Teachers use praise effectively to encourage pupils to extend their own compositions. However, pupils are not always clear on the conventions of genre and how they can structure their ideas effectively. Teachers’ advice is too general for pupils to fully understand how they can improve the quality of their writing. In addition, pupils do not always apply what they have learned to develop greater fluency in their independent pieces. Where misconceptions are not addressed, pupils continue to make errors in their letter orientation, spelling and punctuation, which hampers their ability to express themselves effectively.
• Pupils enjoy mathematics and there is emerging evidence of a more structured approach in the strategies used across the school to improve calculation. As a result, pupils are developing their accuracy and confidence in their arithmetical skills. Where teaching is stronger, the most able pupils are encouraged to reflect on their methodology and can explain the approaches they have used.
• Although the mathematics curriculum is suitably broad, teachers’ planning does not match tasks at the level of pupils’ ability. There is inconsistency in the way in which pupils are challenged to apply their skills to more complex problem-solving and reasoning tasks. They often complete work of a similar level, even when it is clear that they are secure in this knowledge. Those pupils who require additional support are not given the advice they need to improve their understanding and demonstrate that their knowledge is secure. This means that misconceptions in basic calculations and number orientation are not remedied quickly enough and these errors continue.
• Pupils develop skills in a wide range of subjects and are encouraged to develop their artistic and sporting talent. Leaders place great importance on this and teachers use their subject knowledge well to probe and question pupils’ understanding. Pupils are successfully prompted to use their prior knowledge and confidently apply subject terminology.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Leaders are rightly proud that they are a ‘rights respecting school’. This is evident through visual displays and the positive relationships that exist. The curriculum is planned effectively to enable pupils to consider and develop their personal and social understanding. As one pupil put it, ‘Our school is about growth.’
• Pupils can talk confidently about democracy, tolerance and respect, making them well prepared for life in modern Britain. They explore their local environment, are encouraged to consider global issues and show an awareness of topical affairs. For example, an assembly celebrating the ‘International Day of Peace’ was well received by pupils, who were reflective, able to thoughtfully contribute to the discussion and understand how this relates to their own actions.
• The curriculum provides meaningful activities for pupils to develop their spiritual, moral and cultural understanding. Pupils explore different cultures and religions and celebrate diversity. Staff reinforce pupils’ own sense of worth and belonging. As one member of staff wrote, they want pupils to ‘be responsible for how they want society to be’. The ‘Hotwells Passport to Learning’ identifies where pupils have been involved in activities that support their wider development and emotional well-being.
• Staff regularly reinforce the school’s core values, which promote positive attitudes. Pupils are delighted to receive acknowledgement of what they have done well and teachers take the time to write messages to pupils to celebrate this. Pupils genuinely support their classmates and readily take on leadership responsibilities. Older pupils enjoy opportunities to work with younger pupils.
• Where pupils’ progress slows or where understanding is not secure, teachers do not rectify this quickly enough. Gaps in knowledge remain, meaning that some pupils fall further behind their peers. Where this is the case, pupils are not prepared well enough for the next steps in their education.
• Where teaching is not well directed, pupils lose focus or become distracted. While they respond well to reminders by the teacher, it means that they do not complete or produce their best work.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Pupils conduct themselves well around the site which is calm and purposeful. They demonstrate polite and courteous manners and cooperate well with each other during social time. Pupils are self-assured, confident and understand expectations. They say that bullying is rare but that staff deal with it quickly when it does occur.
• Leaders have implemented strategies to support pupils who find behaviour expectations difficult to adhere to. Interventions are carefully tailored to the needs of pupils. These have been successful in providing positive role models and promoting calmer and more positive attitudes. Staff involve parents and provide effective support, using external agencies when necessary. Consequently, there have been no exclusions for a number of years.
• The majority of pupils attend school regularly. Leaders are developing effective systems to evaluate patterns of attendance and support pupils to catch up with work missed. However, rates of persistent absence remain too high, particularly for disadvantaged pupils, those pupils whose speak English as an additional language and those pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities. Leaders have successfully engaged with the families of pupils who do not attend regularly and this is having an impact on raising the rates of attendance in the short term. It is too early to see sustained improvement in the longer term.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Pupils’ attainment in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of Year 6 has improved and is above the figures seen typically nationally. The proportion of pupils who achieved the higher standard is in line with national figures.
• Pupils make strong progress in reading. However, pupils from across the ability range, including the most able, do not make strong enough progress in writing and mathematics as they move through key stage 2. This is also the case for current pupils.
• Writing has been particularly weak and was in the lowest 10% of schools nationally in 2017. While there have been improvements for certain year groups across the school, inconsistencies that remain in the quality of teaching mean that this is not the case for all.
• Disadvantaged pupils and those pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities do not make strong enough progress in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 6. This is because teaching is not specifically addressing their needs, meaning that they fall further behind their peers. Interventions that have been put into place are not supporting current pupils to catch up quickly enough. Strategies to support pupils who speak English as an additional language are having some success, but this is not a consistent picture for all pupils.
• Pupils’ attainment in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 2 has been above national figures in recent years. However, the performance of current pupils shows that this is not secure, particularly for disadvantaged pupils, those pupils who speak English as an additional language and those pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities.
• The proportion of pupils who achieve the phonics screening check has been steadily rising over recent years and is now above the national average. Pupils demonstrate that they understand phonic sounds but do not routinely apply these principles when reading and spelling unfamiliar words.

Early years provision Good

• The proportion of children who reach a good level of development has increased and remains above the national average. The proportion of children, including disadvantaged children, who reach and exceed the expected standard in mathematics has been consistently strong over recent years.
• There has been an improvement in the number of disadvantaged children who demonstrate deeper knowledge and understanding in reading and writing, and this is now above figures seen nationally. Leaders identify priorities and know their children well. However, they are less secure when evaluating the impact of actions and how this informs future strategy.
• Teachers are accurate in their assessment of children’s ability when they start Nursery, and planning is well matched to these starting points. Leaders have designed the curriculum to support children, particularly boys, to develop their skills successfully across all areas of learning, in a bright, stimulating environment. Activities are well considered and adults positively contribute to children’s language development through modelling and effective questioning. Children delight in their own success and want to share what they have achieved. As a result, they make a strong start to their school careers.
• Teachers effectively encourage sequencing, counting and activities which enable children to demonstrate early problem-solving skills. Adults model letters and sounds and this secure understanding of phonics underpins the teaching of reading and writing. Children listen well and enthusiastically participate in story-telling. This has been particularly effective for supporting the language development of children who speak English as an additional language.
• Pupils are encouraged to use effective pencil grip, which allows them to form recognisable letters and words. The most able children move on to demonstrate their skills as emergent writers, as they begin to form simple sentences with accurate punctuation. However, the quality of presentation and misconceptions in letter orientation, spelling and punctuation are not routinely corrected for those children who require additional support and this limits their ability to progress.
• Staff know their children and families well through transition activities prior to children starting school. Routines are clearly established, which means that children settle quickly when they begin Nursery and Reception.
• Safeguarding is effective and welfare requirements are met. Paediatric first-aid training is in place.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 140728 City of Bristol 10048322 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 Academy 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 210 Appropriate authority Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Board of trustees Moyna Wilkinson Catherine Delor 01179 030044 www.hotwells.bristol.sch.uk hotwellsp@bristol-schools.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• Hotwells Primary is a smaller than average-sized school which converted to academy status in April 2014.
• The headteacher has been in post since January 2015.
• The majority of pupils are from a White British background. The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is increasing and is now above the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is below the national average. The number of pupils who have an education, health and care plan is also below the national average.
• The number of pupils eligible for free school meals is in line with the national average.
• 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 observed learning across a range of subjects and age groups and scrutinised pupils’ written work. Some of the observations were conducted jointly with members of the leadership team.
• Meetings were held with members of the leadership team and representatives from the governing body. In addition, inspectors met with curriculum leaders. An inspector spoke with the school improvement adviser on the telephone.
• Inspectors met with pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and those who have SEN and/or disabilities, both formally and informally, to discuss their views about their experience of school.
• Inspectors looked at the school’s documentation, including the evaluation of the school’s effectiveness and priorities for future improvement. Inspectors reviewed progress, behaviour and attendance information relating to current pupils, and governors’ records. An inspector considered an email received by a member of the governing body.
• School policies relating to safeguarding, pupils’ behaviour, the use of additional funding, including pupil premium and sport premium, and the curriculum were also scrutinised.
• Inspectors listened to a selection of pupils read.
• Inspectors considered 33 responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View.

Inspection team

Sarah McGinnis, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Steph Matthews Ofsted Inspector