Bovington Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

In accordance with section 44(1) of the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Raise outcomes for all pupils, particularly the most able and those with SEND, so that they make strong progress from their individual starting points.
• Improve teaching and learning across the school by ensuring that teachers:
  • have high expectations of what all pupils can achieve
  • use assessment information to plan activities in reading, writing and mathematics that are appropriately matched to pupils’ abilities, provide sufficient levels of challenge and address gaps in previous learning
  • check pupils’ learning in lessons and, where work is too easy or too hard, amend learning activities appropriately
  • routinely address pupils’ misconceptions
  • focus on developing pupils’ basic writing skills, such as spelling, grammar, punctuation and handwriting
  • have a secure understanding of the mathematics primary curriculum, so that they can plan activities which deepen pupils’ understanding and provide them with opportunities to apply their understanding in different contexts.
• Improve pupils’ learning behaviours by ensuring that:
  • adults have consistently high expectations of the behaviours that enable children to learn
  • teachers engage pupils with activities which are challenging and well matched to their individual learning needs.
• Improve leadership and management by ensuring that:
  • leaders’ monitoring results in leaders at all levels, including governors, having a secure understanding of the school’s strengths and areas that need to improve leaders check that plans to improve the quality of teaching and learning have precise success criteria and are focused on improving outcomes for pupils
  • senior leaders provide middle leaders with the skills, confidence and time that they require to fulfil their roles effectively and to have a demonstrable impact on improving the quality of teaching and raising pupils’ outcomes
  • governors act on the recommendations of the most recent review of governance
  • governors have a secure and in-depth understanding of their safeguarding responsibilities and discharge these in line with statutory guidance.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

• Since the previous inspection, leaders have not acted with sufficient urgency or rigour to remedy the weaknesses in pupils’ outcomes and the quality of teaching. Published data, as well as the school’s own assessment information, shows that, over time, pupils’ outcomes have been weak. Leaders’ actions to address weaknesses have had too little impact so that pupils’ underachievement continues.
• Leaders have not managed a significant staff turnover effectively. Leaders have not ensured that, over time, new teachers appointed to the school have the knowledge, understanding or skills required to fulfil their roles. Instability in staffing has had a detrimental impact on the school’s performance and, as a result, the quality of teaching, learning and assessment in the school remains inadequate.
• Recent changes to the school’s leadership have brought much needed stability and have bolstered the leadership team’s level of expertise and subject knowledge. There is now a clear leadership structure, and leaders at all levels understand their roles and responsibilities. However, these changes are too recent to have had any demonstrable impact on the quality of teaching or pupils’ outcomes.
• The school’s monitoring procedures are weak. The headteacher has not ensured that middle leaders have the skills, or have been provided with the time they require, to gather an accurate picture of the quality of teaching in either their phases or subjects. This has had a detrimental effect on leaders’ capacity to identify weaknesses in provision, and to check the impact that their actions are having on raising pupils’ outcomes.
• Leaders’ self-evaluation lacks precision. It does not identify specifically which groups of pupils are underachieving and in which subjects. Additionally, development planning does not outline clearly enough the intended impact of the proposed actions on pupils’ outcomes. As a result, governors find it difficult to hold leaders to account for their actions.
• The assistant headteacher has a secure understanding of the needs of pupils with SEND. She makes effective use of screening tools to identify individual needs and to plan interventions. However, teaching for these pupils is not enabling them to make the progress they should be making.
• Leaders have not ensured that disadvantaged pupils make the progress they should. Despite working to mitigate barriers to learning, leaders’ use of pupil premium funding is not improving pupils’ outcomes securely. However, leaders’ intervention to support the pastoral needs of disadvantaged pupils and service children is effective.
• Leaders are using sports premium funding to raise pupils’ levels of participation and to keep them active.
• Leaders have designed a curriculum which covers a range of subjects. As well as English and mathematics, pupils get a broad range of experiences, including across the arts. Schemes of work have been planned to build pupils’ knowledge through a range of visits and experiences that they would not otherwise experience, for example visiting Lulworth Cove to enhance their understanding of geography and visits from a drama company to develop their understanding of Shakespeare’s play ‘The Tempest’.
• Leaders have ensured that pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is promoted effectively. Pupils are cooperative, respectful and sociable. Leaders foster positive relationships between pupils and with staff in the school. Pupils understand why it is important to show respect and tolerance for others.
• The school may not appoint newly qualified teachers.

Governance of the school

• The governing body does not have a secure understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses. Many of the current governors are new to the governing body and, as a result, they do not yet have the knowledge, skills and understanding required to fulfil their roles effectively. Governors do not have the expertise or confidence to challenge these leaders or to hold them fully to account for the quality of provision.
• At the request of the headteacher, the governing body recently commissioned an external review of governance. This identified actions for improvement. However, governors have not responded to these recommendations with rigour or urgency.
• Some governors have not kept up to date with changes in their statutory safeguarding duties. They understand that this needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective and inspection evidence confirms that this is a safe school.
• Senior leaders have a collective oversight of the school’s safeguarding arrangements. Due to the high mobility of pupils, leaders have a heightened awareness of the importance of checking the whereabouts of pupils who leave the school. Records show that leaders monitor pupils’ transition to other schools, both in this country and abroad.
• The school’s procedures for ensuring that staff and volunteers are suitable to be working with children are secure. Records are thorough and maintained in line with statutory guidance.
• Leaders have forged strong links with a range of external agencies, including the Army Welfare Service and social care. Referrals for vulnerable pupils are made swiftly and, where necessary, followed up appropriately.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment

• The quality of teaching, learning and assessment is inadequate because, too

Inadequate

frequently, pupils are given work which is not accurately matched to their abilities. Consequently, pupils do not make the progress of which they are capable.

• Teaching does not meet the needs of different groups of pupils, including the most able and those pupils with SEND. Teachers do not make effective use of assessment information to identify what pupils can and cannot do. This results in the most able pupils being given work that it not suitably challenging, and pupils with lower starting points facing tasks that they find difficult to understand.
• Teachers do not routinely provide pupils with the guidance and support that they require to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding. They do not consistently follow the school’s policy for feeding back to pupils.
• The teaching of reading is not effectively developing pupils’ understanding of what they read. Pupils generally read with age-appropriate levels of expression and fluency. However, the teaching does not develop pupils’ higher-order reading skills, such as deduction and inference. This slows pupils’ progress, particularly the more able pupils, and limits the proportions of pupils working at the higher standards.
• In mathematics, there are gaps in teachers’ subject knowledge and inconsistencies in their understanding of the primary mathematics curriculum. Lower prior-attaining pupils and those with SEND are not routinely given the support they require to build conceptual understanding. Adults do not consistently pick up on and rectify pupils’ mistakes. Teachers’ expectations of what pupils can achieve are not high enough. Those pupils with a firm grasp of calculation skills often repeat activities that they can already do before being moved on to more challenging tasks. This limits pupils’ opportunities to add depth to their understanding and weakens the progress of middle and high prior-attaining pupils.
• The teaching of writing is too inconsistent across the school. Teachers’ expectations are too low and there is a lack of focus on basic skills. Pupils’ repeated basic errors in grammar and punctuation often go unchallenged by adults. Some pupils are making progress in the use of adventurous vocabulary. However, this is weakened by pupils’ poor handwriting and limited understanding of sentence structure.
• Teachers’ planning of writing activities lacks precision. As a result, learning does not build on what pupils can already do. A lack of guidance for lower prior-attaining pupils and insufficient challenge for the most able pupils are having a detrimental effect on the progress that pupils make in writing.
• Teaching in subjects other than English and mathematics is equally poor and, too often, not matched accurately to pupils’ needs. This is limiting the progress that pupils make across the curriculum.
• The teaching of phonics is improving. The headteacher’s introduction of a new phonics approach has added consistency and rigour to teaching. A rising proportion of pupils achieve the phonics screening check. However, this proportion remains below the national average. Staff demonstrate secure subject knowledge and model letter formation and letter sounds accurately. Staff provide pupils with reading materials which are matched to their stage of phonetic development. This enables pupils to practise and develop their early reading skills at home and school.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Requires improvement Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good. Leaders and teaching staff have an in-depth understanding of pupils’ pastoral needs and work tirelessly to reduce any barriers to their social development. Leaders have forged effective links with a range of external agencies, including the Army Welfare Service, to ensure that the school’s most vulnerable pupils and their families receive the support they require.
• Pupils feel listened to and appreciate the roles and responsibilities they are given. Older pupils provide good role models for younger pupils.
• Pupils say that they feel safe in school and understand what does and does not constitute bullying. Pupils told inspectors that they have confidence that adults will deal with any incidents swiftly and that that they have a trusted adult they can talk to should the need arise. Pupils talk knowledgably about the measures they should take when using online technology. For example, pupils know not to share personal information with people they do not know in the ‘real world’.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils requires improvement. Staff do not consistently implement the school’s behaviour policy. When activities are not challenging enough or well matched to their needs, pupils lose focus and concentration. In too many cases, this poor behaviour goes unchallenged by adults.
• Pupils generally conduct themselves well when moving around the school, and this results in a calm and orderly environment. Behaviour observed at breaktimes and lunchtime was appropriate; pupils played well together in a variety of well-resourced activities.
• The attendance of pupils is above the national average. Senior leaders and the pastoral support worker have worked proactively with parents and pupils to raise awareness of the importance of regular attendance. They have used additional funding effectively to ensure that no group of pupils is disadvantaged by poor attendance. Where, in the past, absence rates have been too high, leaders have worked closely with parents and external agencies to provide appropriate levels of challenge and support.

Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

• Weak teaching over time has not prepared pupils effectively for the next stage of their education. The achievement of current pupils is too low.
• Assessment information for pupils who left the school in 2018 shows that a significant number of pupils, including pupils eligible for additional funding, did not make sufficient progress from their starting points. In reading, writing and mathematics, progress was well below that made by other pupils nationally. This was also the case for pupils who left the school in 2016 and 2017.
• The school has high rates of mobility. A number of pupils join the school partway through a key stage. While this does have some impact on the school’s national assessment data, the significance of this is overstated by leaders. Inspection evidence confirms that the main factor affecting pupils’ outcomes has been the weak teaching that pupils receive.
• Teacher assessments for pupils at the end of key stage 1 in 2018 indicate that pupils continue to make weak progress from their starting points in reading, writing and mathematics. A number of pupils assessed as being at the expected standard at Reception were assessed as working below the expectations for their age by the end of Year 2. This is a similar picture to that of previous years.
• Although relatively early in the academic year, the work in pupils’ books indicates that progress remains weak for many pupils. As a result, pupils’ underachievement remains prevalent. Where pupils are making stronger progress, for example in Year 6, this is not yet sufficient to enable pupils to catch up on lost ground. Consequently, attainment for these pupils remains too low.
• The proportion of pupils assessed as meeting the expected standard in the Year 1 phonics checks showed improvement in 2018 but remained below the national average. In addition, too many pupils start Year 2 not able to read as well as they should.
• Across the curriculum, outcomes remain too low. Leaders have put in place an engaging curriculum, targeted towards meeting pupils’ interests. However, weaknesses in the quality of teaching mean that pupils do not make strong gains in their knowledge, skills and understanding. Pupils are not well prepared for their next stage.

Early years provision Requires Improvement

• The quality of provision in the early years is improving steadily because leaders have prioritised implementing a range of strategies to remedy weaknesses in teaching. The early years leader has a detailed action plan in place. However, these changes have not been in place long enough to have had sufficient impact on the quality of teaching so that children make good progress from their starting points.
• In the past, teachers’ assessments of what children know and can do have been overgenerous. As a result of leaders’ training, adults’ assessments are increasingly accurate. However, teachers do not use the information they have effectively enough to plan activities that are matched closely to what children can do. Consequently, some lower-attaining children do not routinely receive the support they require.
• Children join the Reception Year with skills and abilities, including in reading, writing and number, which are generally below those typical for their age. However, leaders have not ensured that the quality of teaching, learning and assessment has enabled these children to catch up quickly. Consequently, some children are not prepared well enough for their transition into Year 1.
• A recently adopted phonics approach is strengthening the teaching of reading. Consequently, children are making better progress in developing their early reading skills. However, senior leaders recognise that some inconsistencies remain in staff’s subject knowledge. Leaders have not yet provided middle leaders with the opportunity to monitor the quality of phonics teaching, or to check the impact it is having on children’s outcomes. As a result, previously identified inconsistencies in teaching early reading continue.
• Teaching does not consistently challenge the most able children. Staff provide a wide variety of imaginative activities for children to engage with. These activities make effective use of both the indoor and outdoor environments. However, too often, activities lack challenge or a clear purpose. This results in children flitting from one activity to another, rather than learning to focus and concentrate on developing key skills and knowledge.
• Adults foster warm relationships with children and provide effective role models. Children feel safe and well cared for. They enjoy working and playing together. However, when children are not provided with sufficient challenge or guidance, they become easily distracted from their learning. Children respond well to adults’ instructions and demonstrate a secure understanding of school routines.
• Parents are positive about their children’s start to school. Parents told inspectors that their children enjoy attending school and are being supported well by staff.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 113680 Dorset 10052978 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 Maintained 4 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 312 Appropriate authority The governing body Acting Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Paul Tapping Kris Winthorpe 01929 462744 www.bovingtonprimary.dorset.sch.uk office@bovingtonprimary.dorset.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 9–10 July 2012

Information about this school

• Bovington Primary School is larger than the average-sized primary school.
• In July 2012, the school was inspected as Bovington First School. This inspection judged the school to be outstanding. In September 2012, the school extended its age range and became a primary school. Since this time, there have been a large number of staff changes, including to the leadership of the school. The current headteacher has been in post since September 2015.
• The school’s level of pupil mobility is well above the national average and rising.
• The majority of pupils are White British and the proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is below the national average.
• The number of disadvantaged pupils supported through pupil premium funding is below the national average. However, at the time of the inspection, 58% of the school’s population were eligible for the service children premium.
• At the time of the inspection, no pupils were attending alternative provision.
• The proportion of pupils with SEND is above the national average. Many of these pupils have additional needs relating to their social, emotional and mental health needs. The proportion of pupils with an education, health and care plan is well above the national average.

Information about this inspection

• This inspection was carried out as a result of Ofsted’s risk assessment procedures for exempt schools. This process identified that standards since the previous inspection had declined.
• Inspectors visited classrooms to observe pupils’ learning. A number of these visits were carried out jointly with the headteacher and assistant headteacher.
• Discussions were held with school leaders, staff, members of the governing body, including the acting chair of governors, and a representative of the local authority.
• Inspectors looked at the school’s evaluation of its own performance, its improvement plan, a number of key school policies and the minutes of meetings of the governing body. They also considered a range of documentation about child protection, safeguarding, behaviour and attendance.
• Inspectors spoke with pupils throughout the inspection to seek their views and listened to a selection of them read.
• Inspectors spoke with a number of parents during the inspection and took account of 52 responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View.

Inspection team

Jonathan Dyer, lead inspector Non Davies Jane Johns

Her Majesty's Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector