Glebe Infants' 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 all leaders and teachers understand their roles and responsibilities and act on these so that job roles are carried out consistently
  • governors holding leaders to account for the achievement of groups of pupils in the school to ensure that pupil groups, including the disadvantaged, middle-attaining and most-able pupils, make consistently good progress
  • ensuring that leaders’ checks on teaching are rigorous and take into account pupils’ starting points
  • ensuring that leaders have full oversight of teachers’ assessment practices and hold teachers to account for planning work that meets pupils’ needs
  • leaders insisting that learning time is fully maximised across the school and transitions between lessons are swift.
• Improve teaching learning and assessment by ensuring that:
  • teaching challenges the middle-attaining and most-able pupils in writing and mathematics
  • the impact of teaching assistants’ work is checked closely and they have the skills and knowledge to move pupils’ learning forward
  • the quality of phonics teaching is consistently good and enables lower-attaining pupils to catch up and use and apply their skills to writing independently.
• Improve the quality of early years provision by:
  • ensuring that adults assess children’s learning precisely and use this information to move their learning on
  • improving outdoor learning provision
  • providing sufficient emphasis to develop children’s speaking skills so that those children who have limited language acquisition catch up quickly so they can access the wider curriculum. An external review of the school’s use of the pupil premium and governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management can be improved.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

• The executive headteacher has taken up his role after a period of considerable decline in the school. Pupils’ outcomes are in line with national averages. However, pupils are not achieving the standards of which they are capable. The executive headteacher is working systematically to audit the strengths and weaknesses in all aspects of the school’s performance. His evaluation of the school is accurate. Consequently, plans for action are well focused and leaders are working determinedly on the right aspects for improvement.
• Senior leaders do not have clear job descriptions or roles and responsibilities. This has made it difficult for them to carry out their roles effectively. The executive headteacher is remedying this quickly. However, low levels of accountability in the past mean that senior leaders’ impact has been too limited to bring about the required improvements in teaching, learning and assessment and pupils’ outcomes. As a result, pupils do not achieve as well as they should.
• Leaders keep detailed information about pupils’ progress. However, leaders do not check school performance information successfully against pupils’ books, so some discrepancies in pupils’ progress and abilities go undetected. For example, leaders have allowed inconsistent assessment practices at the beginning of this year. As a result, some middle-attaining pupils and the most able pupils have repeated work that is too easy and their progress has stalled this term.
• Senior leaders have not ensured that the sports premium funding has been used effectively. Until recently, some of the school’s funding has been spent across the federation of schools, limiting its impact at Glebe Infants. The executive headteacher has already dealt with this and an appropriate spending plan is now in place.
• Leaders track the use of pupil premium funding closely. All funding is accounted for. However, its impact on raising pupils’ outcomes is too inconsistent. For example, while most of this group of pupils make increasingly good progress in reading, too few pupils achieve the standards that are expected for their age in writing.
• Very few parents responded to the online questionnaire ‘Parent View’. Parents spoken to during the inspection had mixed views. They said that the new executive headteacher is approachable and is making a positive difference. However, a number of parents raised concerns about leaders’ communication, citing weak arrangements in the summer term for the transition from early years to Year 1. The executive headteacher is committed to working with parents to improve communication further. As a result, opportunities for parents to celebrate their children’s learning are already on the increase. These include, for example, widening invitations for parental engagement in assemblies.
• The school’s planned curriculum enhances pupils’ spiritual, moral and cultural development through curriculum events and curriculum-themed days. However, the curriculum is yet to be successfully underpinned by fundamental British values. As a result, pupils’ knowledge and understanding of living in modern Britain is too limited.
• The planned curriculum provides coverage of all the national curriculum subjects across key stage 1. However, too often pupils’ learning tasks are not sufficiently challenging. This limits pupils’ ability to use and apply their English and mathematics skills across other subjects. In some classes, learning is repeated and does not build on what pupils already know.
• The leader of special educational needs has been effective in implementing systems for the effective identification of pupils’ needs. She has effective plans in place to meet pupils’ pastoral and academic needs. However, considerable variability in the quality of teaching and learning across the school means that some support for pupils is not as effective as it could be. As a result, this group of pupils make uneven progress across the school.
• Senior leaders’ monitoring of pupils’ welfare and safety requirements requires improvement. The executive headteacher has commissioned health and safety audits and reviewed the school’s policies and record keeping arrangements. Consequently, analysis of this aspect of the school’s work is improving quickly.
• Leaders’ checks on teaching and learning have not had sufficient impact in the past. This year, leaders are holding teachers to account with greater rigour through a range of monitoring activities. However, leaders have not yet been successful in raising teachers’ expectations. As a result, too few pupils are making the progress of which they are capable and pupils in some classes, particularly the most able pupils, continue to underachieve.
• The school has been prioritised for a high level of local authority support over a number of years. However, the impact of this support has been too variable to bring the required improvements to a point where teaching and pupils’ outcomes are good.
• Leaders offer training and support to improve the quality of mathematics teaching. This is paying dividends. Most teachers have good subject knowledge. As a result, their questioning in mathematics is enabling pupils to deepen their understanding of numbers effectively. However, leaders have not yet ensured that the most able pupils are consistently challenged.
• The executive headteacher is helping staff to be clear about any aspects of the school’s work that need improvement. Teachers welcome such transparency and are working with resilience towards the targets set.
• Current leaders’ oversight of the school timetable has already increased pupils’ learning time this term. However, leaders accurately identify that fine tuning is required. Sometimes, transitions between lessons are too slow or pupils have to wait for staff to provide them with essential resources to support their learning. Pupils enjoy the times when they come together as a whole school, for example in ‘wake and shake’ activities. However, slow transitions to and from the school hall result in key learning time being missed.

Governance of the school

• Governors have not ensured that leaders’ and teachers’ performance management procedures are robust and have the required impact. As a result, leaders have not held staff to account robustly for their performance.
• Over the last five months, the chair of governors and his team have made determined efforts to improve how they work. New governors have been appointed successfully and roles and responsibilities have been more firmly established.
• Governors are beginning to strengthen the systems and processes they have in place to hold school leaders to account. Their most recent minutes confirm that governors ask increasingly pertinent questions about pupils’ progress and outcomes and meet regularly with school leaders to review the impact of school improvement initiatives. They are building an accurate picture of the school’s strengths and weaknesses. However, this work is very recent. It is too early to determine the impact of their work.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Leaders have responded quickly to the local authority annual safeguarding audit and completed all identified actions from safeguarding visits across the last year. As a result, the single central record and staff vetting checks are up to date and in line with current legislation. However, in the past, some aspects of record-keeping and staff training have not been as good as they could have been. New leaders have tackled this ‘head on’ and all training requirements are now met.
• Inspection evidence confirms that those with designated responsibilities for leading safeguarding are rigorous in their approach to minimise risk of harm to pupils. There is meticulous and timely support for the most vulnerable pupils in the school. School documentation confirms that concerns are followed up precisely. Leaders are persistent in following up referrals and escalating concerns to a higher level as needed to ensure that pupils’ risk is reduced.
• The school’s safeguarding induction procedures for new staff meet requirements. Initial training and ongoing review of the use of the school’s concern forms and application of the school’s safeguarding policy mean that new staff get up to speed quickly and have all the information they need to identify those pupils at risk.
• Governors’ checks on the culture of safeguarding are regular and used to inform future training needs.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• Teaching is not consistent enough across the school to ensure that pupils make good progress. Teachers’ expectations are not uniformly high for every ability group. Inconsistent teaching for the lower-attaining pupils across the school means that they are falling behind even further in some classes, particularly in phonics.
• Teachers do not use the information they have about what pupils can do, know and understand, to plan work that challenges them. As a result, the middle-attaining and most-able pupils make inconsistent progress over time.
• Weak assessment practices in a number of classes result in some pupils repeating the same work because pupils’ learning in lessons is not closely matched to their needs.
• Teaching assistants are not deployed as effectively as they could be. Some do not have the subject knowledge or skills to support pupils consistently well. Teachers do not have full oversight of the learning support that teaching assistants provide. As a result, when pupils finish work early or struggle with their understanding, this is not picked up quickly enough.
• Teaching does not support those pupils with weak speaking skills well enough. Some teachers and teaching assistants accept one-word answers from pupils too readily. This hinders pupils’ ability to practise speaking in sentences, use correct grammar and make precise word choices. As a result, these pupils are not catching up quickly enough in their speaking skills.
• The teaching of early reading is too inconsistent. While the teaching of phonics is regular and systematic, the quality of teaching is variable, particularly for the lower-attaining pupils. As a result, these pupils do not have enough opportunity to use and apply their phonic knowledge and they are falling further behind. In addition, activities planned are not consistently challenging for the most able pupils. For example, these pupils repeat work that is too easy and so their learning does not build on their prior understanding.
• Recent training and support to improve the teaching of mathematics is paying off. Teaching is increasingly effective in exposing pupils to work that deepens their skills and knowledge of place value, problem-solving and reasoning in Years 1 and 2. As a result, pupils enjoy talking about the concept of number. However, leaders know that some inconsistencies in teaching remain. Too limited a challenge for the most able pupils hinders the progress that this group makes in mathematics overall.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Requires improvement

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare requires improvement. Leaders’ monitoring of health and safety, record-keeping, staff training and school risk assessments has not been good enough in the past. This limits the school’s promotion of pupils’ welfare and personal development. The executive headteacher and other senior staff have already tackled many of these relative weaknesses effectively this year. Consequently, health and safety and staff training requirements are not defective, but leaders know that there is more to do before best practice is achieved.
• The school’s breakfast club provides pupils with a safe and positive start to the school day. Pupils enjoy a healthy breakfast on offer and take full opportunity of the sports activities each morning.
• Pupils feel safe in school. They say that if they have concerns, adults will listen and sort out any ‘falling out’ quickly. Pupils told an inspector that they know how to keep safe when using the computer or electronic devices in school. They can explain how the filtering and blocks online keep them safe.
• Pupils’ understanding of fundamental British values is too limited because this aspect of the curriculum is not embedded well enough.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good. Pupils respond well to the school’s positive behaviour policies. There have been no exclusions in recent years. Pupils are polite and show respect for one another.
• At lunchtimes, pupils show good manners at the lunch table. They enjoy playing outside and follow instructions well.
• Most pupils make every effort to be ready to learn. Even when they have to wait for adults to arrive, to take them from one learning space to the next, pupils line up well and show compliance.
• Pupils usually demonstrate positive attitudes to learning in lessons, even when the work planned for them is too easy or too hard. When pupils are offered advice about how to improve their work, they follow this up and try their best. However, when pupils finish early or, occasionally, when work is not matched to their needs, a few pupils do not maintain complete concentration and their progress slows.
• Across a three-year period, pupils’ attendance has improved gradually and is now broadly in line with national averages. As a result of the family support worker’s effective support, the numbers of pupils who have not attended well enough have reduced considerably over time. While there remains a small difference between disadvantaged pupils’ attendance and that of other pupils in the school, this is diminishing quickly.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Pupils’ progress is too variable to be good. Assessment practices across the school are not used consistently well. Teachers’ assessment does not take into account pupils’ prior understanding and this limits pupils’ exposure to work that challenges them. As a result, most pupils’ progress speeds up and slows down at different points across the year, dependent on the quality of teaching they receive.
• Across a three-year period, approximately two thirds of children reach a good level of development, the standard expected at the end of the early years. Children’s outcomes are broadly in line with the national average. Children who are eligible for pupil premium funding do less well.
• Outcomes at the end of key stage 1 are rising. As such, the proportion of pupils achieving the expected standards in reading, writing and mathematics is in line with national averages in 2017. Also, the number of pupils who exceed the standards expected nationally has increased in reading and mathematics.
• At the end of key stage 1 in 2017, disadvantaged pupils do less well than other pupils nationally. Approximately two thirds of disadvantaged pupils achieve expected standards in reading and mathematics. However, fewer than half of disadvantaged pupils met the standards expected for their age in writing. For current Year 2 pupils, school performance information also indicates that disadvantaged pupils are not catching up quickly enough in writing.
• The most able pupils do not make the progress they should, because all too often they complete work that does not build on what they can already do.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities make variable progress. Pupils’ targets are closely tracked and pupils’ progress through targeted intervention is successful. However, work on offer in some classes is not closely matched to pupils’ needs, so their progress falters. Conversely, those pupils who receive consistently stronger teaching are making increasingly good progress.
• Outcomes in the phonics screening test increased considerably in 2017 to be above the national average. Some teaching of phonics is particularly strong. However, lower-attaining pupils are falling further behind because of the variability in teaching they receive. Low expectations for this group of pupils are too readily accepted.
• Pupils’ books demonstrate that they do not regularly apply their skills to write in depth, when they learn in subjects other than in English and mathematics.

Early years provision Requires improvement

• The proportion of children meeting the good level of development, the standard expected at the end of early years, is broadly in line with national averages but has remained static for the last three years. Boys do less well than girls.
• Many children arrive at school with skills and knowledge lower than their chronological age. Many of these children are catching up. However, leaders know there is more to do to ensure that a greater proportion of children make rapid progress to meet a good level of development.
• Adults’ expectations in Reception are not uniformly high. They do not give enough priority to developing children’s speaking skills. Teaching does not support some children in consolidating and practising their talking. As a result, while children’s progress in writing is often rapid, their competence in speaking is more variable.
• The children particularly enjoy ‘mini Mii time’ which enables them to select and choose activities on offer. This helps them to build independence and develop their concentration.
• Parents spoken to during the inspection are very positive about the transition to ‘big school’. Enabling children to start full time more quickly this year is paying dividends. The children have settled to routines well, showing independence and increasing levels of concentration.
• Outdoor learning is underdeveloped. Assessments of children’s learning outdoors are not as precise as inside. Adults capture what children are doing, but adult interactions do not help deepen their learning consistently well.
• Funding for the pupil premium grant is allocated to support children’s emotional and learning needs. However, too few of these children meet a good level of development.
• The teaching of letter formation and early writing is regular and systematic. Children enjoy these sessions and show high levels of enthusiasm and interest when they learn their letters.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 115741 Gloucestershire 10033211 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 Infant School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Community 4 to 7 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 118 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Gary Bottomley Tony Larner 01531 820700 www.glebeandpicklenash.org.uk admin@newentfed.org Date of previous inspection 3–4 February 2013

Information about this school

• The school does not meet requirements on the publication of information about the curriculum on its website.
• This is a smaller than average infant school. There are two reception classes, and three classes of mixed Year 1 and 2 pupils. The school is part of a hard federation made up of two schools. This school and Picklenash Junior School are located on the same site.
• The new executive headteacher has been in post for four weeks. He is also executive headteacher of Picklenash Junior School.
• There are a number of recent changes to the governing body. Two long-standing governors left in July 2017. There is a new vice-chair of governors and two new governors have joined the governing body.
• There is a breakfast club on-site.
• The proportion of pupils who are disadvantaged and known to be eligible for free school meals is in line with the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities and are supported by the school is slightly above the national average. The proportion of pupils who are supported by a statement of special educational needs or an education, health and care plan is below the national average.
• Glebe Infants’ School is not required to publish information about the government’s floor standards as these are not applicable.

Information about this inspection

• The inspector observed pupils’ learning in visits to lessons across the school, some of which were jointly observed with senior leaders.
• Discussions took place with the executive headteacher, deputy headteacher and early years leaders. There was also a meeting with the leader of special educational needs and/or disabilities and the family support worker.
• A meeting took place with three governors. The inspector also met with a representative of the local education authority.
• The inspector scrutinised a number of school documents, including the school’s self-evaluation of its performance, records relating to behaviour, checks on teaching and learning, school performance information, pupils’ attendance and safeguarding.
• The inspector carried out scrutiny of the quality of pupils’ work in books across a range of subjects and year groups. She also reviewed the school’s online assessment system in early years.
• The inspector spoke to a group of pupils to seek their views about the school. The views of other pupils were gathered during lessons and breaktimes. She also listened to pupils read.
• The inspector observed pupils’ behaviour in lessons, at breaktimes, in the dinner hall and around the school.
• The inspector considered five responses to the online survey, Parent View, as well as four free-text responses from parents. Questionnaire responses from 15 members of staff and 18 pupils were also analysed.

Inspection team

Julie Carrington, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector