Wincanton Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve leadership and management by:
  • leaders identifying potential underachievement more precisely so that they can provide effective intervention
  • strengthening the way in which the pupil premium is used to accelerate the progress of both disadvantaged pupils and those from service families
  • rapidly developing the role of middle leaders so that inconsistencies in the quality of teaching are eradicated
  • analysing attendance of vulnerable groups more effectively so that improvements can be brought about quickly.
• Improve the quality of teaching so that pupils make rapid progress in reading and writing across key stage 2 from their different starting points by ensuring that teachers
  • learn from the good models of teaching currently in school
  • raise the level of challenge in reading lessons, so that time is used well and tasks more securely prepare pupils to reach and exceed the expected levels in reading
  • develop pupils’ skills in grammar, sentence construction and punctuation effectively.
• Further improve pupils’ personal development and support their confidence and pride in their work. An external review of the pupil premium should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

• Leaders do not evaluate pupils’ progress accurately enough. Pupils move in and out of the school frequently, mostly because of the high number of service families. Leaders track the rates of progress for groups of pupils over the year, but do not focus sufficiently on checking their progress over the time they spend in the school. Consequently, leaders do not have a sharp enough view of the way their actions influence the progress of different groups over time.
• Leaders carefully plan the spending of additional funding for disadvantaged pupils and pupils from service families. They check that the funding is improving pupils’ progress over time and across the year. However, until recently, their evaluation did not differentiate clearly enough between the two sets of funding to identify the specific progress of disadvantaged pupils.
• Middle leaders have not yet brought about consistency of good teaching in reading and writing across key stage 2. Leaders meet with teachers to discuss the progress of individual pupils and to check that assessments are accurate. Although they make regular checks on pupils’ workbooks and lead staff development, they have not yet brought teaching across the key stage up to the standard of the best.
• Leaders have accurately identified reading and writing as key areas for the school’s development. They know from their monitoring of teaching that there is more to do to improve levels of progress and attainment in these subjects. Leaders are outward looking in their development of the school and have now formed links with an outstanding teaching school to build consistency and sustainability further.
• Since the previous inspection, the school’s growth from an average-sized school to a two-form entry school has led to very cramped conditions. Difficulties in recruiting senior leaders mean that the headteacher has, for much of that time, almost single-handedly led and developed the school. More recently, his new team has demonstrated good capacity to continue to improve the school through raised outcomes in mathematics, early years and key stage 1. The school is poised to move to its new building, and staff morale is high.
• The curriculum is well planned under relevant topics, which celebrate the pupils’ own community and widen their view of the world. For example, learning about ‘the Somerset levels’ and ‘passport to China’, deepen pupils’ interest and knowledge through history and geography. The mathematics curriculum has been enhanced and is effective in promoting pupils’ progress.
• Leaders use the additional funding for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities well, and this leads to good inclusion and progress. Leaders’ plans include further development of this aspect of the school’s work in line with their commitment to equality of opportunity. However, in order to achieve this aim fully, there is more to do to ensure that all disadvantaged pupils make equally good progress across the whole range of subjects.
• The primary physical education and sport funding is spent wisely. Pupils have free access to many after-school sporting opportunities, which encourage healthy exercise. The use of sports coaches has strengthened the teaching of physical education and sport. Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural education develops well. Pupils gain greatly from the strong links with a school in Zambia, including from visits by Zambian teachers. They raise funds for their partner school, for example through a sponsored walk. Their behaviour towards each other shows respect for the fundamental values of British society.
• Parents are very positive about the school and the exciting opportunities that their children enjoy. Parents refer particularly to the school’s leaders who, as one parent said, reflecting the comments of many, ‘inspire, encourage and care’.

Governance of the school

• Governors have worked successfully with leaders to tackle the weaknesses in mathematics identified in the previous inspection report. They are knowledgeable about both the school and governance.
• Governors have identified inconsistencies in teaching and their minutes show that they have supported the headteacher in eradicating past weaknesses in teaching. They reflect honestly on the impact of weaker teaching on pupils’ progress. Their challenge to leaders on assessment information and reports on the quality of teaching are proportionate and robust.
• Governors were frustrated by difficulties in recruiting staff to senior posts. This meant that the headteacher was without senior leadership support at the time when the school was expanding in size. They value the way in which he has taken on additional responsibilities and continued to move the school forward during this time of change and growth.
• Governors monitor individual aspects of the school’s development plan with leaders and check that actions are having an impact on pupils’ progress.
• Recently, governors have sharpened their evaluation of the way in which pupil premium funding for disadvantaged pupils is used. However, there is no evidence to suggest that its use has led to good progress for disadvantaged pupils.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. Leaders and governors have ensured that policies which help to protect pupils who may be at risk of harm are comprehensive. All staff receive a thorough induction into the school’s procedures, and their responsibilities are made clear. Training for all staff is broad and regularly updated. There is a culture of vigilance and care for pupils’ welfare and well-being.
• School leaders and teachers know pupils and families well. They offer guidance and support when families are facing difficulties. Additionally, they are rigorous in working with other local agencies to ensure that pupils are kept safe.
• Recruitment checks are carried out thoroughly to ensure that all adults who work with pupils are safe to do so. Governors make regular visits to ensure that records are well maintained. Governors have supported leaders in maintaining the safety of the school site while the new building was under construction.
• The vast majority of parents believe that their children are in a safe environment where they can flourish. Some parents referred specifically to the help that they had received at difficult times, particularly from the headteacher.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• The quality of teaching is not consistently good across key stage 2. There is variability across year groups and across the key stage as a whole. This is particularly true in the teaching of writing. This is because, although teachers use assessment information from the previous year to plan their lessons, they do not always recognise pupils’ potential from the time they join the key stage. As a result, not all teaching is pitched correctly to maximise pupils’ progress in reading and writing in key stage 2. This is equally true for the most able pupils and those who are disadvantaged.
• In English lessons, pupils use information from other subjects as a stimulus for their writing. Learning dips when pupils lose the main point of the English teaching because they are still acquiring new knowledge in the other subject. Consequently, pupils do not acquire skills of sentence construction and punctuation securely.
• Recent improvements to the curriculum for reading are not yet firmly established. Pupils quickly develop fluency in reading, but struggle to reach expected levels in national tests at the end of Year 6 because they lack the skills to analyse what they read. Pupils are now being taught these skills more systematically. However, the pitch of work is sometimes at too low a level. In Years 3 and 4, teachers do not expect enough of what pupils can do independently, given the standards that pupils reach at the end of Year 2.
• Teachers plan well to develop pupils’ phonic skills and early reading. Teachers, particularly in key stage 2, plan precisely for the discussions they have with pupils about class books. They foster pupils’ love of reading and make checks on pupils’ understanding of their personal reading through challenging quizzes.
• The teaching of mathematics is consistently good across the whole school. As a result, pupils’ progress is accelerating, including that of those who are disadvantaged. Recent improvements to the curriculum and high-quality staff development have raised teachers’ expectations of what pupils can achieve. Teachers challenge all pupils, including the most able, to apply their calculation skills to solving problems. Pupils relish tackling complex investigations, which are developing their reasoning skills.
• Teaching is good across key stage 1, including in writing. Pupils write at length, developing a consistent handwriting style. Teachers develop pupils’ skills in building complex sentences and in using accurate punctuation.
• Teachers and teaching assistants promote the learning of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities well. Teaching assistants working one to one with pupils are sensitive to pupils’ well-being and individual needs. Teaching assistants in lessons use good questioning and challenge pupils to concentrate and complete work.
• Pupils respond frequently and readily to the clear feedback that teachers give them. Pupils are positive about the support they receive in lessons. As one pupil said, ‘If we struggle, teachers point us in the right direction.’
• The teaching of science and the humanities is good. Teachers develop pupils’ skills of scientific investigation systematically. In history and geography, teachers provide real experiences, such as visits and visitors, which bring the curriculum alive for pupils and stimulate their interest. As a result, they record their work to a high standard in their portfolios of edited work.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Requires improvement

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development requires improvement. In class, although pupils behave well, they do not make the effort they could to answer questions. Teachers encourage them and persist in repeating questions, but in lessons pupils often lack the confidence to answer. Teachers are now supporting pupils’ personal development more strongly, but this is too new to have had an impact.
• Pupils do not present their work well in all lessons. Their ‘learning journals’ show that from day to day the quality of pupils’ presentation changes. When writing in subjects other than English, they do not always take the care that they could. Their portfolios of edited and polished work show that pupils are able to present work carefully and accurately.
• Pupils enjoy learning and concentrate well in lessons. They work particularly well with partners and in a group, listening to each other and sharing resources fairly. They are enthusiastic about the ‘hooks’ into learning which begin new topics of work.
• Pupils know how to keep themselves safe when using the internet and value the guidance they receive from school in regular safety assemblies, for example about ‘stranger danger’.
• Overall attendance levels are broadly in line with the national average. At this point, this year, pupils have been attending well. However, last year, the attendance of the group of disadvantaged pupils was low. The school ensures that pupils are safe and tackles the poor attendance of individual pupils. They do not check, however, to see whether these actions have had a positive impact on the attendance of the group as a whole.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good. They behave well in lessons and when they move around school. They have accepted that, while waiting to move into the new building, they have had to work in increasingly cramped classrooms. They have adapted well to this situation and learning is not disrupted by poor behaviour.
• In class, the few pupils who have difficulties with managing their behaviour respond well to the simple and clear behaviour policy. Pupils feel that rules are fair and they enjoy the rewards and recognition that they are given for good behaviour.
• A well-established programme of pastoral support for vulnerable pupils and those who need extra guidance to behave well is effective. Pupils understand the need for this and the way that the programme fits within the school’s behaviour policy.
• Pupils play safely and harmoniously in the playground. They respect the high expectations of safety which arise from having a new building on site. They are trusted to move in and out of school during playtimes, if they wish, and they use this privilege safely and well.
• Pupils said that they feel safe in school and place great trust in all the staff who work with them. They also trust their friends and said that bullying is very rare. If there have been any problems in the past, the headteacher has dealt with things quickly and fairly.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Pupils currently in key stage 2 have made inconsistent progress, particularly in writing. Standards in writing in the current Years 5 and 6 are still low. This was confirmed by the school’s assessment information and the work in pupils’ books. Levels of attainment in writing are stronger in Years 3 and 4. However, even here, pupils’ skills in grammar, punctuation and handwriting are not yet consistently well developed.
• In key stage 2, pupils do not consistently demonstrate the skills needed to tackle reading comprehension activities with texts appropriate for their age. This is because they have not been given sufficient opportunity to practise these skills across key stage 2. Currently, pupils are making more rapid progress in catching up on these skills because of recent improvements to the curriculum.
• Last year’s national assessments show that Year 6 pupils had made low levels of progress in reading, writing and mathematics during their time in key stage 2. However, almost half the class had special educational needs and/or disabilities, and only a small number of this group of pupils were able to attain the new higher standards.
• The rate of progress of pupils who did not have special educational needs and/or disabilities was broadly average. The most able pupils made very good progress in writing, but did not achieve better than expected progress in mathematics and reading. Leaders recognise that, although these pupils made good progress in Year 6, they had lost ground because of weak teaching and learning in the past.
• Pupils’ current work shows that progress in mathematics is accelerating, including that of disadvantaged pupils. The progress that current Year 6 pupils made last year over their time in key stage 2 was low overall. However, progress of pupils who do not have special educational needs and/or disabilities was stronger.
• The new curriculum and the school’s new programme of work for mathematics are consistently well taught across the school. Pupils’ calculation skills are in line with those expected for their age and they work systematically through investigations and word problems. The level of challenge in lessons is higher in mathematics, particularly for the most able, and there is more evidence now of pupils working at greater depth.
• The proportion of pupils who reached the expected standard in mathematics at the end of key stage 1 in recent national tests was higher than national levels. Disadvantaged pupils attained well. This higher attainment is now being maintained in Years 3 and 4, as seen in workbooks and in the school’s assessment information.
• Pupils, including disadvantaged pupils, acquire phonic skills quickly as a result of their higher standards on starting Year 1. For example, pupils currently in Year 1 confidently tackled the phonic patterns to read and write ‘fright’ and ‘square’. The level of challenge was equally high for all groups, and those pupils who had not reached the early learning goal for reading in Reception were catching up quickly.
• Pupils in key stage 2, including those who are disadvantaged, read widely. Pupils could explain clearly why they chose their books. They explored different authors, and enjoyed reading a series of work by the same author. In key stage 1, most pupils could tackle the reading required for the written instructions for their tasks and applied their phonic skills to words that they found challenging. Standards in reading at the end of key stage 1 in recent assessments were above national levels. This represented strong progress from pupils’ starting points.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities make good progress. This can be seen from records and workbooks and from observations of them working in lessons. The support they receive in special programmes is built on well in class by teaching assistants who support pupils’ inclusion in the class curriculum.
• Pupils make good progress in science and in history and geography. The standard of their skills of scientific enquiry is good. Pupils carry out experiments carefully and record their outcomes clearly in diagrams and charts.
• Although pupils are well prepared for their transition to key stage 1 and 2 in school, there is more work to do to ensure that pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education in secondary school.

Early years provision Good

• Leadership in the early years is strong. The leader, the school’s deputy headteacher, is enthusiastic and knowledgeable about her role. Teaching has been developed well, and standards have risen over the past three years. The proportion of children now reaching a good level of development is broadly in line with recent national levels.
• Children start in the Reception class with a wide range of levels of development. Many have low self-confidence and weak skills in speaking and understanding. Their understanding of reading, writing and number is low for their age. They go on to make good progress in the Reception class because of skilled teaching and close assessment.
• A small proportion of children begin school with skills and knowledge above those usually found. Teachers have high expectations of what all children can achieve, and the most able children reach standards at the end of the Reception Year which exceed the early learning goals. This is particularly the case in reading.
• Children get off to a good start in reading. At this early point in the year, they can hear, say and write many of the initial phonic sounds. They are beginning to blend three sounds together to read simple words. When exploring their learning independently, they were seen to enjoy practising writing by themselves.
• Children concentrate well and persist in their chosen tasks. For example, children worked patiently and carefully to get the two pans to balance when they were weighing pasta. They showed a good understanding of an unbalanced scale indicating that things were heavier and lighter. The children were delighted when their efforts were praised by the whole class.
• The environment is stimulating and exciting for children, and even during a rainy morning they were seen learning outside, under cover and in the classroom. On that morning, all activities were built around developing knowledge of number and shape. Staff support and guide the learning well. However, given the urgent need to develop speaking skills, they do not always persist long enough to get answers from the children.
• Teachers have established good routines, which children use well. In this way, children keep themselves safe. For example, they know that they must post their photograph on the board if they are in the toilet. They know exactly the point in the outdoor area where wellington boots must be worn.
• Staff are vigilant in securing the children’s safety and welfare, but allow them to learn well by taking small risks in their play. Children behave well and listen to guidance to make safe choices.
• The rapid progress that children have made in their first few weeks in school indicates that teachers in the Reception classes prepare them well for their transition to Year 1.
• Parents are very positive about the good start that their children are given in the Reception class. They value the approachability of staff and the rapid progress that their children have made in their early weeks in school.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 123667 Somerset 10033240 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 Community 4 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 378 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Mrs Jane Findley Graeme Wilson 01963 32132 http://www.wincantonprimaryschool.co.uk wincantonprimary@educ.somerset.gov.uk Date of previous inspection November 2012

Information about this school

• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• The school has grown considerably since the previous inspection. It is now larger than average and it is continuing to grow. Accommodation has, however, not changed over that time, and so space in school for teaching and learning is limited. The school is to expand into its new building in November 2017.
• Pupils are, this year, for the first time, being taught in two parallel single-aged classes in each year group. There are two classes for Reception children who join the school aged four.
• The number of pupils who join and leave the school at times other than the start of the academic year is much higher than usual. Many of these are children of service families and, therefore, attract the pupil premium.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils eligible for support through the pupil premium is broadly in line with national average, but varies considerably over the school. In recent years, the proportion is almost twice the national average at the end of key stage 2.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is well above average.
• Most pupils are of White British heritage, but there is an increasing minority of pupils who are from eastern European backgrounds.
• The school meets the government’s floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupil attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 6.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed 20 lessons or part lessons, many with members of the senior leadership team.
• In addition, the inspection team looked at examples of pupils’ work in a range of subjects and listened to pupils read, including reading in their lessons.
• The inspectors met a group of pupils, the headteacher, senior leaders and a representative of the local authority. Inspectors talked to pupils informally in lessons and in the playground.
• Inspectors met with a group of governors and scrutinised recent minutes from governors’ meetings.
• Information from the school about pupils’ recent and current progress was examined, as well as the school’s evaluation of how well it is doing. Records of leaders’ monitoring of the quality of teaching, records relating to attendance and those relating to safeguarding were also scrutinised. Inspectors also took account of leaders’ plans to improve and develop the school.
• The inspection team took account of 123 responses and comments from the online questionnaire, Parent View. The views of staff were gathered through the 32 responses to the staff questionnaire.

Inspection team

Wendy Marriott, lead inspector Non Davies Bradley Murray Marion Borland Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector