Busill Jones 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?

• Improve the leadership and management of the school by:
  • urgently reviewing the school’s safeguarding practices so that systems and the grounds keep pupils safe, and statutory requirements for safeguarding are met
  • all leaders forming an accurate understanding of the school’s performance to better inform their drive for improvement
  • speeding up the rate at which teaching improves by making accurate checks to identify precisely what teachers need to do better
  • ensuring that professional development opportunities for teachers are closely linked to their individual needs
  • improving the quality of learning tasks across the curriculum so that pupils gain a secure knowledge and understanding of what they learn
  • making sure that all governors fulfil their responsibilities, including systematically reviewing the school’s performance to gain an accurate understanding of its strengths and weaknesses
  • ensuring that governors provide the right sort of challenge to senior leaders.
• Raise pupils’ achievement by:
  • significantly accelerating pupils’ progress in reading, writing and mathematics in key stages 1 and 2
  • accelerating the progress made by children in the early years so that more reach the standard necessary to be well prepared for the start of Year 1
  • speeding up the progress made by the most able pupils so that many more reach the higher standards in their work throughout the school
  • ensuring that disadvantaged pupils make much faster progress and reach standards closer to those reached by other pupils nationally.
• Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by:
  • raising teachers’ expectations of what pupils can achieve
  • ensuring that time is better used in lessons
  • moving pupils on to harder tasks much more quickly and when they have a secure grasp of their learning
  • making sure the work set for the most able pupils is hard enough
  • making accurate assessments of pupils’ achievements
  • teachers consistently ensuring that lessons capture pupils’ interest and guiding pupils back to their work when they become distracted
  • providing pupils with opportunities to read a wider range of more challenging texts, ensuring that phonics teaching is of a consistently high standard, and strengthening the teaching of higher-order comprehension skills, particularly in key stage 2
  • providing opportunities for pupils to practise their writing skills in different subjects and teaching the skills pupils need to improve their writing
  • ensuring that most pupils work securely at the standard expected for their age in mathematics and have opportunities to deepen their understanding through reasoning and problem-solving tasks.
• Improve pupils’ personal development by:
  • significantly raising pupils’ attendance and reducing the high number of pupils who are frequently absent from school
  • reducing the very high level of absences for disadvantaged pupils and those who have SEN and/or disabilities
  • deepening pupils’ understanding of cultures other than their own. An external review of governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved. An external review of the school’s use 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 Inadequate

• Leaders have not made essential improvements to the school’s overall effectiveness. As a result, pupils significantly underachieve in their work because teaching is weak, safeguarding is ineffective and pupils’ personal development is inadequate. Most of the areas identified for improvement at the last inspection remain of concern. In some areas they have become worse.
• Leaders do not have an accurate picture of the school’s performance. They think the school is doing better than it is. This is particularly the case when they talk about pupils’ progress. Leaders think that this has accelerated but it is still very slow. Leaders misjudge the quality of teaching and think it is better than it is. Because their views are not accurate, leaders’ plans to improve the school are not focused enough on the areas the school urgently needs to tackle.
• Leaders make regular checks on the quality of teaching. However, checks do not focus on helping staff improve the most important areas in teaching that will lead to quick and sustained improvements. Leaders’ checks lack rigour because they do not systematically see if teachers have improved on areas identified previously as needing improvement. Therefore, teaching is not improving.
• Leaders do not ensure that professional development is tailored to meet teachers’ specific needs. The school’s new appraisal process for teachers does not focus support on a broad enough range of areas that teachers need to improve. This further holds back improvement.
• Leaders have not raised staff’s expectations of what pupils are capable of, to ensure that pupils make fast enough progress. Too often, leaders accept teachers’ low expectations, particularly for the most able pupils. Records of leaders’ checks on teaching show that too often, staff are not asked to challenge the most able pupils.
• Leaders’ checks on pupils’ progress are not accurate. Leaders think that pupils are making faster progress than they are. This is because assessments of pupils’ work are not accurate and too generous. Leaders have recognised that some teachers’ assessments are too positive.
• Leaders’ plans to use additional funding for disadvantaged pupils have not been successful. Although they have identified potential barriers faced by disadvantaged pupils, plans have not successfully accelerated this group’s progress. Leaders have not identified this when reviewing their plans and are not aware that disadvantaged pupils continue to make such slow progress. Some leaders were unclear about the plans for disadvantaged pupils.
• Leaders’ plans for the use of the primary physical education (PE) and sports premium are more successful in terms of providing a broad range of additional activities. However, leaders’ reviews are not effective and so they have a limited understanding of the impact of their plans.
• Leaders don’t always make good use of funding to support pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities. Leaders’ work to provide specific support for pupils from the resource provision has been successful because tasks set are focused closely on pupils’ needs. However, provision is not as well targeted for mainstream pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities. As a result, they make less progress.
• Leaders have ensured that the curriculum includes a broad range of subjects. However, many of the activities demand limited responses from pupils. This leads to pupils developing a shallow understanding of subjects.
• Pupils have very limited opportunities to practise their writing skills in different subjects despite this being raised as a concern at the last inspection. Leaders have also not ensured that the curriculum provides pupils with strong enough opportunities to develop their understanding of cultures other than their own. A strength is the music tuition provided by a peripatetic teacher. Pupils in a number of year groups play, as a class, a range of instruments with skill and to a high standard. When performing, pupils are fully absorbed and show the high-quality work they are capable of producing. Otherwise, leaders are not promoting pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development well enough.
• The quality of leaders’ relationships with parents and carers is mixed. Inspectors were approached by many parents who were unhappy with aspects of the school’s work and how leaders have resolved problems.
• The local authority has identified that the school is not performing well. It considers the school to be ‘vulnerable’ and recently sent a ‘pre-warning notice’ to governors and leaders to highlight its concerns. The local authority is providing a range of support from a local teaching school.
• Leaders have concentrated on improving pupils’ behaviour. Incident logs and other accounts show some improvement this year. However, behaviour is now only as strong as it was at the previous inspection.

Governance of the school

• The chair and vice-chair of governors have shown a high level of commitment. The work of governance has rested heavily on their shoulders and, despite coming up against challenging situations, their dedication and support have not wavered. However, governance has been too reliant on them. With changing membership, they recognise the need for a full range of governors to play an active part in improving the school.
• Governors recognise some of the pressing issues but have not used the full range of measures, particularly in relation to pupil achievement, to check on the school’s performance. Governors therefore do not have an accurate view of how well the school is doing. They view the school’s performance too positively.
• Because governors are not always clear about the school’s effectiveness, minutes of meetings show that governors do not ask challenging enough questions about the right issues to effectively hold senior leaders to account. The committee responsible for doing this rarely gets to the heart of issues relating to standards. There is little systematic review of how funding for the PE and sport premium is used.
• Governors have recently reviewed their skills and are aiming to ensure that members have a broad enough range of skills, especially concerning their interpretation of assessment information and data. Many governors have taken on roles to check on aspects of school life such as safeguarding. Although governors attend training, particularly in relation to safeguarding, they have not identified some of the school’s shortfalls in this area.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.
• Statutory requirements are not met fully. Not all governors have had necessary checks required when joining the governing body. Parents have raised concerns about how effective safeguarding systems are in relation to the premises. During the inspection, gates and doors were left open allowing unsupervised access to the site. This has now been rectified. An outdoor area in the early years considered unsuitable by health and safety officials was accessible to children. Toileting facilities, recently put into use for some of the early years children were not suitable.
• Discussions with staff show that not all have received the information they need to know about safeguarding when starting their job. Pupils’ lack of knowledge of cultures other than their own is not helping pupils avoid forming potentially extreme views. The school does, however, have a suitable safeguarding policy which is updated each year by governors. Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

• Teachers do not have high enough expectations for their pupils. Work in most classes is set at a level well below what is expected for pupils’ ages, except in a few cases in key stage 1. For instance, in mathematics, pupils in one lesson completed multiplication activities that they could easily do. These activities were those expected for much younger pupils. The setting of work that is too easy is a particular weakness in the teaching of mathematics. Many pupils find the lessons too easy in most subjects. This was clear from pupils’ books and pupils commented on this to inspectors. As a result, pupils do not make enough progress.
• In lessons, teachers are often too slow to move pupils onto harder work when they have gained a secure knowledge and understanding in lessons. Inspectors saw many examples in pupils’ books of pupils being expected to keep on doing the same sorts of tasks rather than harder ones. Teachers do not use their plans for lessons flexibly enough or establish a pace appropriate to pupils’ learning. This slows the progress pupils make as teachers are not noticing when pupils are ready to move on and do not adjust their teaching to set harder tasks.
• Teachers do not provide hard enough work for the most able pupils. Very few pupils work within the higher standards. In mathematics for example, pupils have very limited opportunities to complete more challenging tasks using reasoning and problem-solving skills in order to deepen their understanding.
• Too often, lessons fail to inspire or interest some pupils. Inspectors saw examples of pupils becoming disinterested and bored by their work. When lessons were more interesting, pupils became excited and fully engaged. In key stage 1 for example, a theme of lessons around Little Red Riding Hood captured pupils’ interest in their learning.
• Some of the tasks set in subjects such as history and geography demand very limited responses from pupils. This has led to them not developing a secure grasp or understanding of the work in these subjects.
• Teachers do not always notice when pupils become distracted in lessons or fail to join in. As a result, teachers are not able to encourage pupils to become involved again in the learning opportunities. This slows the pace of learning for these pupils.
• Teachers’ assessments of pupils’ achievements are not accurate enough. Teachers often judge the standard of pupils’ work too highly and this creates an inaccurate view that pupils are making faster progress than they actually are.
• The teaching of writing in key stage 2 does not focus enough on the features pupils need to produce work at the required standard or for pupils to make sufficient progress. Across the school, teachers do not challenge pupils when they make errors in their writing. As a result, pupils continue to make the same mistakes, which holds back their progress.
• When teaching reading, phonics skills are not consistently well taught in key stage 1. Consequently, many pupils struggle to read fluently. Opportunities to teach the higher-order comprehension skills, such as inference and reasoning, are limited in key stage 2. Pupils are not encouraged to read books that challenge them or develop their reading skills well enough. Pupils have a limited knowledge of different authors and do not have a rich enough ‘diet’ of reading.
• Teaching for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is varied. It is better for pupils who are provided with additional support from the additionally resourced provision as accurate assessment has helped ensure that teaching is linked to their needs. However, provision is mixed for other pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities who do not receive this extra support. Staff can provide too much help for these pupils which prevents them from practising new skills independently. This slows their progress.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.
• Pupils’ understanding of cultures that are different to their own is very limited. Pupils struggle to talk about different cultures and in some cases, are forming some misconceptions. These included not wanting to say the word ‘Muslim’ in case it was racist, or describing Christianity as the ‘English religion’. The school’s provision for pupils’ cultural development is not effective.
• Many pupils talk in a positive manner about their school. These pupils have some sense of pride in their achievements, although often wish that the work set could be harder. However, others become frustrated with school and are less positive.
• Pupils have good manners and speak politely to staff and visitors.
• Pupils enjoy raising funds for good causes such as the Poppy Appeal. The school council has organised fundraising events for a local children’s hospital.
• Pupils have a good knowledge of how to stay safe when using the internet. Pupils say they feel safe at school and know to whom they should report any concerns.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.
• Pupils’ attendance continues to be very low. It has been well below the national average for the past three years and continues to fall. Despite the efforts of leaders, attendance has not improved this year. The proportion of pupils who are frequently absent remains very high and more than twice the national average. Pupils who are disadvantaged and those who have SEN and/or disabilities have particularly high rates of absence.
• School records show that behaviour has improved during the last year. Pupils generally remain on task but there can be patches of low-level disruption in some lessons, particularly when pupils do not find their work challenging. Pupils play together well in the playground. Records and discussions with staff indicate that behaviour at such times is also better.
• Pupils talk fairly positively about behaviour in school. Pupils talk about the school’s rules and how the recently introduced ‘behaviour ladder’ supports them to make the right choices.
• There has been a high number of incidents when pupils have needed to be restrained by staff to avoid harming themselves or others. Staff have received training in how to deal with these instances. Some pupils have needs which can result in challenging behaviour. The staff from the resource provision handle such incidents most effectively.
• There has also been a higher than average number of fixed-term exclusions during the past two years but this number has started to fall.
• Pupils report that there is a little bullying or racist behaviour but they feel that staff will deal with any incidents. However, pupils say that there is little teaching about how to prevent racism happening and how to deal with it.

Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

• Work in current pupils’ books and the school’s internal assessment information show that pupils make slow progress throughout the school. By the end of Year 6, pupils’ attainment is very low in reading, writing and in mathematics. There is little sign of any improvement.
• During the past three years, pupils’ progress in key stage 2 in reading, writing and mathematics has been very slow and declining. Pupils’ progress in writing was particularly slow. As a result, the standards pupils reached by the end of Year 6 were significantly below national averages. Analysis of current pupils’ work shows that this trend is continuing. Pupils are not prepared well for the start of secondary school because they are not equipped with the necessary skills in reading, writing and mathematics.
• Pupils in key stage 1 have started to make faster progress as teaching has improved a little. In the 2017 national assessments, more Year 2 pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics than in 2016. Work in pupils’ books shows that this improvement is likely to be maintained this year although still too few will reach the higher standards.
• The most able pupils significantly underachieve. The school’s own assessment records show that very few pupils are working at or are on track to reach the higher standards for their age. Inspectors saw this when looking at current pupils’ books. This continues a pattern in recent years of very few pupils in all key stages reaching the higher standards, and particularly in writing.
• Disadvantaged pupils continue to make very slow progress and achieve well below other pupils nationally. In key stage 2, information from tests shows that disadvantaged pupils’ progress has slowed during the past three years.
• Pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities make mixed progress. Leaders recognise this is the case. Pupils supported with additional help from the resource provision achieve much better than mainstream pupils.
• Pupils’ progress in subjects other than English and mathematics is also slow.
• Pupils’ skills in phonics are limited as can be seen when hearing them read and looking at their writing. In 2016, the proportion of pupils passing the Year 1 phonics screening rose close to the national average but this figure fell back to well below average in 2017.

Early years provision Inadequate

• From starting points that are below those typical for their age, children make slow progress. The proportion of children reaching a good level of development by the end of the Reception has been well below the national average for the past three years. From observations of the children and assessment records, there is no sign of improvement this year. As a result, too few children have the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary to make a successful start to Year 1.
• Children make slow progress because teaching and learning activities are either not challenging or focused enough. Teachers’ questioning often fails to make children think. This is particularly the case for the most able, whose achievement is poor. In writing, no children have reached the higher standard by the end of the Reception Year in the last three years.
• Teachers’ assessment is a weakness and holds progress back. There is a limited range of observations of learning and little evidence is kept for children’s progress across the curriculum. This makes it difficult for staff to plan challenging activities. Some of the assessments are not accurate. Leaders have not ensured that the use of assessment systems by staff is consistent.
• Disadvantaged children do not achieve well. The school’s attempts to promote wider experiences to help these children do better has not had any impact. The proportion of disadvantaged pupils reaching a good level of development by the end of the Reception Year in 2017 remained well below the national average for other children. The gap has not narrowed over the past three years.
• The teaching of phonics is not yet consistently good. Leaders have recently changed their approach but children’s skills in reading and writing remain limited because of previous weaknesses in teaching.
• Children settle well into their routines that teachers have set up. They are friendly, polite and keen to learn. Behaviour is good and the positive relationships staff have with parents make a strong contribution to this.
• The early years leader is committed and keen to make improvements. She recognises that some assessments are not accurate and is working to sort this out. The leader has secured the commitment of her team to do the best they can for the children.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 104146 Walsall 10047598 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Primary School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Maintained 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 326 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Gemma Jones Mrs Amanda Black Telephone number 01922 710700 Website Email address www.busill-jones.walsall.sch.uk/ postbox@busill-jones.walsall.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 24–25 February 2016

Information about this school

• The school is a larger than average sized school.
• The school has a specific resource provision (known as the additionally resourced provision) for 15 pupils who have autism and specific language impairments. This is integrated into the school.
• The school does not meet the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in reading, writing and in mathematics at the end of Year 6.
• Most of the pupils are of White British backgrounds. The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is low.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is above average. The proportion of pupils who have education, health and care plans is above the national average.
• The proportion of pupils supported by the pupil premium is high.
• The school provides a breakfast club.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed teaching and learning in classes in all key stages. For many of the observations, they were accompanied by members of the senior leadership team. Inspectors looked at pupils’ work in their books and on display. They spoke to pupils about the work they were doing and about what it is like to attend the school. An inspector observed a class assembly. Inspectors also observed and spoke to pupils at play and lunchtimes and talked to staff supervising pupils at these times.
• Inspectors met with senior and middle leaders to discuss aspects of the school’s work and arrangements for safeguarding pupils. The lead inspector met with the chair and vice-chair of the governing body and spoke to a representative of the local authority.
• The inspection team looked at a wide range of documents including the school’s self-evaluation and plans for improvement; plans for supporting pupils eligible for the pupil premium and the sports and PE premium plans; minutes of the governing body; records of monitoring activities and the performance management of teachers; assessment information; records regarding behaviour, bullying and safeguarding. The lead inspector took account of information on the school’s website.
• The inspectors considered the views of 13 parents from Ofsted’s Parent View questionnaire and spoke to some parents at the start and end of the school day.

Inspection team

Jonathan Moore, lead inspector Lisa Buffery Johanne Clifton Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector