Old Bank Junior Infant and Nursery School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve leadership and management, including governance, by ensuring that:
  • for every new initiative there is a clear rationale, followed by rigorous scrutiny, to evaluate the impact on pupils’ outcomes for all groups leaders monitor teaching and learning in a range of ways to ensure that the quality of teaching is consistently good or better across the school.
• Improve the quality of teaching by ensuring that teachers:
  • have higher expectations of what pupils can achieve, particularly the most able
  • plan lessons more accurately to take into account pupils’ diverse abilities and starting points
  • raise their expectations of the standard of presentation in pupils’ books.
• Improve the behaviour of pupils by ensuring that all adults challenge inappropriate language and physical interactions, particularly at breaktimes. An external review of governance 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 and managers do not evaluate how well things are working before or after changes are made. Therefore, they make changes, such as the movement of some staff, and it is not always clear why. Currently they do not know if changes are benefiting pupils’ learning.
• The new headteacher has not gained an accurate picture of the quality of teaching and learning because monitoring has not been thorough enough. For example, leaders have not established whether the ‘nurture’ room has been successful in helping pupils to spend more time as effective learners in the normal classroom environment.
• Leaders and managers effectively promote equality of opportunity for pupils from different cultures and religions. However, equality of opportunities between genders is not as effective in some activities, such as football, where the behaviour of boys prevents girls from participating fully.
• Leaders and managers ensure that pupils are engaged in learning through activities that interest them. They have introduced a curriculum that is well planned so that pupils’ emotional and educational needs are taken into account.
• The development of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is good. A comprehensive personal, social and emotional development curriculum includes topics such as friendship and tolerance, where pupils learn how to accept and celebrate difference. This helps prepare pupils for life in modern Britain.
• Teachers who are responsible for monitoring and supporting the newly qualified teachers do so very well. Mentors hold regular sessions to give newly qualified teachers guidance about how they can improve the quality of their teaching.

Governance of the school

• Governors have recently begun to evaluate the impact they have on school improvement and they have taken steps to improve their effectiveness. They have reviewed the skills they have and subsequently formed committees to focus on different areas of school improvement.
• Governors recognise that currently they do not challenge the information they receive from the headteacher enough. They are beginning to use information from the headteacher more carefully to make challenges in governors’ meetings.
• Governors acknowledge that the website does not currently meet requirements. They have not adequately reviewed whether the pupil premium, physical education and sport premium and special educational needs funding are used effectively. They acknowledge that an external review of governance would further improve their effectiveness.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Staff have the appropriate training. Adults are vigilant when looking for signs that pupils may be at risk and know to whom to report concerns. Communication with outside agencies is good. Good systems are in place to keep pupils safe while they are at school.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• Too many teachers plan lessons so that all pupils, regardless of their ability, are working on the same activity at the same level. For example, pupils’ mathematics books demonstrate that some pupils understand concepts being taught while others struggle.
• The most able pupils have little incentive to work at a faster rate as they are generally asked to complete the same work as all other pupils before moving on to harder work. They say this is often tedious and means too frequently that they do not have time to complete more exciting and challenging work.
• Teachers frequently do not have high enough expectations of what pupils can achieve, particularly the most able. In a letter-writing activity pupils did not know which words they had spelled incorrectly or how they could have improved other aspects of their work.
• Pupils’ handwriting and general presentation of work in books is too often poor and not enough has been completed as teachers’ expectations of what they can produce are low.
• Teachers set activities that encourage pupils’ interest in learning including practical and problem-solving tasks which help pupils gain an understanding of concepts.
• Teachers in some classes use very effective questioning skills to find out what pupils know and understand. Older pupils improved their learning due to high-quality questioning, along with partner talk, which helped pupils create high-quality and emotive writing as survivors of the Titanic disaster.
• Relationships between adults and pupils are good. This gives pupils the confidence to speak out and contribute to discussions without fear of failure.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Requires improvement

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Pupils say that they feel safe and they have a sound understanding of how they should keep themselves safe while using the internet.
• Pupils know what bullying is, including cyber bullying, and how they should react if they become a victim.
• Many older pupils take on roles of responsibility, such as at lunchtimes and as members of the school council. They perform these roles very well. The school council has been instrumental in supporting the views of pupils in the school, for example in securing a review of school-lunch menus.
• Adults make sure that they know pupils’ emotional needs well and this nurturing ethos supports pupils’ personal development and welfare successfully. A nurture room, known as the Thrive Room, helps some pupils further develop their social and emotional skills in this well-resourced provision.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils requires improvement. Pupils’ behaviour is too often unruly at breaktimes and physical conflicts occur. Pupils say that this is typical behaviour.
• Pupils comment that there are regularly incidents of prejudicial name-calling using words such as ‘gay’, idiot’ and ‘bitch’. Pupils say that teachers immediately address this inappropriate use of language. However, name-calling still persists.
• Pupils’ attendance has shown some sign of improvement since the last inspection but is still below that of other pupils nationally. The percentage of pupils who were persistently absent between September 2015 and July 2016 was very high and much higher than in previous years.
• Pupils are generally well behaved in lessons. Adults manage behaviour extremely well and disruptive behaviour rarely has a negative impact on learning.
• Pupils are polite and thoughtful when communicating with visitors. They are also respectful to adults they meet throughout the school day.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Outcomes for pupils, particularly the most able pupils in both key stage 1 and key stage 2, require improvement. Pupils do not make the progress they are capable of as the quality teaching does not meet their needs well enough.
• Pupils’ work and their assessment information indicate that they are not making as much progress as previous cohorts in English, mathematics and other subjects. This is especially so in Years 4 and 5.
• The number of pupils achieving the expected level in the Year 1 phonics check was below the national average. Although younger pupils have daily lessons to learn phonics, the quality of teaching is not consistently good enough to allow them to make sufficient progress. Older, more-able and less-able readers often struggle to read complex vocabulary, which prevents fluency and comprehension.
• The progress of pupils in English and mathematics across the school over time has been consistently close to that of other pupils of the same age nationally. Although attainment has been low, progress has been good from low starting points.
• Disadvantaged pupils have made progress that is similar to that of other pupils nationally. However, this has not been fast enough for the most able disadvantaged pupils to catch up and reach the same levels of attainment as other pupils nationally.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities make slower progress than that of other pupils with similar starting points nationally. Pupils receive generally good support through a range of strategies both in class and in separate lessons.

Early years provision Good

• Children in the early years make good progress from starting points that are typically lower than those of other children of the same age nationally.
• Two-year-olds benefit from a well-planned and organised environment which meets their needs well. Adults in this provision are knowledgeable about the developmental needs of these younger children. The provision is well led and managed.
• The two-year-old children are happy and settled as adults plan activities carefully to successfully interest them and take into account their learning needs.
• Children in the Nursery and Reception class benefit from a rich and exciting environment, both inside and outside. They behave well and adults are good at encouraging them to resolve their own conflicts.
• The early years leader manages the provision well. She analyses information on attainment, particularly for disadvantaged children, to help her plan. She has identified weaknesses in language acquisition and has introduced a commercial scheme which has had a positive effect on this area of development.
• The leader of the early years works closely with the local authority and other schools to ensure that assessments are accurate and that the provision remains good.
• The leaders in both the younger and older early years provisions work closely with parents. Parents are encouraged to become fully involved in their child’s education and care at school. Leaders ensure that parents are well informed.
• Across most subjects these children are well prepared to move into Year 1. However, the teaching of phonics is not good enough and opportunities are missed for children to practise the skills they are learning. Consequently children are not fully prepared for Year 1.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 107687 Kirklees 10000695 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 Nursery, Infant and Junior School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Maintained 2 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 185 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Keith Sibbald Clare Taylor 01924495790 www.oldbankschool.co.uk head.oldbank@kirkleeseducation.uk Date of previous inspection 10–11 May 2012

Information about this school

• Old Bank Junior, Infant and Nursery is a smaller-than-average primary school.
• The school does not meet requirements on the publication of information about the pupil premium, admission arrangements, the most recent key stage 2 results and governance on its website.
• The school has provision for two-year-old children.
• The school meets the current government floor standards.
• The proportion of pupils who are eligible for support from the pupil premium funding is higher than the national average.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning in lessons in a range of subjects. The headteacher jointly observed lessons with all members of the inspection team.
• The inspectors met with members of the governing body, including the chair and vice- chair of governors. They also met with a representative of the local authority and members of the senior leadership team.
• Inspectors spoke with a number of pupils in lessons, at breaktimes and in formal meetings. Pupils discussed their work with inspectors and read to inspectors.
• Inspectors took into account the views of staff from surveys and from discussions during the inspection. There were no results from the Ofsted online questionnaire, Parent View.
• Inspectors studied a range of documents relating to the quality of teaching, governance and safeguarding.

Inspection team

Jo Sharpe, lead inspector Beverley Riddle Mary Lanovy-Taylor

Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector