Gledhow Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the effectiveness of leadership, management and governance by ensuring that:
  • systematic procedures for analysing and evaluating the progress of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, and those who are disadvantaged, are implemented to provide leaders with better information to inform their actions
  • support for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is more precisely checked and evaluated to measure the impact on their progress
  • the spending of additional funds for disadvantaged pupils, those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who need to catch up is monitored and evaluated so that spending is precisely targeted and improves outcomes for these pupils
  • the developments in the teaching of phonics continue and the improvement in pupils’ phonic skills is maintained
  • all subject leaders develop the skills to contribute more significantly to improving the quality of teaching and learning in their areas of responsibility
• Secure consistency in the quality of teaching so that pupils, especially those in key stage 1, make at least good progress over time by ensuring that:
  • learning is sufficiently challenging to enable more pupils to achieve higher standards, especially the most able pupils
  • pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities and those entitled to pupil premium are supported to make more rapid progress
  • pupils understand and respond to high expectations of their work and attitudes to learning by producing neat, well-presented work and responding to teachers’ feedback
  • making sure that lessons engage, challenge and interest pupils so that the same school-wide expectations are set for behaviour in all classes and by all members of staff
  • ensuring that teachers use information accurately to assess children’s attainment on entry to the Nursery and Reception classes to enable them to build on children’s skills and extend their learning even further. An external review of the school’s use of pupil premium funding 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

• Since their recent appointment, the headteacher and deputy headteacher are together establishing a culture in which every child is expected to learn well and succeed. They have taken considerable action to address this aim and to improve teachers’ expectations. However, improvements in key stage 1 have been slower than anticipated and the most able pupils, those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities and disadvantaged pupils are not achieving as well as they could.
• Leaders’ monitoring of the progress of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities has not been accurate enough over time. Consequently, these pupils have made inadequate progress. The recently appointed special educational needs coordinator has begun to take effective action to rectify this. However, these improvements are at an early stage of development. Learning targets set for pupils have yet to have a significant impact, and this group of pupils do not always receive the best support to help them achieve well. Furthermore, although there has been a recent review of special educational needs which identified many shortcomings, the special needs policy remains significantly out of date; documents are missing and, consequently, the website also fails to meet statutory requirements.
• Leaders are not ensuring that there is sufficient accountability for the spending of additional funds for disadvantaged pupils and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. While leaders have ensured that disadvantaged pupils are supported well with their social and emotional needs, pupil premium funding has not been used to ensure it is having enough of an impact on their academic achievement. Leaders, including governors, are unclear about which strategies have improved progress and which are improving outcomes as they are not evaluating this spending effectively.
• Many subject leaders are new to their roles and have not yet had the time and opportunity to develop the skills they need to accurately evaluate achievement in their subject. They need more time to routinely monitor pupils’ work and to be more focused on the progress that different groups of pupils make. Improvements have been slower in some subjects.
• A wider group of leaders are now beginning to take shared responsibility for improving pupils’ outcomes. Coupled with greater accountability through clarity of roles and responsibilities and links with performance management, this is providing a solid base for further and more rapid improvements.
• The headteacher and deputy headteacher are notably thorough when checking the impact of teaching, learning and assessment on pupils’ outcomes. However, though teachers receive detailed feedback about all aspects of their teaching role, with clear strengths and areas for development, some teaching in key stage 1 remains inadequate. Where teachers have taken the advice provided, there is considerable improvement in the quality of teaching in those classes.
• Leaders have established effective links with a wide range of partners through the local authority. This commitment by school leaders to partnership working in order to seek good practice provides staff, including leaders, with high-quality professional development and training, checks progress towards the school’s improvement targets, and has been very successful. Leaders are now more effectively improving the quality of teaching and learning, particularly in mathematics and English, so that it is becoming more consistent. In most year groups, pupils are making better progress as a result.
• Leaders have used the primary school physical education (PE) and sports funding to provide increased opportunity in a wide range of sports. Pupils speak highly of, and enjoy, the inter-school sports competitions and after-school clubs they take part in.
• Pupils largely enjoy a broad and interesting curriculum. However, pupils’ work in books and in displays shows that a number of subjects are under-represented. Pupils’ progress is limited because they do not have sufficient opportunities to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding in subjects other than English and mathematics in a number of classes.
• The curriculum has been successful in developing the school’s values and is also having a positive impact on pupils’ understanding of British values and on their growing social, moral, spiritual and cultural development.
• Staff spoken to during the inspection expressed strongly how proud they are to work at the school. They spoke highly of their greater involvement in developments, and of improvements since the current headteacher took up the post. There is a strong sense of unity among all staff and a shared determination to do the very best for pupils at the school.
• Leaders have tried to ensure that parents are informed, supported and are able to engage positively with the school so that the needs of pupils are best met. These efforts have not been fully successful and a significant minority of parents would welcome more information on their children’s progress.

Governance of the school

• Governors are passionate about the school and ambitious for its future development. They are a highly skilled group who now have a thorough understanding of pupils’ academic performance after being given limited information in the past. Their understanding has been enhanced by the receipt of leaders’ and external advisers’ reports that are now robust and clear.
• Governors acknowledge that, despite considerable efforts, in the past governors did not challenge leaders about their work to improve pupils’ academic outcomes or were unable to do so due to limited information. This situation has now changed, but their work to tackle a legacy of complacency is still at an early stage of development.
• Governors have supported the school in establishing effective behaviour systems and securing safeguarding systems as a priority. They recognise the challenges the school has faced, particularly over this last year, and have provided good support to facilitate changes in senior leadership arrangements.
• Although governors are aware of where the pupil premium funding is used to support disadvantaged pupils, they acknowledge and accept that the impact of funding on pupils’ academic progress is unacceptably low.
• The governing body is keen to develop its practice. Governors have monitored their own performance, and engaged with training to improve their skills. They are determined to work even more closely with senior leaders to continue to bring about further improvement.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. The governing body fulfils its responsibilities with regard to safeguarding pupils and child protection.
• The governing body ensures that the school carries out appropriate checks on adults appointed to work at the school.
• Leaders ensure that staff undertake regular training so that their knowledge of child protection procedures is up to date. Procedures for ensuring good attendance are rigorous and pupils’ non-attendance is followed up immediately.
• The school’s processes for child protection are effective. Monitoring systems are robust and the school provides good pastoral care for vulnerable pupils and families.
• Pupils say they feel safe at school. Almost all parents who responded to questionnaires, and every parent spoken to during the inspection, agree that pupils are safe at school.
• Pupils know how to stay safe in and around school and when using the internet. Pupils are clear that they have someone to speak to if they are unhappy. They know that a well-being team are always around to help and support if pupils have concerns.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• The quality of teaching, while improving, remains too variable. There is a lack of consistency between year groups and this is especially noticeable in key stage 1.
• In a small number of classes, teachers do not have consistently high expectations of pupils’ learning and their learning behaviours. At times, when teaching is less engaging, or not well matched to pupils’ needs, some pupils lose interest and do not get on with their work.
• The level of challenge for all pupils is appropriately high in many classes but there are some cases where pupils, particularly the most able, are not encouraged by staff to move on to work that is demanding enough for them. They often do work which is far too easy first, before moving on. This results in progress which is not strong enough for some pupils based on their starting points.
• There are frequent occasions when pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities are not able to easily access learning in the classroom environment. The teaching they receive from teaching assistants, in these instances, does not always successfully support them in making the necessary gains with their learning. For example, staff do not always pick up on errors or misconceptions during these lessons and consequently, potential learning time is lost.
• Teaching assistants do have a positive impact in those classes where teachers make clear their expectations for pupils’ learning. In these situations, teaching assistants provide support which encourages pupils, makes use of practical resources to aid understanding and is effective in developing pupils’ independence and thinking skills.
• Leaders have not ensured that teachers have the thorough understanding of assessment information about pupils to support them in identifying any gaps in learning and making sure that work is well matched to pupils’ stages of development. They have not been effective in raising teachers’ awareness of disadvantaged pupils and other individuals who need to make more rapid progress to reach the expected standard. As a result, teachers are not effectively targeting the learning and progress of these individuals so they are quickly able to catch up.
• The quality of teachers’ feedback is variable. Some is of high quality and helps pupils to improve their work. However, many teachers do not routinely expect pupils to respond to their comments and often do not check that they have done so. Some teachers do not have high enough expectations of the need for tidy and well-presented work.
• The teaching of reading has been a real strength of the school for some time. However, the teaching of phonics has been weak for some years. Leaders have recently transformed the teaching of phonics and it is beginning to result in greater consistency in the approach used. This development is progressing well, but is not yet fully effective. However, the improvement in phonics teaching has had an impressive impact on raising the proportion of pupils passing the phonic check in Year 1. The effective links made between reading and writing are also starting to support pupils’ writing across the curriculum.
• The teaching of mathematics has been a particular focus for teachers this year. The result of training and support in this subject has been the development of teachers’ skills in teaching reasoning and problem solving, making use of practical resources to aid pupils’ understanding. This is becoming much more consistent and is supporting the improved progress seen in this subject throughout school.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupil’s personal development and welfare is good.
• Almost all pupils have positive attitudes to their learning because adults’ expectations of them are clear; pupils’ effort is praised; and in most cases, pupils understand the purpose of each set task. As a consequence, pupils know what they have to do and why. Pupils work cooperatively in pairs or small groups but can also work individually for extended periods of time. However, pupils also added that they recognised that a small group of pupils are sometimes ‘stressed out’ and this occasionally disrupts their learning.
• Pupils look out for each other. They notice when someone appears to be lonely, sad or upset during school breaks and lunchtimes and, without prompting, show kindness and help. They show mutual respect for other pupils whatever their age or background.
• Pupils develop a knowledge and appreciation of other people’s beliefs, cultures and traditions in lessons and visits to places of worship. They are encouraged to reflect on their own beliefs, religious or otherwise, that inform their views on life in and out of school. They have a good understanding of British values and link them to the values which are held in such high esteem in this school. One pupil summed up beautifully, and with maturity, the views of the group: ‘We respect everyone here because we, the school and the community in general, is diverse with a wide range of faiths and cultures.’
• The vast majority of pupils have a strongly developed moral culture. They have a keen sense of right and wrong and were very clear in their belief that people should be honest, kind and helpful as well as courageous in standing up against injustice. They understand that school rules are made for their safety and, as a result, they feel valued.
• Pupils are aware of the different types of bullying but asserted that bullying at Gledhow was rare and dealt with promptly when reported to adults.
• Pupils know how to keep themselves safe. They described with confidence their understanding of fire safety, safety on the road and safety online. Staff provide regular updates to keep pupils’ understanding fresh and to remind them of what steps to take to keep themselves safe. The pupils know the different types of media and how to deal with a range of concerns.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good. They are polite and courteous and pupils of all ages have well-developed social skills. They work together well in pairs or groups and support each other in their learning tasks.
• No incidents of poor behaviour were seen during the inspection and pupils say behaviour is typically good. They recognise everyone has an off-day now and then which can sometimes lead to out-of-character bad humour or silliness. However, they know adults deal with these rare incidents well, applying the behaviour policy consistently and fairly.
• The log of behaviour incidents is kept up to date but only minor misdemeanours occur. On the rare occasion when a more serious event occurs, adults take immediate and appropriate action. Incidents of exclusion are now rare.
• Pupils speak with pride of their school and are keen to tell how safe they feel and how much they appreciate their teachers. They have no complaints about the way they are treated or their learning. However, many pupils do not show enough pride in their work and not all teachers show sufficiently high expectation of presentation.
• All pupils spoken with were aware of healthy lifestyles and healthy eating. Pupils contribute well to improvements in the school and the school council and others are invited to identify where things could be better.
• Attendance overall is above the national average. Leaders’ checks on attendance are effective in identifying any group or individuals whose attendance is a concern. Action taken by leaders is resulting in improved attendance figures overall and, for vulnerable groups, better punctuality and a reduction in the proportion of pupils who are regularly absent.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• At the end of key stages 1 and 2, pupils’ outcomes in reading are above the national average, and have been so for many years. Progress and standards in reading are a strength of the school. However, in writing and mathematics standards and progress were below national averages in both key stages at the end of 2016. In most classes, pupils currently in school continue to make good progress in reading; but in key stage 1 in particular, they do not make consistently good progress across the curriculum, including in English and mathematics. In too many lessons pupils are not given work that allows them to make good progress from their different starting points.
• The pupil premium funding has not been used effectively enough. Disadvantaged pupils, including the most able disadvantaged pupils, did not make the progress of which they were capable in 2016. In many classes, especially in key stage 1, those disadvantaged pupils in school still do not make consistently good progress. Indeed, in Year 2, the attainment and progress of pupils in one class is extremely poor. However, leaders are aware that the pupils’ progress needs to be accelerated.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities did not make good progress by the end of key stage 2 in 2016, and this is still the case in a number of classes. There are now good systems to identify pupils’ needs, but the changes needed to improve provision have not yet been fully implemented and too few of these pupils are on track to make the progress they should.
• In 2016, the most able pupils did not achieve as well as they should have in both key stage 1 and key stage 2. This also includes the most able disadvantaged pupils. A serious concern of leaders and governors is that too few current pupils in Year 2 are reaching the higher standards at the end of key stage 1. A high proportion of pupils in Year 6 are on track to achieve high standards this year, although few of these are most able disadvantaged pupils.
• The proportion of pupils who met the expected standard in the phonics screening check at the end of Years 1 and 2 was below the national average in 2016, a situation which had been common in previous years. In the past, leaders failed to ensure that teachers taught phonics effectively and this was largely the cause of this failure. The new leadership identified this early and daily phonics lessons now take place. Focused, additional support has ensured that pupils are now making better progress, though not consistently good progress. Phonics outcomes are improving and more pupils are on track to meet the expected standard at the end of Years 1 and 2.

Early years provision Good

• Most children in Reception, and especially in Nursery, achieve well, given their starting points. However, because attainment on entry is not accurately assessed, a small number of the most able children could achieve better than they do.
• Teaching in Nursery is particularly good. Adults use high-quality questioning to extend children’s understanding and develop their vocabulary extremely well. Children are enthusiastic and enjoy their learning because the relationships between adults and children are particularly strong. They listen carefully to adults and behave very well, moving sensibly between activities and showing consideration for others. The children are active and inquisitive learners. This is further evidence that teachers underestimate how well children are achieving when they enter Reception class.
• In Reception, there are similarly positive relationships and teaching helps children to learn well, though less securely in phonics. Staff effectively encourage children to talk about their experiences, to listen to stories and retell them.
• Staff planning for the early years is effective and most lessons and activities are interesting, exciting and, on the whole, challenging. However, a small number of the tasks seen are not suitably adjusted to meet the needs of the children and, as a result, some children do not make enough progress in these lessons.
• The outdoor area is a lively and productive learning environment. The children consistently develop the expected skills and dispositions in independent learning, sharing, concentration and perseverance.
• The early years leader has good ideas and suitable plans to develop this aspect of school and she has recently had time and guidance to develop the improving provision. However, assessment of how well children are achieving on entry to both Nursery and Reception, and consequently how well pupils are progressing in Nursery, is currently not precise and accurate enough. As a result, the early years leader does not fully understand the many strengths and few weaknesses well enough. The proportion of children assessed as reaching a good level of development in the last few years has helped lead to a false sense of security. The school evaluates early years provision too highly.
• Children are well safeguarded in Nursery and Reception. They are cared for appropriately and kindly, feel secure, and proper arrangements are made by staff to ensure their physical safety.
• Staff provide well for the specific needs of children who speak English as an additional language. Helpful, sensitive and well-focused support was observed for children in this group and as a result they made good progress.
• Early years staff have constructive relationships with parents. Many parents commented to inspectors that their children have settled well in the early years and feel safe and happy.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 107904 Leeds 10032018 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 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 555 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Amy Russell Mark Trudgill 0113 293 0392 www.gledhow.leeds.sch.uk info@gledhowschool.org Date of previous inspection May 2009

Information about this school

• Gledhow Primary is much larger than the average primary school. The school was last inspected in 2009 and the current headteacher was appointed in September 2016. The deputy headteacher was appointed in April. There are many recently appointed governors, leaders and other staff in this rapidly growing school. In addition, there have been further challenges facing the school including major building work.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils in the school is lower than the national average. Approximately 40% of pupils are from minority ethnic groups and for around 13% of pupils English is believed not to be their first language.
• The proportion of pupils with an education, health and care plan or a statement of special educational needs is a little above average. The proportion of pupils receiving special educational needs support is broadly average. The school currently hosts a local authority speech and language unit. There are currently five pupils attending.
• The school does not meet requirements on the publication of information about special educational needs on its website.

Information about this inspection

• This inspection began as a section 8 short inspection. The lead inspector deemed the short inspection a full section 5 inspection at the end of the first day.
• Inspectors observed pupils’ learning and behaviour in all year groups present in school and in all classes, including those of children in the early years. Pupils in Year 4 were on a residential visit at the time of the inspection. Inspectors talked to the pupils about their learning, progress and behaviour during these observations.
• The views of pupils were also considered from a meeting with representatives from Years 1 to 6 and informal conversations throughout the inspection. Inspectors carried out an extensive scrutiny of pupils’ books to inform their judgements about pupils’ progress, attainment and attitudes to learning. Inspectors also heard children read.
• Pupils’ behaviour was observed around the school, including at breaktimes and lunchtime. An inspector also visited the breakfast club.
• Discussions took place with the headteacher, deputy headteacher, other school leaders, teachers and four governors, including the chair of the governing body. A meeting was held with the school improvement adviser, who represented the local authority.
• Inspectors considered the 177 responses from the Ofsted questionnaire, Parent View, and an inspector held informal meetings with parents at the beginning of the school day. The lead inspector took account of emails received directly from parents.
• School documents were analysed, including the self-evaluation form, the school improvement plan and various school reviews and action plans, the checks made on staff’s suitability to work with children, governing body meeting minutes and reports, and information about pupils’ achievement, behaviour and attendance.

Inspection team

Steve Bywater, lead inspector Janet Keefe Lynn Kenworthy Linda Griffiths Stephen Rigby Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector