Brayton Church of England Voluntary Controlled 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 effectiveness of leadership and governance so that:
  • the quality of teaching is checked thoroughly, and teachers understand how to make the necessary improvements to their practice
  • staff are provided with high-quality training which is focused on the most important priorities for improvement
  • governors understand all of their responsibilities, including how well pupils are achieving, and they hold school leaders to account effectively
  • leaders at all levels, including governors, are able to support the headteacher in bringing about significant and rapid improvement
  • the curriculum is improved, and pupils develop a firm grasp of basic reading, writing and mathematical skills
  • self-evaluation is clear about the strengths and weaknesses of the school and the most pressing areas requiring improvement are identified swiftly
  • subject leaders have a clear understanding of the quality of teaching and assessment across the school through a rigorous monitoring process
  • additional funding for disadvantaged pupils and pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) is used to support any pupil who is at risk of falling behind.
• Rapidly improve the quality of teaching so that pupils, including the most able, disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND, achieve well by ensuring that:
  • teachers assess pupils’ learning accurately and set work which challenges them to make swift progress
  • teaching assistants provide effective support so that those pupils who may be falling behind catch up quickly
  • pupils develop accurate number and letter formation from the very beginning of school, to ensure that their writing and number skills improve
  • there is a consistent approach to the teaching of phonics so that pupils can decode words accurately and read with confidence and fluency
  • the books that pupils are given to practise their reading match the letters and sounds they know or are currently learning
  • teachers adapt their teaching, when necessary, to help pupils make strong progress across a wide range of subjects
  • pupils with SEND are given work which meets their specific needs.
• Improve pupils’ behaviour by:
  • ensuring that disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND attend school regularly
  • improving the conduct of pupils with SEND so that there are fewer fixed-term exclusions
  • providing activities which challenge, interest and engage pupils so that incidents of low-level disruption are rare. 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

• Considerable changes in leadership have been a barrier to improvement. Since the last inspection, senior leaders and governors have failed to tackle priorities for improvement, including weaknesses in teaching. The school’s overall effectiveness has declined so that pupils do not receive an adequate education.
• Leaders’ self-evaluation and improvement planning are inaccurate. The main priorities for improvement are not fully understood by leaders. Actions to bring about improvement have been too slow. The new headteacher understands the areas of the school which need to improve.
• Pupils, including the most able, disadvantaged pupils and those pupils with SEND, make too little progress. Leaders have not been successful in halting the decline in standards.
• Leaders have failed to identify the correct priorities to improve teaching and pupils’ progress. They do not check on the quality of teaching thoroughly. Teachers are not clear about the steps they need to take to improve their practice.
• Subject leaders do not have a clear understanding of the quality of teaching or the progress of pupils in their curriculum areas.
• Leaders have introduced a number of training initiatives to improve the quality of teaching. However, they have not been diligent in checking the impact of this training on pupils’ progress and the quality of teaching.
• Leaders and governors do not ensure that the funding to support disadvantaged pupils is used effectively. Although leaders do identify the barriers to learning faced by disadvantaged pupils, they do not evaluate the effect of the funding on pupils’ outcomes. Disadvantaged pupils make less progress in reading compared to their peers.
• The newly appointed headteacher has quickly identified that the provision for pupils with SEND requires rapid improvement. An external SEN coordinator (SENCo) has been brokered to ensure that pupils with SEND receive appropriate support to meet their needs. However, poor teaching limits the effectiveness of this support. Pupils currently in the school have made too little progress from their starting points.
• The new headteacher has been successful in raising staff morale. The majority of staff say they feel well supported and enjoy working at the school.
• Leaders have created a caring environment where pupils say that they feel safe. Pupils’ spiritual, moral and social development is promoted through participation in events such as the leadership award in Year 5. However, spiritual, moral, social and cultural education is not promoted well throughout the day-to-day curriculum. Pupils do not develop a rich understanding of life in modern Britain.
• The curriculum does not build on pupils’ prior knowledge. It does not have sufficient breadth and balance. This hampers pupils’ progress across all areas of the curriculum.
• Since her appointment, the headteacher has worked to establish effective relationships with parents by, for example, providing more information for parents so that they can fully support their children’s learning. Many parents say that home-school communication has improved.
• The local authority has worked in partnership with the school to try to secure good leadership and effective support for governance. They have provided additional funding and advice to help improve the school. School reviews have been conducted to identify areas that need development and to monitor the performance of leaders. Both the local authority and an adviser from the diocese are aware of the difficulties that the school faces and have provided support. This work has not prevented the school’s decline.
• The school should not appoint newly qualified teachers.

Governance of the school

• Governance is weak. Despite governors’ hard work and their loyal support of the school, the decline in the school’s effectiveness since the last inspection demonstrates their lack of capacity to play a strategic role in improvement.
• Governors have not monitored how well school development priorities are addressed. They have not challenged leaders thoroughly to make sure that the school provides an effective education for pupils.
• Governors do not ensure that the school’s website meets statutory requirements, including evaluations of the impact of the pupil premium and the PE and sports premium spending.
• While governors are clear about how sports premium and pupil premium funding is spent, they do not know the effect that the expenditure has on pupils’ progress across the school.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Procedures for ensuring that pupils are safe are clear and understood by all.
• All checks on the suitability of staff to work with children are effective.
• The new headteacher has taken effective action to improve the security of the site. Pupils say that they feel safe. Parents and carers agree that pupils are safe at school.
• Leaders provide child protection training for staff to ensure that they are knowledgeable and up to date with the most recent guidance and legislation. Staff are vigilant and know what to do should they have any concerns about a pupil’s welfare.
• The headteacher works closely with parents, carers and external agencies to make sure that pupils’ needs are met.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

• Changes in the leadership of the school and long periods of staff absence have had a negative impact on the quality of teaching. Weak teaching over time has resulted in pupils making inadequate progress, including in reading, writing and mathematics. Overall, the quality of teaching is highly variable and fails to meet pupils’ needs.
• Most teachers do not take into account what pupils already know, understand and can do when planning learning activities. Work set for the most able pupils, in particular, is too easy. Pupils, including those who are disadvantaged or with SEND, do not make fast enough progress in their learning. Those pupils known to be falling behind their peers do not catch up quickly.
• Too often, teachers do not adapt their teaching to address pupils’ mistakes quickly. For example, pupils’ letter and number formation is not always accurate in key stage 1. When teachers do not pick this up, pupils continue incorrectly and do not quickly develop accurate number formation and appropriate handwriting skills. This often becomes a barrier to learning.
• Frequently, pupils are not engaged, motivated or challenged by the activities and tasks they are given. Some pupils, particularly boys and pupils with SEND, lose interest in their learning when activities are either too difficult or lack challenge. Low-level disruption is common place. Teachers do not deal quickly with instances of low-level disruption in lessons, and this hinders pupils’ learning.
• Teachers do not use one agreed approach to teach phonics. This results in a lack of consistency and prevents pupils from securing essential phonics knowledge quickly. Work in pupils’ books shows that pupils do not develop their spelling well. Pupils do not use their knowledge of letters and the sounds they represent as their main strategy to spell unfamiliar words.
• Pupils who have SEND have appropriate targets. However, teachers do not make sure that work is well-matched to pupil’s specific needs in order for them to make suitable progress.
• Support from teaching assistants has a limited effect on developing the quality of pupils’ writing. Praise is overly positive and does not contribute to pupils making stronger progress.
• Leaders have recently introduced new systems to assess pupils’ work more accurately. It is too early to see the impact of this work.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare requires improvement. Pupils do not develop consistently good attitudes to learning.
• Where pupils find their work too easy or too difficult, this results in off-task behaviour. Pupils do not consistently show pride and care in the presentation of work.
• Pupils are physically active at breaktimes. They have a good understanding of how to keep themselves healthy. Relationships are positive between staff and pupils.
• Pupils take part in an annual leadership award in Year 5. This gives them a sense of responsibility and contributes to their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Pupils also develop their leadership skills through, for example, becoming playtime leaders.
• Pupils feel safe and know who to speak to if they have any concerns.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.
• The recent actions of the headteacher have improved pupils’ behaviour. For example, pupils are clear about the new rewards and sanctions system. Consequently, there has been a reduction in the frequency and the severity of incidents of inappropriate behaviour in the last five weeks.
• Pupils conduct themselves sensibly as they move around the school. Most pupils are polite and courteous to visitors.
• Leaders now identify pupils who need additional support to improve their behaviour. Recently, in most cases, support given has been effective with no repeated incidents following intervention.
• Pupils’ attendance is below the national average and persistent absence is too high. The headteacher has raised the profile of pupils’ attendance and punctuality. This has led to some recent improvements. However, too many disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND are regularly absent from school.
• The proportion of fixed-term exclusions for disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND is well above the national average. These additional absences from school contribute further to the slower progress for these groups of pupils.

Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

• As a result of weak teaching and leadership over time, pupils make inadequate progress across the curriculum. Pupils are not well prepared for the next stage of their education at the end of key stage 1 and key stage 2.
• Current pupils do not make sufficient progress in their learning. Disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND, in particular, make weak progress compared to their peers with similar starting points.
• Overall, progress has been weak for all pupils leaving school at the end of Year 6. In 2016 and 2017, across key stage 2, progress in reading, writing and mathematics was significantly below average. Progress in writing and mathematics was below the national average for high prior attainers. In 2018, provisional data shows that this trend of poor outcomes has continued.
• In key stage 1, attainment in all subjects was well below average in 2017. Reading and writing attainment has been below average for at least two years for all pupils. Pupils’ work shows that teaching is not effective enough to bring about the rapid improvements needed to the quality of pupils’ work. Teachers do not have consistently high expectations of what pupils should achieve.
• In key stage 2, there are inconsistencies in pupils’ handwriting. Pupils’ weak understanding of phonics leaves many unable to spell using their phonics knowledge. Pupils’ workbooks show that pupils do not have an age-appropriate understanding of spelling rules. This means that pupils do not have the basic skills in spelling to ensure clarity in their writing.

• Over time, the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in the phonics screening check at the end of Year 1 has been broadly in line with the national average. However, some pupils with SEND are unable to decode accurately and, in key stage 2, are still unable to read fluently. Pupils are not given books to practise their reading that are matched closely enough to the sounds they know or are currently learning.
• Attainment is higher in mathematics than in reading and writing. However, a lower proportion of pupils achieve the higher standard in reading, writing and mathematics compared to the national average.

Early years provision Requires improvement

• The teaching of phonics is not well developed. Teachers miss valuable opportunities to model accurate letter formation and simple spellings when working with children. Children’s errors are not routinely picked up or addressed quickly by staff. This results in children practising their early writing incorrectly. This limits children’s progress.
• Children’s reading books are not accurately matched to their developing phonics knowledge. This prevents them from reading with accuracy. Children do not develop confidence and fluency in their reading.
• With the exception of phonics, teachers use assessment information effectively to provide activities to support children’s next steps in learning. Activities, both indoors and outside, entice children to explore and investigate. Teachers devise activities linked to children’s interests.
• The early years leader, on taking up her post in September 2016, identified the outdoor area as an area for improvement. This is now a strength of the setting. Nursery- and Reception-aged children sustain their concentration and interest in a wide range of tasks, such as hunting for minibeasts or exploring the vegetables for sale in the farm shop. Staff interactions successfully develop children’s social and emotional skills. For example, staff encourage children to ask questions and make observations about what they see. This supports their language development.
• The proportion of children reaching a good level of development by the end of Reception has improved and was just above the national average in 2017. As a result of the early years leader’s actions, an increasing proportion of boys reached a good level of development in 2018. Additionally, a higher proportion of children than seen previously exceeded the early learning goals in reading, writing and number by the end of Reception.
• There is a settled and calm atmosphere in early years. Children appear happy. As a result of high expectations set by staff in the early years, children behave well and are kind to each other.
• Staff place high importance on keeping children safe. They ensure that welfare requirements are met.
• Parents feel that children are well supported through an effective transition process, which has enabled them to make a settled start to school. They are pleased with the progress they can already see their children making.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 121554 North Yorkshire 10054913 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 Voluntary controlled 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 366 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Claire Callaghan Rachel Robinson 01757 704 308 www.brayton-primary.co.uk admin@brayton-pri.n-yorks.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 1 October 2014

Information about this school

• The school is a larger-than-average primary school. There have been significant changes in staffing since the last inspection. The new headteacher took up her post in September 2018. There is a new leadership structure. The acting assistant headteacher and key stage 1 leader are new to their roles. There is a temporary SENCo.
• The number of disadvantaged pupils is below the national average.
• The proportion of pupils with SEND is above the national average. A small number of these pupils have an education, health and care plan.
• The very large majority of pupils are of White British heritage.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors visited a number of lessons across all year groups. A number of observations were conducted jointly with senior leaders.
• Inspectors held discussions with the headteacher. They talked with subject leaders of English, mathematics and the early years. Inspectors also met with staff responsible for pupils’ attendance.
• The lead inspector held a meeting with the chair of the governing body and one other governor. The lead inspector also met with the local authority school improvement adviser and an adviser from the Diocese of York.
• Inspectors talked to pupils informally during breaktime and lunchtimes. Inspectors also met formally with pupils.
• Inspectors talked to parents collecting their children at the end of the school day.
• Inspectors scrutinised a wide range of documentation, including governing body meeting minutes, local authority records of visits, documents relating to safeguarding, including recruitment checks on staff, records of behaviour, bullying and attendance.
• Leaders’ plans for improvement and analysis of current pupils’ attainment and progress were evaluated.
• Inspectors looked at a wide range of pupils’ work.
• Inspectors observed pupils’ behaviour in lessons, during breaktimes and at lunchtimes.
• Inspectors listened to pupils read and held discussions with groups of pupils. Inspectors took account of the 77 responses on Parent View and the 78 free-text responses. They also analysed the 32 responses to the staff survey.

Inspection team

Kathryn McDonald, lead inspector Lynda Florence Kirsty Godfrey

Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector