Leeming RAF Community Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the quality of teaching and learning by ensuring that:
  • pupils’ use of standard English in a range of subjects is comparable to that seen in pupils’ English books
  • pupils are challenged to think hard about their learning, particularly in subjects beyond English and mathematics
  • phonics teaching resources are used consistently to ensure that all pupils make speedy progress in acquiring their early reading skills, including in the early years.
• Improve leadership and management by ensuring that:
  • curriculum implementation is realised to enable more pupils to study in greater depth in a range of subjects.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• The headteacher is a consummate professional. His appointment followed a period of instability in senior leadership when pupils’ attainment declined to well below the national average. Since then, he has worked tirelessly to improve the quality of teaching and to improve pupils’ attainment and progress. He brings boundless energy to his role and his infectious enthusiasm has inspired and united the staff team. His commitment to learn from the best and to use research findings to improve practice has secured good overall effectiveness in a short space of time. He is very ably supported by a highly effective senior leadership team. Collectively, they have the requisite skills needed to ensure that the school continues to improve.
• Subject leaders are equally effective. They demonstrate excellent subject knowledge and great enthusiasm for their roles. They, too, use research findings and recommended good practice to inform their planning and are making a positive contribution to school improvement. Those in the earliest stages of leadership are mentored and supported, to develop their skills effectively and undertake their roles with confidence.
• Development plans are detailed documents that identify improvement priorities accurately. They are based upon secure evidence. This is because of the detailed checks that leaders complete to ensure that the quality of teaching and learning improves continuously. Measurable targets and milestones for success enable them to be easily evaluated.
• The special educational needs coordinator is skilled and knowledgeable. She ensures that provision is appropriate to pupils’ needs. She produces sharp plans that identify pupils’ targets precisely and the actions that are required for pupils to be successful. Strong and effective partnerships with external agencies and parents and carers ensure that pupils are suitably supported. As a result, pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) make at least good progress from their starting points, and for those pupils with an education health and care plan, their progress is excellent.
• The physical education (PE) subject leader ensures that the additional sports funding is used exceptionally well. He has worked expertly with coaches to upskill teachers and ensure sustainability. Close monitoring of pupils’ assessment information and their access to after-school clubs and to competitions ensures that he has an excellent grasp of where the school excels and how to supplement its offer further. He seeks to offer a range of different sports to encourage the most reticent of pupils, for example tri-golf, archery and table tennis to name but a few. Such is the effectiveness of the subject leader that despite exceptionally high levels of pupil mobility, 90% of pupils left the school in 2018 having achieved their 25m swimming award.
• Leaders articulate a strong and exciting intent for the curriculum that celebrates the uniqueness of their context. It focuses on equipping pupils with the attitudes and skills they need to manage the inevitable changes that they will face with great confidence. Study programmes are planned to give pupils a secure subject knowledge, while providing opportunities to develop pupils’ skills of leadership, organisation, communication, resilience and independence. A trial of this approach, for ‘RAF 100’ week, led to pupils undertaking team roles to design, make and trial engines that could taxi on a runway, for example. This led to high levels of pupil engagement and made pupils think hard about their learning. While these plans are hugely exciting, they remain in the very earliest stages of implementation and need to be fully realised.

Governance of the school

• In the past, a high level of turbulence with governance contributed to unsettled leadership, which coincided with a decline in pupils’ outcomes. This is no longer the case. The current chair of the governing body has galvanised governors’ efforts. He oversees a group of determined and skilled professionals, who are highly ambitious for the future of the school and who have great confidence in leaders.
• Collectively, they have reviewed their own practice to ensure that it is the best it can be and have received support from the local authority to do so. They have their own detailed action plan, which they work through diligently to ensure that all aspects of governance continue to improve.
• Governors undertake their financial responsibilities with due diligence. They ensure that all additional monies are targeted to those they are designed to support. Very detailed headteacher reports, and their own strong role in monitoring the work of the school, provide governors with an in-depth understanding of the impact of such spending. A review of the records of governing body meetings indicates the robust scrutiny and challenge afforded to leaders.
• Governors recognise that a high proportion of their members are drawn from service personnel who will continue to be subject to significant turbulence. To mitigate against this, governors have actively sought to recruit new members who are from the local community, or with less transient lifestyles. While they have had limited success with this, they have simultaneously developed detailed induction procedures for new governors to ensure that their drive for success is not diminished.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Detailed checks are completed on anyone wishing to work at the school to ensure that they are fit to do so. Checks for those members of staff who have lived for a period outside of the United Kingdom are particularly robust. Detailed risk assessments supplement such checks, should there be any delay in clearance.
• Staff training and briefings are completed, regularly, to ensure that staff are fully aware of the important role they play in keeping pupils safe. This supports the strong culture of safeguarding in the school.
• Highly effective pastoral care provides thoughtful induction for those pupils new to the school and emotional support for those pupils who are leaving. This enables high levels of vigilance in spotting and reporting any concerns. This view is endorsed by the views of parents who feel that staff go ‘above and beyond’ what is expected to support their children and their families.
• Relationships with other agencies are highly effective and referrals are swift to ensure that the most vulnerable pupils are supported and cared for. Record-keeping is detailed, and, until recently, was paper based. There is now an electronic system in place which is enabling leaders to complete more sophisticated analyses of pupils’ patterns of behaviour. However, some records are still in the process of transferring across and some associated actions are not fully linked.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Teachers have good subject knowledge in a wide range of subjects and are extremely perceptive about pupils’ needs. They have high expectations for pupils’ achievement and use questioning effectively to clarify pupils’ misconceptions and explore their ideas. As a result, the quality of teaching is good.
• Strong and positive relationships are the hallmark of this school. Despite the significant proportions of pupils ‘recently arrived’, classrooms are very settled, and pupils demonstrate positive attitudes to their learning.
• Leaders have secured assessment procedures that are fit for purpose. They have developed a useful tool that manages the transient nature of pupils thoughtfully and with high levels of sophistication. This enables teachers to quickly identify any gaps in pupils’ learning and then provide focused support and intervention. As a result, pupils achieve well and make good progress, however long or short a time they are in school.
• Leaders have recently introduced a new approach to the teaching of writing. It links to high-quality texts and is highly structured. Pupils now write at length, and in a range of styles, successfully. A review of pupils’ books indicates that they are making very good progress and developing their writing skills well. However, pupils’ use of standard English for writing in other subjects is not as consistent or of a similarly high standard.
• The teaching of mathematics follows a consistent approach across all year groups. Teachers have high expectations for pupils to present their work carefully and accurately. Because of several changes of school, pupils often demonstrate methodologies different to those within the calculations policy. Teachers embrace these and use them as teaching points to secure pupils’ mathematical fluency.
• A range of highly effective resources are available to support pupils’ mathematical understanding. Pupils receive increasing opportunities to reason and to solve problems. Consequently, pupils make good progress during their time at the school and pupils’ attainment in the national tests at the end of key stages 1 and 2 is now above the national average at the expected standard.
• The teaching of reading is also well structured. Pupils’ reading books, with which they practise their reading, are well matched to their phonic ability. This enables pupils to develop their reading fluency and confidence quickly. Older pupils express their enjoyment of reading and can express preference in their reading choices. This all leads to pupils’ good progress.
• Pupils receive a daily phonics session. Teachers encourage pupils to use their phonics skills outside of the discrete lesson well and this is leading to improving outcomes in the Year 1 phonics screening check. However, within the discrete phonics sessions, there is a lack of consistency in teachers’ use of resources. This prevent pupils making speedy progress in acquiring their phonics skills during these sessions.
• The teaching of PE is highly effective. Lessons are very well structured and build pupils’ knowledge and skills sequentially. Pupils can access a range of high energy sports in addition to building core strength and fitness. Explicit links between keeping fit and eating healthily are made to support pupils’ understanding. A detailed programme of competition and after-school clubs supplements the core PE offer.
• In subjects across the wider curriculum, teachers plan activities that engage pupils’ interests. However, activities planned for subjects such as history and geography are not sufficiently demanding of pupils to enable them to deepen their understanding and work at greater depth effectively.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Pastoral care is paramount to all. Thoughtful induction procedures are firmly established to support pupils and their families, particularly during times of transition or in periods of separation caused by parents’ deployment in other parts of the country or overseas. This contributes enormously to the very settled atmosphere in the school and the friendly and welcoming pupils.
• Pupils have a good understanding of how to keep themselves safe, including when using the internet. Those pupils who spoke to inspectors could articulate the measures needed to be taken and how to behave safely online. They also said that they feel safe in school, a view which is endorsed by parents.
• The highly effective PE curriculum instils in pupils the importance of staying fit and healthy. It makes a strong contribution to supporting pupils’ mental, physical and emotional well-being.
• Bullying incidents are rare. A review of reported incidents indicates that incidents are treated seriously and are resolved quickly and effectively by leaders. Pupils can explain the various forms of bullying and know what to do should they have a concern. They expressed great confidence that should an incident occur, there is a trusted adult in whom they can confide.
• Pupils’ spiritual, moral and social development is of a very high standard. New approaches, introduced to provide pupils with purposeful feedback on their work, are particularly effective in ensuring that pupils are reflective learners. As a result, pupils are keen to know how they can improve. However, shortcomings in the wider curriculum mean that pupils’ cultural development is less well developed.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Pupils across the school behave well. They are polite and well-mannered and their movement around the school is orderly and calm. Those pupils who demonstrate more challenging behaviours are managed sensitively and calmly. This ensures that the learning of others is not affected.
• Playtimes are lively occasions. There are lots of high-energy games and activities for pupils to access. Sports mentors organise games for younger pupils to join in. CHIPS (children helping in problem solving) are playground buddies who facilitate friendships and support those pupils who are recently arrived. Such is the level of importance attached to this role that pupils are proud to wear their badges. Those pupils who spoke with inspectors demonstrated great maturity in explaining the difficulties attached with losing and making new friends. They demonstrated much empathy in supporting the most reticent of pupils to become involved and to form friendships.
• Strong systems are in place to monitor pupils’ absence. Because of the high rates of pupils’ movement into, and out of, school, leaders are swift to implement ‘children missing in education’ procedures. As a result, all pupil absences are accounted for daily and pupils’ overall attendance rate is above the national average.
• The use of exclusion is rare and is used as a last resort. In the last school year, rates of fixed-term exclusion were slightly higher than in previous years.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• In 2016, pupils’ combined attainment at the end of key stage 2 fell disappointingly below the national average and pupils’ progress was well below average. Because of refined assessment procedures and focused support and intervention, pupils’ outcomes have improved steadily. In 2018, they were above the national average. Over the same period, pupils’ progress in reading, writing and mathematics also improved to be in line with the national average.
• Pupils’ outcomes at the end of key stage 1 are broadly in line with the national averages at the expected standard, and slightly above the national average at the higher standard in reading, writing and mathematics. These outcomes are sustained over time.
• During the last school year, over 70% of the pupil population was changed from that which started the year. Leaders focus their efforts to ensure that pupils secure strong basic skills. They use detailed assessment procedures to identify precisely any gaps in pupils’ knowledge. They then implement additional support and intervention to diminish any differences in pupils’ learning. This is paying dividends and current pupils’ progress in reading, writing and mathematics is improving strongly.
• Pupils with SEND make at least good progress, and for those with an education, health and care plan their progress is excellent. This is because additional funding is spent wisely to provide highly focused support that is carefully planned and matched to pupils’ needs. Such support is reviewed regularly to ensure that it remains effective.
• Almost all pupils receive additional service funding, but only a small proportion of pupils are in receipt of disadvantaged pupil premium funding. A detailed tracking system is used to check pupils’ progress meticulously from their starting points. Leaders are also mindful of pupils’ previous end-of-key-stage achievements, which are frequently gained from other settings. This enables leaders to ensure that any slowing of progress is quickly identified and rectified.
• Although pupils acquire knowledge and skills in a range of subjects, their depth of understanding is not sufficiently consistent with that seen in English and mathematics. This is because activities, while engaging, are not sufficiently challenging to enable pupils to work at a greater depth.

Early years provision Good

• The quality of teaching across both Reception classes is good. Teachers use questioning to extend and probe children’s thinking. They interact with children effectively, by initiating role-play opportunities that build on children’s interests.
• Children enter Reception class with skills broadly typical for their age and stage of development and make good progress from their starting points. By the time pupils leave Reception class, the proportion of children achieving a good level of development is slightly below the national average. However, this assessment information is rarely reflective of the same cohort of children who started the year.
• Adults set high expectations for children to be respectful of their environment and of each other. This leads to children who are happy in their setting and who interact with each other well. Consequently, children’s behaviour is good.
• Strong and positive relationships with parents are formed quickly by welcoming staff. This is supporting parents to become increasingly involved in their children’s learning. Parents of children with additional learning or medical needs appreciate the additional help and support their children are given and the good communication between home and school.
• Speech and language interventions are delivered well. Such ‘precision teaching’ is helping those children who access the support to catch up quickly in their learning and development.
• Children’s acquisition of early writing skills is good. When mark-making opportunities are available, children can write independently, with some children able to write simple words and sentences accurately. In free-choice activities, opportunities are not always available to consolidate these skills sufficiently.
• Adults encourage children to apply their early phonics skills to read and write words in all areas of learning. However, within the discrete phonics sessions, resources are not used consistently to ensure that children make speedy progress in acquiring their skills.
• The early years leader is knowledgeable about how young children learn and is being effectively supported and mentored into her role. However, she is in the very earliest stages of leadership and not yet fully responsible for driving improvement.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 121333 North Yorkshire 10057869 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 Maintained 4 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 212 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Mr James Stewart Mr Robert Campbell Telephone number 01677 422675 Website Email address www.leeming-raf.n-yorks.sch.uk admin@leeming-raf.n-yorks.sch.uk Date of previous inspection March 2008

Information about this school

• The school is smaller than the average-sized primary school.
• Most pupils are of White British heritage.
• As the overwhelming majority of children are from services personnel families, almost all pupils are in receipt of service pupil premium funding, which is a much higher proportion than the national average. The proportion of pupils in receipt of pupil premium funding is lower than the national average.
• Many more pupils than is the case nationally arrive at or leave the school at times other than those expected. In the last school year, this accounted for 75% of the school population. Only a very small minority of pupils attend the school for a whole key stage. The average length of stay for pupils is between 18 and 24 months.
• The proportion of pupils with SEND is above the national average, as is the proportion of pupils with an education, health and care plan.
• The school offers a wide range of before- and after-school clubs.
• The headteacher joined the school in April 2016.

Information about this inspection

• The inspection team visited lessons across a range of subjects from Reception to Year 6. All visits were conducted together with members of the senior leadership team.
• Inspectors held meetings with the headteacher, senior leaders, governors (including a ‘FaceTime’ internet call with the chair of the governing body) and the local authority representative. Inspectors looked at work in pupils’ books and spoke to pupils formally and informally about their learning and behaviour and heard them read.
• Inspectors looked at a range of documents provided by the school, including assessment information and their self-evaluation report. The school’s records relating to safeguarding were also checked.
• There were 57 responses to the Ofsted online survey, Parent View. The inspectors took account of these. Inspectors also spoke to several parents at the start of the school day, and to staff members.

Inspection team

Diane Buckle, lead inspector Tracey Ralph

Her Majesty’s Inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector