Wisewood Community Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve leadership and management, by:
  • continuing to develop leaders at all levels, ensuring that the checks they make result in improvements to the delivery of the curriculum and the quality of teaching, learning and assessment
  • sharpening improvement plans to help leaders and executive board members to focus on fewer priorities more effectively.
• Increase the rates of progress of key groups of pupils, including the disadvantaged, in a wide range of subjects, by:
  • increasing teachers’ understanding, and raising their expectations, of what pupils ought to be able to do by different ages and stages in their schooling, in a wide range of subjects
  • making sure that teachers take more account of what the most able pupils already know, understand and can do, so these pupils are more challenged and reach higher standards
  • ensuring that all teachers more consistently support pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities effectively in the classroom, to more effectively build on the work done with these pupils in individual and group sessions
  • implementing plans to improve the teaching of phonics and checking regularly to make sure that the very large majority of Year 1 pupils, at least, are on track to reach the expected standard in phonics.
• Improve provision in the early years by:
  • ensuring that teachers make better use of resources to challenge children in all areas of provision
  • ensuring that adults are more observant of the quality of children’s independent play and exploration, and intervene effectively to ensure that activities make greater demands on children
  • providing more and better-quality opportunities for children to apply their developing reading, writing and mathematics knowledge, understanding and skills
  • more effectively involving parents in children’s assessment and learning.
• Improving pupils’ knowledge and understanding of a range of cultures, faiths and gender diversity so they are better prepared for life in modern Britain.
• Reducing the number of pupils, especially the disadvantaged, who are persistently absent. An external review of the use of the pupil premium should be undertaken to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

• Since the school became an academy, leaders have not managed to improve the quality of teaching and pupils’ outcomes quickly enough. Over the last few years, instability in staffing has compounded difficulties. In addition, until more recently, the challenging behaviour of a small number of pupils absorbed too much of senior leaders’ time and energy.
• Leaders’ improvement plans are too unwieldy, identifying more priorities than leaders can effectively manage. Furthermore, the plans do not identify sharply enough the difference that actions should make to pupils’ learning and progress. This weakens the effectiveness of leaders’ work.
• Senior and middle leaders carry out regular checks on the quality of teaching and pupils’ learning. They identify what needs to improve. However, these checks have not resulted in sufficient improvement because teachers have not often enough acted on advice. Similarly, the training that leaders have arranged for teachers has had limited impact on the quality of teaching and learning.
• Some improvements over the last year have begun to raise pupils’ attainment in reading, writing and mathematics. However, inspectors’ scrutiny of pupils’ workbooks revealed inconsistent progress in these subjects and others across the age range.
• The actions some leaders have taken have begun to make a greater difference, but improvements are not yet sufficiently embedded. The newly appointed leader of English has identified the right priorities. She has acted to help teachers in some classes to get pupils writing more accurately. Other teachers have not made the best use of this initiative. The leader of mathematics has helped teachers to develop pupils’ reasoning skills better. Some aspects of the teaching of mathematics, such as calculations, are less consistently well developed.
• Leaders have been slow to act on the decline in pupils’ early reading outcomes. The Year 2 teacher has helped some pupils to catch up, so the large majority meet the expected standard in reading by the end of key stage 1. However, too many pupils, over time, have entered key stage 2 without a good foundation in reading. They continue to struggle in lower key stage 2 to work out words they do not know.
• Leaders have produced a curriculum plan that should help pupils to develop knowledge, understanding and skills progressively in each curriculum subject. However, few teachers follow this plan. As a result, some subjects, such as geography, science and religious education (RE), are not taught often enough, or well enough, to help pupils to progress. Some teachers have low expectations of what pupils should be able to achieve in a range of subjects. They too often give the least and most able pupils the same activities to do, largely at the same pace. Leaders’ checks have not addressed these weaknesses.
• Despite weaknesses in the curriculum delivery, leaders ensure that pupils have stimulating, and sometimes exciting, activities and opportunities that broaden pupils’ horizons. For example, pupils have participated in a walk in the woods, a visit to a farm, a fire service visit, ice skating, theatre and orchestral concert visits and a visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. In addition, pupils have many opportunities to take part in school and inter-school sporting events.
• The experienced and knowledgeable SENCo ensures that pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities, including those who are eligible for additional funding, are properly assessed. She makes sure that precise targets are set and checks that pupils meet their targets. Pupils receive some effective teaching in small groups and in one-to-one interventions. However, the extent to which teachers help these pupils to make progress in daily whole-class lessons is too variable, hampering their progress.
• Leaders have taken effective action to improve behaviour, ensuring adults’ more consistent application of the behaviour policy.
• The Tapton School Academy Trust (TSAT) understands the school’s strengths and weaknesses. The trust makes no excuses for underperformance. Trust leaders have drawn on strengths in the few good primary schools in the trust to support and challenge leaders. For example, a review of behaviour has helped leaders to tighten up discipline procedures; support in the early years has begun to bring about improvement. Trust leaders regularly check progress. However, this work has not resulted in leaders securing consistently strong teaching.

Governance of the school

• TSAT removed the local governing board and set up an interim executive board (IEB) about a year and a half ago. This was in recognition of the slow rate of improvement and governors’ lack of effectiveness.
• IEB members have the expertise, knowledge and experience to help them challenge and support the school’s leaders. They request the right information and know how to interrogate this information. Therefore, they understand where the strengths and weaknesses are in the school. Nevertheless, the IEB has not managed to bring about sufficient improvement to secure good teaching and consistently strong pupils’ progress.
• The IEB ensures that all statutory policies are regularly reviewed and that safeguarding arrangements are effective. Along with members of the trust, they keep a close eye on finances.

Safeguarding

• Safeguarding is effective. The designated safeguarding leaders ensure that staff are well trained and vigilant. As a result, adults report their concerns, big and small. They know the signs to look for that a pupil may be at risk of harm. Leaders keep a detailed record of all concerns and the actions taken. They are persistent in pursuing help from local authority services for the most vulnerable pupils.
• The proper, legally required checks are made on adults when recruiting. The record of these checks is in order.
• Leaders are alert to potential risks to pupils. For example, correct procedures are followed for pupils who go missing. The building and grounds are secure from intruders.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• The quality of teaching across the school, in a wide range of subjects, is too variable to secure consistently strong progress. Teaching is improving, but not quickly enough.
• Too many teachers do not make effective use of the information they have about what pupils already know, understand and can do. This often results in pupils, especially the most able, completing work that is too easy for them. Work is occasionally too hard for the pupils of lower ability and those who have SEN and/or disabilities.
• Teachers’ expectations of what pupils of different abilities ought to be able to do in different subjects are, too often, too low. Teachers set tasks that are too simple and that do not help pupils to think deeply. Furthermore, pupils then do not get to practise or apply the knowledge they have acquired.
• A few teachers check pupils’ work carefully throughout lessons and make sure that the teaching assistants do this too. Where this happens, the adults generally intervene well to help pupils overcome misconceptions. However, too many teachers do not check carefully enough. As a result, they do not notice when work is too easy or where pupils have made mistakes that need correcting.
• In mathematics lessons, teachers have become more adept at posing questions that develop pupils’ mathematical reasoning skills. Inspectors observed, in other subjects, teachers asking questions which help pupils to think carefully. However, the work in pupils’ ‘discovery’ workbooks, especially in Year 4 to Year 6, shows that teachers do not deepen pupils’ thinking, nearly enough, in subjects such as geography, history, science and RE.
• The teaching of writing across the year groups varies in its effectiveness. In Years 2 and 3, teachers demonstrate higher expectations of pupils’ writing. In other year groups, pupils get to practise writing skills, but are not helped to use these skills well when they complete longer pieces of writing independently. On too many occasions, pupils’ incorrect spellings are unchallenged. Generally, across the school, standards in spelling are lower than they ought to be.
• The group teaching of phonics in Year 1, over time, has not helped enough pupils to reach the expected standards in early reading. Too many pupils in lower key stage 2, who did not reach the required standard in phonics by the end of key stage 1, are not making enough progress to catch up quickly. Teachers are not teaching them well enough to improve their phonic knowledge and skills. Furthermore, reading practice routines are not well established for these pupils.
• The positive relationships between adults and pupils, and the pace of activities, helps most pupils to concentrate well in lessons. Occasionally, pupils in older classes, mainly boys, lose concentration and do not work hard enough. This is evident in work in a few pupils’ books which is, too often, unfinished and which goes unchallenged by teachers.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Positive relationships with adults, and clear routines, help most pupils to work hard. They work well in pairs and groups, following well-established learning routines. Pupils form positive friendships.
• Pupils are satisfied that bullying is dealt with effectively. A small, but significant, minority of parents and carers disagree. However, inspectors are satisfied that bullying is not the problem it was in the past; leaders have addressed this issue.
• Pupils are knowledgeable about how to stay safe online. They learn about other aspects of how to stay safe, such as how to stay safe near roads and about fire safety. Pupils learn about the dangers of alcohol and substance misuse.
• The ‘tribal council’ system gives pupils a voice. Pupils share their views about what would further improve the school. Adults listen and act.
• Most pupils are respectful of each other’s views. They show open-minded attitudes to differences in how people live. However, pupils’ knowledge and understanding of diversity is limited. The curriculum does not include enough opportunities for pupils to learn, in depth, about faiths, cultures and gender diversity represented in modern Britain.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good. The vast majority of pupils currently in the school are well behaved and exhibit good manners. They follow well-established routines without having to be regularly reminded of the rules.
• Lessons are calm and orderly, as are playtimes and lunchtimes. Lunch staff deal with conflict in a calm, fair and timely manner.
• Pupils report an improvement in behaviour over the last year. They say that the poor behaviour of a small number of older pupils has been addressed. Leaders redoubled their efforts earlier this year. They have ensured a more consistent application of the behaviour policy. This resulted in a rise in fixed-term exclusions in the first part of the year, which has since dropped sharply as pupils have adjusted to the raised expectations.
• Suitable policies and procedures are in place to tackle pupils’ absence. Leaders have had success improving the attendance of a few individuals. Despite these efforts, the attendance rate remains below average. Rates of persistent absence have improved slightly. Pupils who are known to be eligible for free school meals are over-represented in the persistent absence figures.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• In 2017, Year 6 pupils made broadly average progress in reading, writing and mathematics from their generally low starting points, when they left Year 2. This progress was not sufficient to help the majority of pupils to reach the expected standards in all three subjects combined. As a result, too few of the pupils, especially the disadvantaged, were well enough prepared for secondary school.
• Pupils have started to make stronger progress in key stage 2. However, the inconsistency in the quality of teaching, over time, means too many pupils have had a lot of ground to make up. Pupils’ workbooks show that the learning of too many pupils is not secure in a range of subjects; they are not catching up quickly enough.
• Standards by the end of Year 2, in 2017, were a little above average, mainly due to the more rapid progress they have made in Year 2. From below-average standards at the end of the early years, with limited progress in Year 1, the majority of pupils who had fallen behind, including those who are disadvantaged, managed to catch up. This was the case, again, in 2018, although not quite as many pupils reached the expected standard as in 2017.
• Very few pupils, in recent years, by the time they left the school, have reached a high standard. Leaders are identifying those who ought to be able to achieve higher standards. School information suggests that more key stage 2 pupils are beginning to work at greater depth. However, inspectors were unconvinced of the accuracy of this information, following a scrutiny of a selection of the most able pupils’ workbooks. Too many teachers are not demanding enough of these pupils.
• The SENCo checks that pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities make progress against the small-step goals set for them. Interventions outside the classroom help pupils to overcome some of their learning challenges. However, the extent to which teachers successfully help these pupils to make sufficient progress in whole-class lessons varies.

Early years provision Requires improvement

• The quality of teaching in Reception does not help enough children to make the progress that they should. Too many children have not been well prepared for Year 1. From largely below-average starting points, when they enter the school, too many children do not catch up quickly.
• The trust has supported and challenged the early years leader, resulting in some recent improvements. Despite this, considerable weaknesses remain because leaders have not managed to implement the advice successfully.
• There are too few opportunities for children to practise, and learn to apply, mathematics, reading and writing knowledge and skills as they play and explore. The activities and resources do not challenge children enough. As a result, although they generally enjoy playing together, cooperating, choosing and making decisions, this, too often, does not result in effective learning.
• Adults do not check children’s learning, during activities, carefully enough. They do not notice when children are not productively occupied or are underchallenged. Consequently, they do not intervene to make greater demands on the children.
• Leaders do not have a fully accurate view of children’s abilities on entry to Reception. Adults’ assessments of learning, though detailed, do not help to inform what children need to learn next. Neither do these assessments help staff to respond to children’s interests. Leaders have only begun to have some moderate success involving parents in the assessment of their children.
• Children follow instructions and cooperate with adults and with each other. However, when children, particularly boys, are less well occupied, this can occasionally lead to some rough and inappropriate play. Nevertheless, the early years welfare requirements are met.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 142074 Sheffield 10048373 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 Community 4 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 177 Appropriate authority Interim executive board Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Jayne Crawshaw Liz Heaphy 01142 343304 www.wisewoodprimary.co.uk headteacher@wisewood-pri.sheffield.sch.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• Wisewood Community Primary School is an academy sponsored by the Tapton School Academy Trust. There are three secondary schools and four other primary schools in the trust. The school converted to academy status following the last inspection.
• The trust disbanded the local academy committee of governors a year and a half ago and formed an interim executive board (IEB). The IEB answers to the trust’s strategic board.
• The school is a smaller than average-sized primary school. Most pupils are of White British heritage. Very few speak English as an additional language.
• The proportion of pupils eligible for support through the pupil premium is above the national average. The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is above the national average.
• The school exceeds the government’s current floor standards, which are the minimum standards of achievement set by the Department for Education.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed parts of lessons at least once in all classes. Most observations took place either with the headteacher, the executive headteacher or the assistant headteacher. Inspectors and leaders, together, scrutinised a sample of pupils’ workbooks.
• Inspectors met with senior and middle leaders to discuss the impact of their actions since the school converted to academy status. Inspectors involved the primary executive headteacher of TSAT in meetings. The lead inspector held a discussion with members of the IEB.
• Inspectors held discussions with pupils, both formally and informally, to find out what it is like to be a pupil in the school.
• Inspectors listened to parents at the beginning of the school day. The responses of 33 parents to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View were considered, along with 22 written responses.
• Inspectors considered the responses of 16 members of staff to the Ofsted staff survey.
• Documents were scrutinised, including school improvement plans and leaders’ notes of the checks they make on the quality of teaching. Inspectors also examined notes from external reviews of the school and minutes of meetings of the IEB.
• Safeguarding documents were scrutinised, including the school’s record of the recruitment checks made on adults.

Inspection team

Philip Riozzi, lead inspector Eleanore Pickard Lynne Selkirk Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector