Stanley St Peters Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management by:
  • developing the role of middle leaders so that they contribute more widely in improving the outcomes of the subjects they lead
  • continuing to engage positively with parents who are less than satisfied with the school.
• Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, by ensuring that:
  • teaching is consistently good or better in all year groups
  • work set is sufficiently challenging to enable more pupils, especially middle-ability pupils, to achieve higher standards in writing and mathematics.
  • planned support helps pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities and those who are disadvantaged, to make good progress
  • pupils are given further opportunities to apply their mathematical skills to everyday problems.
• Improve provision and leadership in the early years so that:
  • assessment is used more incisively to ensure that more children make better than expected progress
  • children are appropriately challenged in activities.
• Develop partnerships with parents to improve pupils’ attendance.
• Improve pupils’ behaviour in lessons and breaktimes by ensuring that the school behaviour policy is consistently applied in all classes and by all members of staff.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

• Since her appointment in April 2016, the headteacher, senior leaders and governors have worked tirelessly to get an accurate view of the school and take steps to improve teaching and pupils’ outcomes. Actions taken by the school have started to demonstrate a visible effect on improving teaching and learning. However, the high turnover in staffing has meant that leaders have not been able to sustain consistent improvements. As a result, this has limited the impact of leaders’ actions.
• Leaders are aware that further work is needed to improve the quality of teaching across the school, particularly in writing and mathematics. Recent training and changes made to improve the quality of teaching and pupils’ outcomes are not yet firmly embedded.
• Subject leaders are at an early stage of their development in improving standards. Although they are determined to improve outcomes for pupils, they have not had enough time to impact positively on eradicating inconsistencies in teaching.
• Senior leaders’ use of the additional funding to support pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is mixed. There are some positive examples of effective support for pupils. Parents who spoke with an inspector appreciate the sensitive and effective support that their children receive. However, not all support is effective. As a result, the progress for several pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is not consistently good or helping many to catch up.
• Senior leaders’ have developed focused plans to spend the additional funding for disadvantaged pupils. As a result, actions positively concentrate on what is required to improve progress for this group of pupils. However, while there are some promising signs of improvement, the impact of the actions taken are too early to measure.
• The school’s work with parents is mixed. A significant number of parents who responded to Ofsted’s online parent survey, Parent View, expressed concerns about the constant upheaval in staffing and weaknesses in communication, even though leaders have taken some positive steps to work with parents. Leaders recognise that more work is needed to positively engage with parents to bring more of them on board.
• The school’s curriculum is broad and balanced. Pupils’ opportunities are being broadened by the use of outdoor learning. Pupils have worked cooperatively to transform an unused area of the school grounds into a wild outdoor classroom. This is helping to support pupils’ scientific knowledge and develop a caring attitude for wildlife. Pupils get ample opportunities to create well-crafted drawings, which are carefully displayed around the school.
• Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is fostered well. Through regular assemblies and encouraging pupils’ understanding of the school’s values, pupils learn about values such as respect and compassion. For example, a thought-provoking assembly helped pupils to develop compassion and respect for older people. Pupils also have a good knowledge of and show mutual respect for different faith groups. This prepares pupils well for life in modern Britain.
• Leaders make effective use of the physical education and sport premium funding. This has helped to provide bespoke support for teachers to improve their teaching of topics such as gymnastics. In addition, pupils enjoy the range of opportunities available to participate in a wide choice of sports during and after school.
• Systems to manage staff performance are being sharpened. As a result, recent targets are challenging and helping to identify ways to support teachers to improve their teaching.
• The responses to Ofsted’s staff questionnaire indicate that teachers are proud to work at the school and hold their leaders in high regard.
• Leaders have welcomed support and challenge from the local authority. The local authority accurately identified that the school required extra support and has had positive effect in helping to ensure that the school’s use of assessment is becoming increasingly accurate.

Governance of the school

• Governors are passionate about and share leaders’ ambitions for the school’s continual improvement. They have a clear view of the main issues facing the school. Governors have taken effective steps to ensure that the school is working towards developing high-quality leadership, secure more effective teaching and improve standards. They recognise the green shoots of improvement across the school.
• Governors take their roles seriously. Many governors have gained valuable skills from attending training. The headteacher provides a wealth of accurate information. As a result, governors have started to use this effectively to reduce variations in teaching and pupils’ progress across the school.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. Leaders have developed a strong culture of safeguarding among the school community.
• Procedures for the recruitment and vetting of staff are effective. Leaders ensure that staff are suitable to work with children.
• Leaders have ensured that staff access regular safeguarding training. As a result, staff are very vigilant and report concerns so that action can be taken when needed.
• Pupils have ample opportunities to learn how to be safe. For example, younger pupils have a good understanding about topics such as stranger danger. Pupils are confident that an adult is available in school should any concerns arise.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• The quality of teaching, learning and assessment requires improvement because not enough teaching has been good enough over time to ensure that pupils make good progress. The constant upheaval and turnover in staffing has led to pupils’ inconsistent rates of progress.
• Senior leaders have an accurate view of teaching across the school and can pinpoint where improvement is needed. Leaders have identified the support for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities and those who are disadvantaged are not making good progress from their starting points. Inspection evidence supports this view.
• Staffing since September 2017 has begun to stabilise. As a result, the school’s thorough and detailed checks on teaching show that improvements are being made. The quality of teaching, while showing signs of improvement, is not consistently good. Leaders agree that there is a lack of consistency in quality between year groups and subjects.
• Teachers’ expectations in some lessons are not high enough and do not match the needs of pupils accurately. As a result, too many pupils are not challenged sufficiently and make the progress that they are capable of. When teachers’ expectations are low, some pupils, especially middle-ability pupils, lose focus and this impedes the progress they make.
• Mathematics has been a focus in the school. Teachers ensure that pupils are secure in their calculation skills. However, some work is repetitive and this limits pupils’ progress. Until very recently, only the most able pupils have had the opportunity to apply their mathematical skills to develop their ideas and solve everyday problems.
• Expectations for the standards of writing across the school are not consistently high. As a result, pupils’ careless errors in punctuation and spellings are sometimes overlooked, particularly for middle-ability pupils. The school is taking steps to ensure that quality writing is encouraged and celebrated but this is at an early stage of development.
• The school widely encourages the importance of regular reading. As a result, this has helped instil a love of reading in pupils. The new library has been effective in stimulating an interest in a wide range of reading books. Although younger pupils are developing effective strategies to read unfamiliar words, the teaching of phonics is not of a consistently high standard and impacts on the overall quality of pupils’ writing.
• Most teaching assistants provide effective support for pupils, particularly lower-ability pupils. Timely support helps this group of pupils to achieve success in some lessons.
• Homework is set regularly and in line with the school policy to support reading, spellings and mathematics. Most pupils enjoy the challenge of continuing learning at home. Older pupils enjoyed, for example, the challenge of making a gas mask when learning about the Second World War.

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 have ample opportunities to develop responsibility in a number of roles across the school. The wide variety of roles as part of the children’s leadership team ensures that pupils have an active role in school. For example, older pupils enjoy the challenge when acting as play leaders organising games for younger pupils.Pupils understand the different forms of bullying and say that instances of bullying are rare. Pupils are confident that any instances of bullying would be dealt with swiftly by an adult in the school.
• Pupils are well taught about how to keep themselves online. They understand the needs to keep personal details safe and the danger of disclosing information to strangers. Pupils gain a good understanding of what it means to lead a healthy lifestyle. Pupils can talk confidently of the need for a balanced diet and the harmful effects of eating too much sugar. Pupils can talk confidently about the need for regular exercise and enjoy the wide range of sports on offer. 

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils requires improvement.
• In the main, pupils’ attitudes to learning are mostly positive and they enjoy coming to school. However, pupils in some classes become disengaged when teaching does not challenge and meet their needs.
• Not all staff have high expectations for behaviour. Some staff do not consistently follow the school’s policy and strategies to encourage good behaviour. As a result, there are inconsistencies in how some staff address instances of low-level disruption in lessons.
• Pupils generally behave well around the school. For example, where adults supervise and direct, pupils walk calmly and sensibly around school. In addition, older pupils conduct themselves well during assemblies.
• However, some pupils find it harder to manage and maintain their behaviour during independent times. For example, some pupils act in a boisterous manner during breaktimes and do not keep to the school’s agreed approach for behaviour.
• Despite leaders’ best efforts, pupils’ attendance is below the national average and not improving rapidly enough. The bulk of absence is due to illnesses and families taking holidays during term time. Leaders’ work to improve attendance is starting to have some impact but this requires further improvement. The headteacher has taken steps to engage parents in developing a shared culture for promoting good attendance. She is well aware of the adverse impact on pupils’ progress when they are not attending school.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• Pupils do not make consistently good progress from their individual starting points across the school. This reflects in the variances in the quality of teaching and the impact of high staff turnover.
• Outcomes in mathematics and writing require improvement. Too few pupils, particularly middle ability and disadvantaged pupils, achieve the standards they are capable of. In 2017, at the end of key stage 2, pupils’ progress in mathematics was below average. Too few pupils achieved the higher standard. Leaders have taken steps to address this and ensure that pupils have more opportunities to apply their skills in solving more complex problems but it is too early to measure the impact.
• A legacy of weak teaching and previous inaccurate use of assessment have hindered the progress that pupils have made over time. As a result, pupils, especially in key stage 2, have had too much ground to make up from their lower starting points.
• The most able pupils achieved in line with other pupils nationally at the expected standard, at the end of key stage 2 in 2017, in reading and writing. Leaders acknowledge that further work is needed to ensure that this group of pupils reach the standards they are capable of.Unvalidated outcomes for 2017 at the end of key stage 1 show variability in outcomes and across subjects. Reading generally continued to show sustained success in ensuring that pupils achieve in line with the national average. The number of pupils achieving the expected standard in writing has been below average in 2016 and against the provisional figure in 2017. In mathematics, no pupils achieved the higher standard in 2017.
• In 2017, the proportion of Year 1 pupils who achieved the expected standard in the phonics screening check dipped below the national average. Results were adversely affected by the constant changes in staffing.
• Disadvantaged pupils’ progress in reading, writing and mathematics matched the averages found nationally at the end of key stage 2 in 2017. However, the number of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected and higher standards in writing and mathematics has been below other pupils nationally in 2016 and the provisional figures in 2017.Current progress information is becoming increasingly accurate. As a result, work in some pupils’ books shows improvement, but this is still too variable across the school.

Early years provision Requires improvement

• Children enter the early years with skills and abilities that are typical for their age. Over time, the progress they have made has not been good enough to prepare them fully for the demands of Year 1.
• The headteacher took on the leadership of the early years in 2016, having recognised the shortcomings, particularly in the accuracy of assessment and lack of teamwork between Nursery and Reception classes. The Nursery and Reception classes now work more closely together. This is helping to share mutual expectations among staff.
• A new leader for the early years was appointed in September 2017. She has been quick to develop a team ethos and introduce improved systems to ensure that assessment becomes more accurate. However, the changes are embryonic and there has not been enough time to fully iron out the inconsistencies in teaching and assessment.
• Following the disappointing outcomes in 2016, when fewer than half of children met the good level of development, the number of children meeting this increased to 64% in 2017. While this shows a marked improvement, over time, children’s progress from their starting points has not been consistently good.
• The small numbers of disadvantaged children and children with SEN and/or disabilities are making accelerated progress, but inspection evidence shows that this is not good.
• Current teaching across the early years is improving but there is some inconsistency in the quality of activities that children take part in when working without an adult. While the activities are engaging, they sometimes lack purpose. During these times, adults miss opportunities to extend children’s learning through modelling the learning to be made and questioning effectively.
• Children are happy and safe. Adults’ expectations for children’s behaviour ensure that they behave and concentrate well in all they do. For example, children enjoyed working alongside each other and relished the challenge of counting penguins when learning outdoors.
• Parents said that they appreciate the work of the early years team in ensuring that their children settle well and make a happy start to school life.
• Welfare requirements are met. Staff are well trained in all aspects of keeping children safe in line with whole-school policies and current statutory guidance. As a result, they provide a caring environment, ensuring that children are safe and feel safe.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 108247 Wakefield 10031051 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 Voluntary controlled 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 384 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Mr Brian Pine Dr Sarah Trussler 01924663641 www.stanleystpeters.co.uk office@stanleystpeters.co.uk Date of previous inspection 21–22 November 2012

Information about this school

• Stanley St Peters is larger than the average-sized primary school. There are two classes in most year groups except for Years 3 and 4, which has three classes.
• The headteacher took up her post in April 2016.
• The vast majority of pupils are White British.
• The proportion of pupils supported by the pupil premium is broadly similar to the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is above the national average.
• The proportion of pupils with an education, health and care plan is below that nationally.The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics.
• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed teaching and learning across the school. Several lessons were observed jointly with school leaders, including the headteacher and deputy headteachers.
• Inspectors scrutinised a wide range of documentation, including the school development plan, school self-evaluation, data relating to attainment and progress, governors’ minutes, records about behaviour, safeguarding and attendance.
• Meetings were held with the headteacher, deputy headteachers, staff, governors and a representative from the local authority.
• Inspectors scrutinised the quality of work in pupils’ books, much of which was done alongside middle and senior leaders.
• A group of Year 2 and Year 6 pupils shared their opinions about the school and their learning with an inspector.
• An inspector listened to pupils read.
• Inspectors observed pupils’ behaviour and conduct at breaks and lunchtimes.
• Inspectors took account of the 62 responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, in addition to the school’s own evaluation of responses to their parent questionnaire. Inspectors considered the 14 responses to Ofsted’s staff questionnaire and the 16 responses to Ofsted’s pupil questionnaire. An inspector met with parents at the beginning of the school day.

Inspection team

Brian Stillings, lead inspector Sara Roe Eve Morris Linda Collier

Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector