Setting

Aviation House 125 Kingsway London WC2B 6SE T 0300 123 1231 F 020 7421 6855 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Mrs J Sparks Headteacher St Andrew’s CofE Primary School and Nursery Tower Hill Much Hadham Hertfordshire SG10 6DL

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education in primary schools

Thank you for your hospitality and cooperation, and that of the staff and children, during my visit on 21 June 2011 to look at work in enterprise education.

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education in primary schools

The visit provided valuable information which will contribute to our national evaluation and reporting. Published reports are likely to list the names of the contributing institutions but individual institutions will not be identified in the main text without their consent.

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education in primary schools

The evidence used to inform the judgements included: interviews with staff and children; scrutiny of relevant documentation; analysis of children’s work; and observation of seven lessons and a learning activity in the school’s nursery.

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education in primary schools

The overall effectiveness of enterprise education in promoting children’s economic and business understanding and enterprise and financial capability is outstanding.

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Achievement in enterprise education

Achievement in enterprise education is outstanding.

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Achievement in enterprise education

 In the lessons observed, children demonstrated very positive attitudes to learning. They are developing very strong knowledge and understanding, appropriate to their age, of economic, environmental and global issues. Children show very good awareness of the moral issues surrounding global economic concepts, such as poverty and fair trade, in line with the school’s Christian values.  Children are developing important employability and enterprise skills, including teamworking, problem-solving and decision-making skills. They showed a particularly good grasp of the advantages of teamworking and the skills and strategies required to make it successful. Children demonstrated an excellent awareness of career opportunities and the skills and attributes needed to be successful.

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Quality of teaching in enterprise education

The quality of teaching in enterprise education is outstanding.

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Quality of teaching in enterprise education

 In the lessons observed, teachers had appropriately high expectations of what children should learn. They planned very successfully for children’s individual learning based on their prior attainment. Interesting and highly relevant tasks of progressive complexity focused sharply on what children would be learning by completing them.  Teachers planned very well for the deployment of teaching assistants in supporting lower-attaining children in tackling activities that were matched very well to their prior learning.  In the lessons observed, teachers made consistently excellent use of questioning to check and extend children’s learning, for example by ensuring that they justified their answers or explained how they completed calculations.  Teachers and children made very good use of information and communication technology, and in particular of interactive whiteboards, in developing children’s ability to calculate in monetary units.

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Quality of the curriculum in enterprise education

The quality of the curriculum in enterprise education is outstanding.

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Quality of the curriculum in enterprise education

 The curriculum includes a particular, and highly successful, emphasis on developing children’s numeracy skills in an enterprise education context. This is demonstrated in children’s development of number skills in a context that makes consistently strong reference to prices and costs.  The lessons observed demonstrated very clear and precise planning for the development of children’s enterprise skills and economic and business understanding as they progress through the school

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Effectiveness of leadership and management in enterprise education

The effectiveness of leadership and management in enterprise education is outstanding.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management in enterprise education

 Senior and curriculum leaders work very closely and very effectively together to ensure that children have a very broad range of high-quality opportunities across the school to engage in activities related to developing their enterprise knowledge, understanding and skills.  All staff are highly committed to, and recognise the importance of, promoting enterprise education within their lessons and in developing children’s related knowledge, understanding and skills.  The self-evaluation provided an accurate view of enterprise education. Where enterprise education forms the principal context of teaching and learning in subjects, learning outcomes and assessment arrangements are clear and explicit and supported by the school’s very thorough tracking of children’s achievement. Where enterprise education is more concerned with skills development, such as teamworking and problem-solving, learning outcomes and assessment are defined less clearly.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, include:

 identifying clear learning outcomes for enterprise skills, such as team- working and problem-solving, and a means of assessing how well children achieve these.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, include:

I hope that these observations are useful as you continue to develop enterprise education in the school.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, include:

As I explained previously, a copy of this letter will be published on the Ofsted website. It may be used to inform decisions about any future inspection. Except in the case of academies, a copy of this letter is also being sent to your local authority.

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