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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Mr C Riches Headteacher Gillingstool Primary School Thornbury Bristol BS35 2EG

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social and health education (PSHE)

Thank you for your hospitality and cooperation, and that of the staff and pupils, during my visit on 29 November 2011 to look at work in PSHE.

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social and health education (PSHE)

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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social and health education (PSHE)

The evidence used to inform the judgements included: interviews with you, a group of Year 6 pupils and your staff with responsibilities for PSHE; scrutiny of relevant documentation; and observation of four lessons.

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social and health education (PSHE)

The overall effectiveness of PSHE is good.

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Achievement in PSHE

 Pupils have a good knowledge of how to lead a healthy, active lifestyle. Over half the school attend sports clubs after school and all learn to swim in the school pool. Pupils are aware of what constitutes a healthy meal and make appropriate choices.  They develop good personal and social skills, are polite to visitors and kind and tolerant of each other. They develop confidence and self-esteem through a range of opportunities in and out of school, for example through enterprise activities and regular school plays and performances.  Pupils’ knowledge of sex and drugs education is satisfactory. There is insufficient re-visiting and consolidation of these topics throughout the school.

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Quality of teaching in PSHE

The quality of teaching in PSHE is satisfactory.

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Quality of teaching in PSHE

 The quality of PSHE teaching is variable across the school. In the best lessons, pupils learn a lot; learning intentions are clear, teaching assistants are used effectively, probing questioning is used frequently to measure learning gains, and pupils tangibly enjoy the lessons.  In the less successful lessons, the reverse is true. Pupils are inactive for long periods of time and there is too much teacher talk. Learning intentions are not made clear enough to the pupils and too many opportunities for learning are missed.  Assessment is used well in the best lessons. Immediate feedback encourages and consolidates knowledge and informs the next step of learning for the teacher. End of unit assessments are used consistently to measure pupils’ understanding and record their progress.

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Quality of the curriculum in PSHE

The quality of the curriculum in PSHE is good.

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Quality of the curriculum in PSHE

 The quality of the Healthy Schools curriculum is exemplary. A strong focus for the school has been to ensure that pupils take regular exercise. This has been achieved through well-attended after-school clubs and two hours of physical education each week. The school’s development of an allotment in the community has been at the centre of a purposeful enterprise activity which has significantly developed pupils’ understanding of healthy foods and financial awareness. The cooking club is also well- attended and has had a positive impact on pupils’ attitudes to food.  Good use is made of a wide range of external agencies to support the curriculum as well as frequent visits out of school, including residential visits for the older children to different parts of the country. For example, the local rugby club provides qualified coaches to run the school rugby club; cycle awareness and road safety training is provided; and frequent

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Quality of the curriculum in PSHE

use is made of local public services. Residential visits develop independence, responsibility and personal challenge.  The relationships and drug education curriculum is currently only satisfactory as it is not sufficiently mapped or revisited throughout the school.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management in PSHE

The effectiveness of leadership and management in PSHE is satisfactory.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management in PSHE

 The shared leadership of PSHE has ensured that staff receive training for the social and emotional aspects of learning (SEAL) and strategies to support pupils emotionally.  All pupils are carefully monitored to ensure that they are appropriately supported, especially those whose circumstances make them vulnerable.  Due to the recent move the new building, there have been insufficient opportunities for the two PSHE coordinators to support individual staff or to monitor the quality of teaching in the subject.  Action plans do not focus sufficiently on measurable outcomes that would impact on pupils’ learning in PSHE.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, include:

 ensuring that sex, relationships and drugs education is mapped more thoroughly throughout the school and regularly revisited to raise awareness and increase pupils’ knowledge  ensuring that the PSHE action plan contains measurable success criteria and that the coordinators are provided with opportunities to support other colleagues to enable them to evaluate and improve the consistency of PSHE teaching.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, include:

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

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, include:

As 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.

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