Kingsbridge Community Primary School

Age group 4–11 Inspection date(s) 19–20 June 2012 Inspection number 378666 Kingsbridge Community Primary School Inspection report

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Unique reference number 113205 Local authority Devon Inspection number 378666 Inspection dates 19–20 June 2012 Lead inspector John Cavill

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This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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Type of school Primary School category Community Age range of pupils 4–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 417 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Kate Fox Headteacher Peter Burner Date of previous school inspection 10–11 September 2007 School address Belle Cross Road Kingsbridge TQ7 1NL Telephone number 01548 852009 Fax number 01548 857643 Email address admin@kingsbridge-pri.devon.sch.uk achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked

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after children, safeguarding and child protection. Further copies of this report are obtainable from the school. Under the Education Act 2005, the school must provide a copy of this report free of charge to certain categories of people. A charge not exceeding the full cost of reproduction may be made for any other copies supplied. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way. To receive regular email alerts about new publications, including survey reports and school inspection reports, please visit our website and go to ‘Subscribe’.

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T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when.

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You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk , or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Introduction

This inspection was carried out with two days' notice. The inspectors observed teaching and learning in 31 lessons and a small intervention group activity, observing 16 teachers and a teaching assistant. They took account of the responses to the on- line questionnaire (Parent View) in planning the inspection. The inspectors also made short observations of sessions on the teaching of phonics ( pupils learning letter patterns and the sounds they represent to enable them to read ). They had discussions with members of the governing body, staff and groups of pupils. The inspectors observed the school’s work and looked at a range of documents, including the school improvement plans and priorities for development. They analysed recent evidence on pupils’ progress and attainment, checked safeguarding procedures and analysed 162 questionnaires returned by parents and carers as well as those completed by staff and pupils.

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Information about the school

Kingsbridge Community Primary is a larger-than-average-sized primary school. Almost all of the pupils are of White British heritage. The proportion of pupils supported by school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs is average. The proportion of pupils who are known to be eligible for free school meals is below average. This is a two-form entry primary school with two classes in each year group. Children enter the school in the Reception Year. The school meets the current floor standard, the minimum standards expected by the government for pupils’ attainment and progress. There is a children’s centre and a privately-managed before- and after-school club located on the school site but these are inspected separately. The reports can be viewed on the Ofsted website. Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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Key findings

 This is a good school. Parents, carers, pupils and staff are all very positive and committed to this welcoming and very happy school. It is not outstanding because there are still a few lessons that are only satisfactory, especially in Key Stage 1.

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Key findings

 Pupils’ progress is good. Progress in Key Stage 1 is slightly slower than in the rest of the school, but attainment at the end of Year 2 has improved year on year and is now just above average. Progress accelerates in Key Stage 2 and pupils leave Year 6 with attainment that is above average.

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Key findings

 The good teaching is resulting in good achievement. Teachers plan lessons well and most encourage pupils to learn independently, providing them with activities that generally challenge and enthuse them. However, occasionally, there are inconsistencies in teaching which include the quality of marking, developing pupils’ skills as independent learners and setting appropriately challenging tasks.

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Key findings

 Pupils’ behaviour and safety around the school are good. Pupils have a strong moral code and know right from wrong. They are keen to learn and have very positive attitudes towards school.

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Key findings

 Leaders are rightly focused on whole-school improvement. They are motivated, have high expectations and ambition for the school, with a desire to enhance the lives and aspirations of all pupils. The management of school performance is strong and has led to some substantial and sustained improvements since the previous inspection. Performance management is rigorously used to secure the good quality of teaching and improving outcomes at the school. The performance of teaching is regularly reviewed and is supported by focused professional development. Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 By July 2013, increase the proportion of outstanding teaching and eliminate satisfactory teaching to accelerate progress, especially in Key Stage 1, by:  conducting all lessons at a lively pace, encouraging independence and making sure that pupils do not sit for too long listening to teachers talking  improving teachers’ use of assessment information, including whole-school tracking data, to ensure that lessons always challenge, engage and meet the needs of all pupils  ensuring that learning intentions in lessons are linked to sharply focused targets and help pupils to monitor their own progress  improving the quality and consistency of marking so pupils know how to improve their work.

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Achievement of pupils

The skills of children when the start in the Reception Year are broadly those expected for their age, but are generally lower than would be expected in communication, language and literacy, especially in writing. Children make good progress in the Reception Year and leave achieving at least the early learning goals, with some children above what would normally be expected.

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Achievement of pupils

Progress slows slightly in Key Stage 1 due to a limited amount of relatively less strong teaching. However, lesson observations and scrutiny of work confirm the school’s data that attainment and progress for pupils currently in Key Stage 1 are continuing to rise, reflecting improvements in teaching. Progress in Key Stage 2 is securely good and pupils leave school with above average, and continually improving, attainment. Consistently good, and some outstanding, teaching has secured this.

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Achievement of pupils

Disabled pupils and those with special educational needs make good progress. Interventions, delivered by teachers and teaching assistants, are well targeted and highly effective.

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Achievement of pupils

Pupils are keen to learn and demonstrate obvious enjoyment in lessons. A positive attitude to learning is ensuring they make good progress in the large majority of lessons. The school has been very successful in closing the gap in previous years between the lower achievement seen in writing with reading and mathematics. This has been achieved with the introduction of a new method of teaching writing. For example, in a Year 5 literacy lesson on what it would be like to be part of the D-Day landings, pupils were excited by the topic and keen to reflect on texts they had already read. This allowed them to produce some imaginative work with good structure and content, developing their higher-level writing skills and passion for writing. Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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Achievement of pupils

Attainment in reading is securely average in Year 2, and improving, where pupils were able to use phonic sounds and blend the sounds together. Year 6 pupils’ attainment in reading is above average. Pupils read fluently and with confidence and are able to understand a wide range of texts.

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Achievement of pupils

Parents and carers believe their children are making good progress and are developing their skills in communication, reading, writing and mathematics well. Inspectors agree with this and also with the pupils who think they do well.

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Quality of teaching

Teaching overall at the school is enabling good learning. Almost all of the parents and carers who completed the questionnaire stated that their children were well taught and the children agree. Good and better teaching is best exemplified by pace and encouragement of independent learning. In a Year 6 class, pupils were using two poems to understand the complexities and messages within poetic text. Following a fast-paced introduction and challenging questioning, they worked in pairs to respond to the task. All pupils made outstanding progress and could explain their learning during the lesson, which was monitored extremely well by the teacher.

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Quality of teaching

Teachers usually plan their lessons well to meet the needs of all pupils, including those disabled or with special educational needs who also benefit from good levels of additional support. Learning objectives are evident in all lessons and focus the learning, but are not always precise and this limits pupils, particularly in Key Stage 1, monitoring their own progress. Pupils are grouped by ability and, in the better lessons, tasks reflect the ability of individual pupils well, with teachers using assessment information effectively and striking a good balance between teacher talk and allowing time for pupils to work independently. These important features are occasionally missed in some lessons. Conversely, in a Year 3 numeracy lesson about area, following the starter activity to introduce the new learning to all pupils, the teacher identified individuals who needed to revisit prior learning. This allowed

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Quality of teaching

Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage benefit from good teaching. The new facilities have been developed well and there is a good balance of adult-led activities and those chosen by children. Opportunities for children to practise and develop their writing skills exist in all areas of the setting and ensure that fast progress is being made in this aspect. Children are encouraged to be creative and learn independently with imaginative role-play areas, such as the Totnes Rare Breeds Centre set up to reflect a recent school trip.

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Quality of teaching

New teaching strategies that focus on better choice of vocabulary, connectives, opening sentences and punctuation have improved pupils’ writing. This helped develop their higher-level skills in writing in real-life contexts. Reading is taught regularly and well, through guided reading lessons, and is supported by daily phonics sessions in Key Stage 1. Teachers promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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Quality of teaching

awareness through a range of activities within the curriculum and through assemblies and extra-curricular activities.

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Quality of teaching

Pupils and teachers regularly assess pupils’ work. However, the feedback from teachers that pupils receive, detailing the next steps that they have to do in order to improve, is not consistent across the school.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

All pupils, including children in the Early Years Foundation Stage, are well behaved, have a good understanding of what constitutes good behaviour and act in a mature and safe manner. Almost all parents, carers and pupils stated that behaviour and safety are good. The very high proportion of parents and carers who believed that bullying was not an issue at the school further endorses the fact that this school keeps pupils safe. Pupils agree and report that there is no bullying of any kind, including physical, emotional and cyber bullying, and are confident that teachers will deal with any problems quickly. There have been no exclusions for the last three years. Together with scrutiny of behavioural records and discussions, this confirms that behaviour is good over time too.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

In most lessons, behaviour and attitudes to learning are good. However, in a small number of lessons, where the pace of learning slows, a few pupils tend to lose focus, resulting in their progress also slowing. The effective use of behaviour management systems at the school, which are understood well by the pupils, by teachers and teaching assistants quickly resolves the minor problem quickly and without any fuss. Pupils are respectful for each other, adults and the school. Attendance is average but has shown sustained improvement over time and is continuing to rise. Pupils are keen to come to school and are punctual.

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Leadership and management

All leaders, including the governing body, share a vision for continuous improvement for this school. They have a common desire to provide an environment where children can develop and flourish. In this school, everyone matters. All leaders are committed to improvement and this can be best seen in the efforts to improve the quality of teaching at the school. This has been achieved through highly focused performance management procedures with a clear focus on pupil progress.

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Leadership and management

Leadership and management in the Early Years Foundation Stage are good. The small cohesive team approach in this setting ensures that children are supported well to achieve their best. The new facilities have provided improved provision and teaching, contributing to the children’s good progress. Good partnerships exist with local playgroups enabling some effective transition arrangements.

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Leadership and management

Governors are supportive and provide challenge to the school leaders. All safeguarding procedures are managed robustly by all school leaders and managers and children feel safe. The governing body, leaders and staff ensure that all of its Inspection grades: 1 is outstanding, 2 is good, 3 is satisfactory, and 4 is inadequate Please turn to the glossary for a description of the grades and inspection terms

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Leadership and management

statutory duties, including equalities legislation to combat discrimination, are undertaken effectively. Governors are clear about the school’s strengths and areas for improvement and are fully involved in the self-evaluation and improvement planning process.

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Leadership and management

Pupil performance is tracked well by all leaders, and especially middle leaders who, within the structure of the ‘small teams’, support the pupils well. They use assessment information to monitor and analyse each pupil’s progress. This leads to a sharply focused identification of suitable interventions to support good learning and helps ensure equality of opportunity for all pupils.

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Leadership and management

The curriculum is broad and balanced with a wide range of learning opportunities that make good use of the local area and real-life contexts. It is constantly being reviewed to better meet the needs of the pupils at the school and is very successful in developing cross-curricular links within the topics delivered to the pupils. Topics such as the Year 5 D-Day landing project work skilfully developed pupils’ literacy skills within an historical context and provided opportunities to develop their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Opportunities for pupils to enhance their understanding of multicultural society are supported with residential trips, including trips to major cities.

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Leadership and management

Leaders’ assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the school is accurate and improvement planning is of high quality. Leaders undertake regular monitoring of all aspects of the school and ensure the focus on sustaining and raising its effectiveness is maintained. There has been a sustained trend of improvement since the previous inspection in achievement, teaching, Early Years provision and attendance and this demonstrates the school has the capacity to improve further.

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding These features are highly effective. An outstanding school provides exceptionally well for all its pupils’ needs. Grade 2 Good These are very positive features of a school. A school that is good is serving its pupils well. Grade 3 Satisfactory These features are of reasonable quality. A satisfactory school is providing adequately for its pupils. Grade 4 Inadequate These features are not of an acceptable standard. An inadequate school needs to make significant improvement in order to meet the needs of its pupils. Ofsted inspectors will make further visits until it improves.

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

Nursery schools 54 42 2 2 Primary schools 14 49 32 6 Secondary schools 20 39 34 7 Special schools 33 45 20 3 Pupil referral units 9 55 28 8 All schools 16 47 31 6

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

New school inspection arrangements have been introduced from 1 January 2012. This means that inspectors make judgements that were not made previously. The data in the table above are for the period 1 September to 31 December 2011 and represent judgements that were made under the school inspection arrangements that were introduced on 1 September 2009. These data are consistent with the latest published official statistics about maintained school inspection outcomes (see www.ofsted.gov.uk ). The sample of schools inspected during 2010/11 was not representative of all schools nationally, as weaker schools are inspected more frequently than good or outstanding schools. Primary schools include primary academy converters. Secondary schools include secondary academy converters, sponsor-led academies and city technology colleges. Special schools include special academy converters and non-maintained special schools.

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Type of school Outstanding Good Satisfactory Inadequate

Percentages are rounded and do not always add exactly to 100.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Achievement: the progress and success of a pupil in their learning and development taking account of their attainment.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Attainment: the standard of the pupils’ work shown by test and examination results and in lessons.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Attendance: the regular attendance of pupils at school and in lessons, taking into account the school’s efforts to encourage good attendance.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Behaviour: how well pupils behave in lessons, with emphasis on their attitude to learning. Pupils’ punctuality to lessons and their conduct around the school.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Capacity to improve: the proven ability of the school to continue improving based on its self-evaluation and what the school has accomplished so far and on the quality of its systems to maintain improvement.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Leadership and management: the contribution of all the staff with responsibilities, not just the governors and headteacher, to identifying priorities, directing and motivating staff and running the school.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Learning: how well pupils acquire knowledge, develop their understanding, learn and practise skills and are developing their competence as learners.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Overall effectiveness: inspectors form a judgement on a school’s overall effectiveness based on the findings from their inspection of the school.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Progress: the rate at which pupils are learning in lessons and over longer periods of time. It is often measured by comparing the pupils’ attainment at the end of a key stage with their attainment when they started.

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Common terminology used by inspectors

Safety: how safe pupils are in school, including in lessons; and their understanding of risks. Pupils’ freedom from bullying and harassment. How well the school promotes safety, for example e-learning.

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carers to share with their children. It describes Ofsted’s

main findings from the inspection of their school.

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TQ7 1NL

Thank you for welcoming us to your school recently, talking to us about your work and telling us about your school and what you like about it. We enjoyed talking to you and would especially like to thank those of you who met us or completed the questionnaire.

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TQ7 1NL

You told us that you thought your school was good and we agree. You obviously enjoy coming to school and it was good to see you all learning and achieving so much. We found that the teaching at your school was good and that in most lessons the teachers make sure the work they set is challenging and helps all of you to achieve well. However, in a few of the lessons we noticed that they were not allowing you to achieve as well, so we have asked your headteacher and the staff to improve the teaching in these lessons. We have asked them to:  make sure that all lessons allow you to work quickly and independently  give you tasks that will challenge you to do well in all lessons  give you clear guidance on how you can check if you have made progress in lessons  improve the marking in your books so that you know how to improve your work.

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TQ7 1NL

It was great to see lessons that captured your interest, such as the Year 5 class reflecting on the D-Day landings and the excitement in the Reception Year following the visit to the Totnes Rare Breeds Centre. We hope that you will grow up remembering these wonderful moments.

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TQ7 1NL

We enjoyed coming to your school. You can help it to improve by continuing to work hard and concentrating on your work in every lesson.

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TQ7 1NL

John Cavill Lead inspector procedures set out in the guidance 'Complaining about inspections', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234 , or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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