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 N Darby Acting Headteacher West Witney Primary School Edington Road Witney Oxfordshire OX28 5FZ

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languages (ML)

Thank you for your hospitality and cooperation, and that of your staff and pupils, during my visit on 25 June 2012 to look at work in ML.

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languages (ML)

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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languages (ML)

The evidence used to inform the judgements included: interviews with staff and pupils; scrutiny of relevant documentation; and observation of one lesson.

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languages (ML)

The overall effectiveness of ML is satisfactory.

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Achievement in ML

 Pupils are developing good pronunciation of the limited range of language to which they have so far been exposed. They enjoy their language lessons enormously and engagement is high for both boys and girls.  Some are able to write short sentences with minimal support, but they are less confident orally, except for giving simple personal details.  Pupils have a good understanding of the culture of France, as a result of extensive work to develop their inter-cultural understanding. They see languages as important for social and business reasons and because it adds to their enjoyment by allowing them to learn new things.

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Quality of teaching in ML

The quality of teaching in ML is satisfactory.

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Quality of teaching in ML

 The visiting teacher from a partner secondary school expertly models excellent teaching skills, including using French to manage the lessons. This is particularly useful in her role as teacher/trainer. Teaching in the weekly session is variable and pupils told me they do not feel the subject is adequately developed in the additional sessions through the week. The variation in the levels of expertise among class teachers means pupils have mixed levels of satisfaction with their ML learning.  Across the school, well-planned activities result in lessons that are fun and engaging. Teachers make good use of games, songs and poems. Good use is made of story books, especially by the visiting teacher. A very good collection of resources including electronic packages is easily accessible for all to share.  All pupils undertake the same tasks which is appropriate at this early stage. However, the mixed-age classes have now had one year of learning

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Quality of teaching in ML

and the differences in attainment are starting to be evident.  Assessment is yet to be developed. Within lessons, more could be made of repetition strategies to highlight where the less confident need more time to perfect new words.

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Quality of the curriculum in ML

The quality of the curriculum in ML is satisfactory.

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Quality of the curriculum in ML

 Good progress has been made in ensuring that pupils receive their entitlement to ML provision. The half-hour lesson delivered to all in Key Stage 2 is adequate, but the linguistic content is not sufficiently reinforced through the week.  A strong feature of the curriculum is the support for ML in other subject areas and the range of enrichment and links with other countries that makes an outstanding contribution to pupils’ inter-cultural development.  Schemes of work are clear about the topics to be covered, but currently do not take account of the specific circumstances of the school. They do not currently support class teachers’ understanding of what the school wants pupils to achieve by the end of Year 6.  The curriculum is highly inclusive and makes a good contribution to literacy, oracy and self-confidence, particularly for disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs.  Pupils would like more access to computers to support their language

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Effectiveness of leadership and management in ML

The effectiveness of leadership and management in ML is satisfactory.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management in ML

 You have supported the development of ML as it moves to the next stage following some changes of school leadership. You have quickly gathered an accurate view of the quality of provision.  A sound rationale exists for the pattern of provision and subject- development planning outlines present and future practice, but the subject does not currently feature in whole-school development plans.  The subject coordinator is very committed to developing the subject and is well supported through good succession planning by the previous coordinator.  Teachers have good access to professional development through the outreach partnership with a local secondary school. Monitoring is not carried out by the subject leader and is limited at present.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, include:

 strengthening schemes of work by providing key success criteria for linguistic development across the school  developing subject leadership by creating opportunities to monitor the work across all classes.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, include:

I hope that these observations are useful as you continue to develop ML 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. A copy of this letter is also being sent to your local authority.

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