Clarendon Road Community Primary School

Clarendon Road Community School Clarendon Road, Eccles, Manchester, M30 9BJ

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Satisfactory 3 This inspection: Inadequate 4 Achievement of pupils Inadequate 4 Quality of teaching Inadequate 4 Behaviour and safety of pupils Requires improvement 3 Leadership and management Inadequate 4

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a school that requires special measures.  As a result of weak teaching, pupils’ achievement over time is inadequate. Pupils’ performance has been below the national average on a number of occasions in recent years and remains so for particular groups of pupils including, boys in all subjects, pupils eligible for the Pupil Premium at Key Stage 1, and groups of pupils in mathematics at Key Stage 2.  Not enough is being done to promote equality of opportunity in educational achievement, particularly for boys, whose performance in mathematics is significantly below the national average.  The quality of teaching is not strong enough and it is not monitored and assessed with sufficient rigour. The support for teachers, including those who are newly qualified, has not been effective in improving their practice.  The leadership of the school including that of the headteacher, senior leadership team and governance have not addressed serious

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

shortcomings in teaching or the achievement of pupils.  Governors have not consistently held senior leaders to account and do not have a detailed enough understanding of what the school needs to do to tackle its weaknesses.  Pupils settle slowly to work and engage in low-level disruptive behaviour when the pace of lessons is too slow or teaching fails to interest them.  The school’s work to assess the impact of initiatives aimed at raising pupils’ attainment and improving teachers’ performance lacks rigour.

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The school has the following strengths

 Pupils have a well-developed sense of responsibility and know how to keep themselves safe. They are confident in reporting any concerns to adults and most behave well.  Pupils are given many opportunities to engage in sporting activities.  Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage apply themselves well to new situations and settle into school well. They are eager to listen and learn and develop good relationships with their teachers.  The school’s learning mentor has played a significant role in improving attendance and punctuality and provides a good link between the school and the community.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed 19 lessons, two of which were joint observations with members of the senior leadership team. Team members also visited lessons for short periods.  The inspection took account of the responses of 29 parents who completed Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View.  Meetings were held with a number of school staff including members of the senior leadership team, the special educational needs coordinator, the Chair of the Governing Body and the manager of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Inspectors had meetings with groups of pupils and listened to some pupils read.  A telephone discussion took place between the local authority’s School Improvement Partner and the Lead inspector.  Various documents were scrutinised as part of the evidence gathering for the inspection. These included: the school’s development plan and its summary of self-evaluation, safeguarding and monitoring and evaluation documentation, behaviour logs, various school policies and

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Information about this inspection

information that tracks pupils’ achievement.

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Inspection team

Lenford White, Lead inspector Additional Inspector Stephen Wall Additional Inspector Maria McGarry Additional Inspector

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Full report

In accordance with the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

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Information about this school

 The school is a larger-than-average sized primary school which has had some fluctuations in pupil numbers due to mid-term admissions. Pupils are mainly from White British backgrounds, but the profile of the school has changed in recent years and the proportion of children from minority ethnic groups is currently just below the national average.  There has been an increase in the number of admissions into the Reception year which has led to the recruitment of an additional teacher and teaching assistant.  The number of children who speak English as an additional language is just below the national average. Few children are in the early stages of learning to speak English.  The proportion of pupils eligible for the government’s pupil premium funding is above the national average and the proportion of pupils who start or leave school at other than the usual times is above average.  The proportion of children supported at school action plus or with a statement of special

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Information about this school

educational needs is just above the national average. The proportion of children who are supported at school action is below the national average.  The school meets the government’s floor standard, which sets the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve teaching so that lessons are at least good, by:  improving lesson planning so that pupils have more opportunities to engage actively in learning and independent work  improving the teaching of phonics (the links between letters and sounds) so that pupils have a secure grounding in the basic skills needed to learn to read  evaluating the progress of individuals and groups more accurately and amending teaching plans accordingly  ensuring all teaching is of a brisk pace and challenges and fully engages pupils, hence eradicating any low-level misbehaviour in lessons.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Raise achievement in reading, writing and mathematics by:  ensuring teachers have sufficiently high expectations of all pupils  making sure that pupils apply their mathematical skills and knowledge consistently well to solve problems  providing more opportunities for pupils at Key Stages 1 and 2 to write meaningfully and at length  ensuring that the curriculum provides the broad and stimulating range of opportunities required to fully meet the needs of all groups of pupils, but especially boys.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the quality of leadership and management, including headteacher, senior leadership team and governance, so that it drives the school forward with the necessary pace and sense of purpose by:  evaluating the effectiveness of the school accurately and using the results as the basis for tackling weaknesses  ensuring that accurate information on pupils’ performance is used to inform whole-school planning, teachers’ planning and their professional development, and spending priorities  ensuring the quality of teaching is monitored thoroughly and the results are used well to improve its quality and impact on pupils’ achievement  ensuring whole school targets are challenging and are used in performance management to hold staff closely to account for pupils’ achievement  ensuring that the Pupil Premium is used wisely and makes a difference to pupils’ progress in learning  taking firm action to ensure all weaknesses are tacked and all school staff are given

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

appropriate support so that they can manage their areas of responsibility effectively  ensuring that the governing body fully understands the school’s strengths and areas for improvement and that it holds leaders and managers to account.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Although there is some evidence of improving attainment, in reading for example, this is limited and some groups of pupils consistently make less than expected progress given their starting points.  Children enter Nursery with the skills and knowledge expected for their age and start Key Stage 1 having made satisfactory progress in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Attainment at Key Stage 1 has fluctuated in recent years but has been significantly lower than average for the last two years. Gains made in some areas, for example, in writing at Key Stage 1 in 2010, have not been maintained. Pupils’ reading, writing and mathematical skills are currently below the national average.  Overall, attainment and progress at Key Stage 2 are broadly average with some groups of pupils, including those who are less advantaged, and girls, achieving better than the national average. However, attainment in mathematics is below the national average with boys’

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

performance being particularly poor. The school’s own records for 2012 show that boys’ performance is poorer than that of girls at all levels in reading, writing and mathematics.  Although the school has received external support to improve pupils’ reading, this is recent and its impact has yet to be fully assessed. The reading skills of groups of pupils, including boys and those who are less advantaged, are below average. The learning and progress of pupils who are disabled and have special educational needs, and those who speak English as an additional language, are satisfactory overall.  Although the school has set ambitious targets, it is unable to provide accurate information on progress made towards these targets or any clear indication about how such targets will be reached.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 As a result of weak teaching over time, significant groups of pupils are making inadequate progress. Teachers do not have sufficiently high expectations of pupils and some pupils disengage when learning activities are not set at the right level. Pupils said that they found lessons that were slow paced and lacked challenge uninteresting and ‘too easy’. Very few lessons observed during the inspection were good and none were outstanding.  Information that the school keeps about each pupil’s progress is limited and rarely features in lesson plans. While some lesson plans identify activities for pupils of all abilities, because introductions to lessons are too long, planning is not put into practice and opportunities for pupils to engage in independent learning are missed.  The time of additional adults is not always used effectively in the classroom. When teachers talk for too long, support for learners is given far too late in the lesson. In such lessons,

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

progress is slow and pupils engage in low-level disruptive behaviour.  Too often teachers miss opportunities to engage pupils fully and extend their understanding through asking thought-provoking questions. For example, in a lesson focusing on the story of the creation of the earth, opportunities were missed to check pupils’ understanding and relate what was being taught to real-life experiences.  Phonics is not taught consistently and inspectors observed some inaccuracies in its teaching, particularly in relation to teachers’ modelling of letters and sounds.  Too few opportunities are provided for pupils to write from their own experiences and in some lessons what pupils write is not properly captured and recorded. In one lesson, pupils produced some imaginative work about what life would be like in their ideal world. Pupils used felt tip pens and wrote on sheets of paper. There was no attempt to add this text to writing books and

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

fully assess its quality.  Pupils are not consistently given opportunities to apply their mathematical skills and knowledge in solving practical problems.  While there are good relationships between teachers and pupils in the Early Years Foundation Stage, in other classes teachers do not always take full advantage of children’s eagerness to learn and explore the world around them. As a result, not all realise their full potential.  In the small minority of lessons where pupils make good progress, teachers’ planning is well structured. For example, in an English lesson focusing on biographies, pupils relished the idea of researching the lives of people who inspire them. Many pupils produced good quality extended writing and worked well by themselves without the need for constant support from their teacher.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Most pupils behave well around the school but their attitudes to learning are not always as positive. Some take too long to settle down to work and engage in low-level disruptive behaviour when lessons are slow-paced or fail to interest them.  Some pupils expressed concerns about bullying and do not always feel safe during break times. The majority say that they feel safe at school and that they are confident in sharing any concerns that they have with adults. Most children say that such concerns are taken seriously and acted upon.  Pupils are aware of most forms of bullying and know why it is wrong to be unkind to someone because of the way they look, their dress, or their culture. Pupils are also aware of how to stay safe while using the internet and can define various forms of bullying including racism and cyber-bullying.  Pupils learn about staying safe from a number of visitors to the school including the fire service

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

and groups like Crucial Crew who deliver strong messages about the importance of staying safe. Children can detail a number of unsafe situations; they say that their teachers and friends make them feel safe.  Pupils enjoy Golden Time and indicate that this and their celebration assemblies provide incentives for them to behave well in school.  Attendance and punctuality have both improved over the last school year and are now broadly average. This is due to a number of initiatives that the school has successfully put into place. For example, the school’s learning mentor acts as a link between the school and the community and works directly with pupils and their families who are confident in seeking advice and support.  The senior leadership team was able to provide very limited evidence on parents’ views of the school. The small number of parents and carers who completed Ofsted’s online survey said that

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

their children were happy and safe at the school.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The headteacher, senior leadership team and the governing body do not demonstrate the capacity necessary to secure essential improvements. Current arrangements for driving forward improvement and raising standards are inadequate and show little evidence of impact. The school has failed to tackle successfully areas identified at its previous inspections.  The school’s self-evaluation document, produced by senior leaders, lacks clarity and does not accurately identify all the main areas for improvement. Senior leaders have neglected to develop or implement a clear plan to move the school forward.  Arrangements for reporting to the governing body lack clarity. The headteacher’s reports fail to provide governors with the detail necessary for them to have an accurate picture of how well the school is doing. Such reports are particularly weak in their assessment and presentation of information on pupils’ performance.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The school’s procedures for monitoring the quality of teaching and learning and the extent to which it tackles underperformance are poor. Analysis of the quality of teaching and identification of areas in need of improvement are weak.  Performance management is not sufficiently rigorous in holding teachers to account for the quality of their teaching or for pupils’ achievement and it is not directly linked to teachers’ progression through the pay spine. The effectiveness of support for less experienced and newly qualified teachers is not fully monitored and evaluated.  All necessary arrangements for safeguarding pupils are in place and statutory requirements are met.  The school’s thematic curriculum has strengths and some pupils can recount first-hand experiences of visits and visitors to the school. However, the curriculum fails to meet the needs of significant groups of pupils including boys. Pupils do not have enough opportunities to

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The leadership and management are inadequate

practise their phonics skills and there are few examples of activities with links to either literacy or numeracy in subjects other than English and mathematics.  The school’s management and use of records of pupils’ work and progress are poor. School leaders were unable to provide detailed records during the inspection. Information available on the learning and progress of pupils is incomplete. There is little evidence that records of progress of individuals and groups of pupils are used to plan for improvements in provision.  The local authority School Improvement Partner has provided consultancy support for the school which is beginning to raise levels of achievement in reading. However, developments aimed at improving the school’s overall effectiveness are in their early stages.  The governance of the school  Governors ensure that targeted interventions and support are provided for those pupils

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The leadership and management are inadequate

who benefit from the pupil premium funding; however there is not a tight enough review of how such resources are deployed or on how they impact on raising standards. The governing body does not hold senior leaders to account as firmly as it should and, though supportive, governors do not have a detailed understanding of the school’s performance, the achievement of different groups of pupils, or areas for development. Consequently, the link between the school’s priorities and financial planning is weak. The governing body’s plans to link the performance management of the senior leadership team to improving outcomes for pupils are not firmly established and have yet to be evaluated.

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding An outstanding school is highly effective in delivering outcomes that provide exceptionally well for all its pupils’ needs. This ensures that pupils are very well equipped for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Grade 2 Good A good school is effective in delivering outcomes that provide well for all its pupils’ needs. Pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Grade 3 Requires improvement A school that requires improvement is not yet a good school, but it is not inadequate. This school will receive a full inspection within 24 months from the date of this inspection. Grade 4 Inadequate A school that has serious weaknesses is inadequate overall and requires significant improvement but leadership and management are judged to be Grade 3 or better. This school will receive regular monitoring by Ofsted inspectors. A school that requires special measures is one where the school

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Grade Judgement Description

is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the school’s leaders, managers or governors have not demonstrated that they have the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school. This school will receive regular monitoring by Ofsted inspectors.

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School details

Unique reference number 105902 Local authority Salford Inspection number 400809

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School details

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

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School details

Type of school Primary School category Community Age range of pupils 3–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 340 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Lynn Cullimore Headteacher Jean Dunnet Date of previous school inspection 13 May 2010 Telephone number 0161 7894469 Fax number 0161 7071790 Email address clarendonroad.primaryschool@salford.gov.uk guidance ‘raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted', 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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School details

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 and as part of the inspection.

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School details

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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School details

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 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,

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School details

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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School details

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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