Al-Furqan Primary School

Al-Furqan Primary School Reddings Lane, Tyseley, Birmingham, B11 3EY

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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.  Much of the teaching in Years 1 to 6 is inadequate, which leads to widespread underachievement.  Teachers do not expect enough of pupils or give them work that is matched to their abilities.  Teachers set homework only sporadically and do not mark books well enough, which does not help pupils know how to improve their work.  Groups of pupils are taught for long periods by teaching assistants and they do not make enough progress.  In some lessons, insufficient resources, especially books, slow pupils’ progress.  Some older pupils misbehave when teaching is weak.  The school’s leaders, including governors, have low expectations of what pupils should be achieving and do not have a good enough understanding of how pupils are progressing. They are unaware of weaknesses in teaching, so they are not improving its quality or managing teachers’ performance adequately.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Lines of communication with many parents and carers have broken down, leading to high levels of dissatisfaction.

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The school has the following strengths

 Pupils have good opportunities to work independently, write and use their mathematical skills in topic lessons.  Pupils’ spiritual, cultural and social development is good.  Children in the Reception class make good progress because they are taught well.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed 27 lessons. In addition, the inspection team made a number of other short visits to lessons, listened to pupils reading and analysed the work in their books.  Meetings were held with pupils, members of the governing body, a representative of the local authority and staff, including senior and middle leaders.  A group of parents and carers asked the lead inspector to arrange a meeting where they could express their views. This meeting was attended by 37 parents and carers. Inspectors also met informally with other parents and carers and considered the 15 responses to the online questionnaire (Parent View).  Inspectors observed the school’s work and looked at a number of documents, including: the school’s own data on pupils’ current progress, exclusions and attendance, planning and monitoring documentation, records relating to behaviour, and documents relating to safeguarding.

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Inspection team

David Driscoll, Lead inspector Additional Inspector Janet Watts Additional Inspector Geoffrey Dorrity Additional Inspector Jenny Edginton 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 its 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 much larger than most other primary schools. The number of pupils on roll is increasing. At the time of the inspection, there were significant building works affecting the school site.  An above-average proportion of pupils is supported through school action.  The proportion of pupils supported through school action plus or who have a statement of special educational needs is average.  The proportion of pupils who are known to be eligible for free school meals or belong to other groups for whom the school receives additional income (the Pupil Premium) is above average.  The school meets the government’s current floor standard, which sets the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress.  The school has a part-time headteacher who is present for three days a week.  This is an Islamic school. The religious education that pupils receive is inspected separately.  The school shares its site with Reddings Lane Nursery. This is subject to a separate inspection.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve teaching and ensure all pupils in Years 1 to 6 make good progress by ensuring teachers:  set work for pupils that is well matched to their abilities  have high expectations of how much pupils will learn in a lesson  mark books frequently and regularly in order to tell pupils how well they have done and what they need to do to improve  set and mark homework on a regular basis.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Ensure all pupils are taught by teachers, rather than teaching assistants, for the great majority of their lessons in any given subject.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Provide sufficient material resources, especially books, for pupils to be able to work on their own when required.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Increase the rate at which the school improves by ensuring leaders and managers at all levels, including governors:  set suitably challenging targets for the school’s improvement  analyse data to gain a full understanding of how pupils are performing, identify weaknesses in their performance and draw up suitable plans to improve  monitor teaching more rigorously to provide a clear picture of strengths and weaknesses that can be used to evaluate and manage teachers’ performance and identify where further training is required.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve communications with parents and carers so that their concerns can be heard and addressed and their trust in the school’s leaders, including governors, can be restored.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Achievement is inadequate because pupils of all abilities in Key Stages 1 and 2, including those who are disabled and those with special educational needs, do not make enough progress in lessons. Around 75% of the pupils with special educational needs made no progress in their reading, writing or speaking and listening when assessed against the National Curriculum levels last year. The school could find no records of their progress in mathematics.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Pupils who receive extra support through the Pupil Premium make even less progress than others and are falling further behind. The extra help these pupils get from teaching assistants does little to accelerate their rate of progress.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Children join the Reception class with skills and experiences that are slightly below the levels typical for their age. They make good progress and start Year 1 with above-average standards in reading, writing and mathematics. Standards remain above average by the end of Key Stage 1, but learning in lessons is currently inadequate because pupils leave Year 6 with average standards.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Pupils do not make enough progress in lessons because the work they are given is not matched to their abilities. All pupils are frequently given the same task, which the most able find too easy and those with special educational learning needs find too difficult. The most able pupils often quickly finish their tasks, but do not move on to more difficult ones, while the least able lose interest and do not complete their work.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Pupils’ progress in reading is sometimes slowed by a lack of books. In one lesson, for example, there was only one copy of the class reading book which the teacher had to project onto a screen for pupils to read. This meant they were unable to read at their own pace or gain clues from pictures on other pages.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 The school is not providing equally for all pupils and this leads to great variation in the progress made by groups of pupils in classes. It is common practice for the class to be split into three groups. One group receives focused teaching from the teacher while the other two groups are supported by teaching assistants. The group taught by the teacher often made good progress in the lessons observed, but the other two groups made little or no progress at all.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Pupils have good opportunities to write in different styles and apply their mathematical skills in the afternoon topic lessons.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The quality of teaching was inadequate in 10 of the 27 lessons observed. Only seven lessons were taught well, most of which were in the Reception classes.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teachers do not have high enough expectations of what pupils can achieve. In one lesson, for example, pupils simply had to copy out the meaning of words such as ‘delicate’ and ‘slither’ from dictionaries. Many pupils already knew what the words meant, but even they could not do the task as there were only two dictionaries between every six pupils, so they simply wrote down what another pupil read out.  Teachers do not expect pupils to do enough work in a lesson. In a mathematics lesson, one group of pupils was praised for writing the lesson objective and drawing a table for their results which took them 20 minutes.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teachers do not mark pupils’ books well enough. Much of the marking in mathematics is carried out by other pupils, which is not subsequently checked by teachers. This means that errors are often missed and go uncorrected, so pupils repeat the same mistakes. Much of the marking in English praises pupils’ efforts, but does not tell them where they have gone wrong or what they need to do to improve. The little homework that is set is not marked helpfully enough.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teaching in the Reception classes is in complete contrast to other year groups. Here, children are set individual targets and lesson plans provide good detail on how activities are to help children meet them. Teachers make frequent references to the targets for each child throughout the lesson, so they are constantly building on what each child has learnt and ensuring that all make good progress.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils’ behaviour is not always good. Pupils often work hard when they find the work interesting and at the right level for their abilities. Boys, in particular, like solving difficult mathematical problems and getting a correct answer as quickly as they can. Pupils’ attention wanders when they are inactive for too long, such as when they listen to others read aloud.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils develop well socially and have good manners. They are polite and welcoming to visitors. Pupils listen to the views of others and respect their opinions when working in groups. They cooperate well and get good results when working as a team.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 On a few occasions, pupils misbehaved when teaching was weak, and were rude to staff. This was not always challenged and so did not promote pupils’ understanding of right and wrong ways to behave. No pupil has been excluded since May 2012.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils feel safe in school. They say that bullying is usually dealt with quickly and effectively. Parents and carers agree, but with the reservation that some cases take a long time to resolve. Bullying usually takes the form of name-calling, which is usually quickly noted by a teacher and the perpetrator made to apologise. Physical violence is extremely rare.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils’ spiritual and cultural development is good. They have many opportunities to learn about other faiths and how those from backgrounds different from their own live. The annual residential trip to Norfolk, for example, gives pupils a good insight into rural life. Pupils are given many opportunities to pray and to reflect on profound matters.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Attendance is consistently above average and pupils are punctual to school.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Inadequate leadership and management at all levels, including the governing body, are at the heart of the school’s poor performance and lack of improvement. The school’s plan for improvement shows low expectations on the part of the school’s leaders. Targets for pupils’ progress are below those nationally expected, which means that the school is aiming for pupils to underachieve. Priorities are mainly to review or consolidate current practice, rather than improve it.  The school’s evaluation of its own performance is particularly weak. Pupils’ progress is not tracked adequately and data are not analysed in enough detail to provide an accurate picture of where weaknesses in performance lie. Leaders evaluate pupils’ progress as good, for example, despite it being in the bottom 10% of schools nationally for the past two years.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Checks on teaching do not provide enough information for teachers’ performance to be managed or improved. Some lesson observations last just 10 or 15 minutes and do not identify strengths in teaching or areas that are in need of improvement so teachers have no accurate evaluation of the quality of their own teaching. Individual teachers have few opportunities to undertake training on how to improve weaker aspects of their teaching. Individual teachers have their salaries increased, even when they have not met their targets.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Discriminatory behaviour is not tolerated, but the arrangement of teaching groups in lessons means that all pupils are not receiving an equal quality of education.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The local authority has not visited the school for some time as it had not identified any cause for concern. The school has access to the usual range of services, such as behaviour support and educational psychology, provided by the local authority.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Many parents and carers express grave concerns about the school, particularly the way it is led and managed. Lines of communication between them and the school’s leaders have broken down, leading to a lack of trust.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The governance of the school:  Governance is inadequate because governors do not demonstrate the necessary skills to assess the school’s performance and drive it forward. Governors do not have sufficient understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses to challenge poor performance and take action to improve it. They do not play a sufficient part in monitoring or evaluating teaching, so are unaware of major deficiencies, especially in the lack of resources available to teachers. The school has spent its Pupil Premium money on providing extra teaching assistants. The effectiveness of this approach has not been evaluated well enough, so governors are not aware that the performance of these pupils is getting worse rather than improving. Governors ensure that safeguarding requirements are met. However, the school’s website does not contain much of the required information for parents and carers. The

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The leadership and management are inadequate

concerns of many parents and carers are not being addressed or resolved.

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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 is

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Grade Judgement Description

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 131465 Local authority Birmingham Inspection number 402468

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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 Voluntary aided Age range of pupils 4–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 430 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Amjad Ahmed Headteacher Zahida Hussain Date of previous school inspection 21 January 2010 Telephone number 0121 777 2222 Fax number 0121 777 2277 Email address admin@al-furqan.pri.bham.sch.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, please

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School details

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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