Doveridge Primary School

Doveridge Primary School 14 Chapel Green, Doveridge, Ashbourne, DE6 5JY

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Good 2 This inspection: Good 2 Achievement of pupils Good 2 Quality of teaching Good 2 Behaviour and safety of pupils Good 2 Leadership and management Good 2

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school.  Pupils’ achievement in reading, writing and mathematics is good throughout the school.  The headteacher provides outstanding leadership and has a clear vision for continued and sustained improvement. This has led to good progress since the last inspection, particularly in boys’ writing.  Teaching is typically good and occasionally outstanding.  The school promotes the pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development outstandingly well.  The school accurately evaluates its strengths and weaknesses, and shares its findings with pupils and parents.  Pupils feel safe and are keen to come to school, as reflected in their outstanding attendance rates.  Pupils’ behaviour in lessons is good, and often outstanding.  Pupils have many opportunities to develop the skills they learn in literacy and numeracy lessons in all other subjects.  This is a caring school that has good procedures for providing additional support for

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 The pupils in Years 1 and 2 do not always have sufficiently challenging work to reach the higher National Curriculum levels they are capable of.  Governors do not yet fully challenge the wider aspects of the school’s work through full involvement in the process of evaluating strengths and weaknesses and assessing their impact on pupils’ achievements.  Teachers do not use their knowledge of pupils’ progress and previous achievements consistently well to plan the next stages of learning for all pupils.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspector observed eight lessons, four of which were seen together with the headteacher. In addition, he observed some teacher assistants teach smaller groups and made a number of short visits to lessons.  The inspector talked to pupils in lessons, looked at their books, listened to them read and talked separately to a group of eight pupils from Key Stage 2.  The inspector had meetings with the headteacher, staff, the Chair of the Governing Body and a local authority representative.  The inspector observed the school at work and looked at a range of documentation, including school development plans, school and external information on pupils’ progress, the work in pupils’ books and the school’s evaluation of its own performance.  The inspection also took account of information on staff performance and records relating to behaviour and attendance, safeguarding and child protection.  The inspector took account of the school’s parental and pupil questionnaires. There were no

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Information about this inspection

opinions on the online questionnaire (Parent View).

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Inspection team

Alan Giles, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 Doveridge is much smaller than the average primary school.  Although the school takes pupils up to the end of Year 6, most pupils leave for local middle schools across the border in Staffordshire at the end of Year 4.  Most classes contain more than one year group. One contains Reception children and Year 1 pupils, one Year 1 and Year 2 pupils, one is for Year 3 only, and one has Year 4, 5 and 6 pupils.  The vast majority of pupils are from White British backgrounds, and the proportion from minority ethnic groups is much lower than average. No pupils speak English as an additional language.  The proportions of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs supported through school action, school action plus or a statement of special educational needs are all well below average.  The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for the pupil premium is well below average. The funding is based on the number of children in local authority care, those from service families

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Information about this school

and those known to be eligible for free school meals.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the quality of teaching from good to outstanding by:  further sharing and modelling the best practices in the school to make more teaching outstanding  improving the teachers’ questioning skills and their marking of books, to show pupils what the next stages in their learning look like and test their understanding of this.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve pupils’ achievement in Key Stage 1 by:  making better use of progress data to increase the number of pupils in Years 1 and 2 who reach higher levels in reading, writing and mathematics.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Increase the capacity of the leadership team by:  involving governors more in supporting the headteacher in her evaluation of school practices.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The achievement of pupils in all years is at least good. Since the last inspection the school has used well-planned strategies to improve boys’ writing, which is now in line with that of the girls.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Most children enter Reception with skills and understanding in line with those expected nationally for their age, and make good progress in all areas of learning. The school has identified a trend of increasing numbers of children arriving at this stage with lower than expected ability in reading, and is compensating for this very effectively.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The most recent published reading test indicates that pupils in Year 1 have reading skills that are above the national expectations. The present Year 1 pupils are in line to maintain these high standards, and for a number of pupils this represents outstanding progress from their starting points in Reception.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Attainment in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of Key Stage 1 has been above average for the last five years. Progress in English and mathematics is good across Years 1 and 2. It is not outstanding because a small number of pupils who are capable of achieving even higher National Curriculum levels by the end of Year 2 are not being challenged to do so.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The school has had very small numbers of Year 6 pupils in recent years, and this means that their standards cannot be compared to national averages in a way that is statistically meaningful. Progress is consistently good across Key Stage 2. Pupils who leave the school in Year 4 have above-average attainment in reading, writing and mathematics, and have made good, sometimes outstanding, progress to this stage.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 More pupils are now staying in the school beyond Year 4 than in previous years. The achievement of the current Year 5 and 6 pupils in English and mathematics is good. Year 6 pupil numbers are still too low to comment upon standards without identifying the pupils concerned.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The daily teaching of phonics and small group work with spelling and grammar has had a positive effect on standards in reading and writing. Extensive opportunities for pupils to improve their skills and understanding in other subjects further improve literacy standards.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The way pupils who need additional help are supported through work in small groups is a strength of the school. Disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs achieve well and make similar progress to their peers.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 A small but growing number of pupils who enter the school in Key Stage 2 make outstanding progress because the school identifies their personal learning needs very accurately.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The school is using pupil premium funding to provide additional resources and adult support for eligible pupils. This ensures that they make the same levels of progress as their classmates and there are no gaps in attainment in English and mathematics by the time they leave the school.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers track the progress of pupils well. They typically use the resulting information to plan tasks that match the needs of the pupils, and to adapt tasks to increase the level of challenge if necessary.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Useful assessment grids in classrooms inform all pupils what they need to achieve in each lesson, and how they will accomplish this.

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The quality of teaching is good

 In a small number of lessons teaching is not challenging pupils enough, and instead of giving harder tasks or moving pupils on to more challenging National Curriculum levels, work is repeated even when pupils have clearly learnt it before.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teaching is good in Reception. The school has responded well to new national initiatives by creating a stimulating internal and external environment with a good balance of play and teacher-directed activities that develop children’s literacy skills well.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Since the last inspection the school has further developed an exciting outdoor learning environment that broadens the opportunities for exciting and practical learning in many subjects.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers and teaching assistants quickly identify any pupils who are at risk of falling behind in their work and support them with relevant tasks and resources. Pupils comment on how well their teachers know them and how they always know if they need help.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers are very adept at explaining and showing what is going to be learnt. They provide useful guidelines to support the pupils at each stage of their learning.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Pupils have good opportunities to read and discuss each other’s work to evaluate how well they have done and to test how well they have met the challenges set by their teachers.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers ask questions effectively when they link them to the learning objectives and success criteria set for all pupils. Sometimes questioning does not extend pupils’ thinking, or connect what they have learnt with the next stages of learning in that subject.

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The quality of teaching is good

 The school recognises that the marking of pupils’ work does not always refer to the next stages in their learning, so staff are sometimes missing the opportunity to give important feedback to the pupils on how well they are doing and what they need to do next.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Pupils say how much they enjoy coming to school and that it is a safe place to be. They value the care shown to them by adults, and they display similar qualities in their interactions with each other.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The vast majority of parents who respond to the school’s questionnaires believe that their children feel safe at school and behave well.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Behaviour in classes is consistently good and often outstanding. Pupils have good listening skills, and these were particularly evident in Reception.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Pupils work well independently and in small groups, enabling teachers to set different tasks within the mixed-age classes.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The majority of pupils respond well to the challenges and problems set by their teachers and work very hard to achieve personal success. In a small number of instances pupils become less focused, often because they are not fully challenged or just repeating work.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Pupils say they like being in a small school because they get to know each other well. This is evident when older pupils act as ‘buddies’ to the younger pupils and when they take part in school council and eco committee activities.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Older pupils have a mature understanding of the effects of bullying and are adamant there is no bullying at the school.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The school’s promotion of pupils’ personal development is outstanding. It uses an innovative curriculum and activity programme to create international links, practical learning to improve pupils’ initiative, and a range of topics that celebrate different cultures. Pupils have many opportunities to take on additional responsibilities, including charity work, and the school is trying out new ways to develop their understanding of the wide diversity of community faiths.

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The leadership and management are good

 The headteacher has developed rigorous practices for checking performance at all levels. The school has sustained the significant improvements made up to the last inspection and is on course to make the necessary improvements and changes to become outstanding.

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The leadership and management are good

 The information the school collects about pupils’ progress is very thorough and accurate, and in the main it is used very well to enable most pupils to achieve appropriately challenging targets.

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The leadership and management are good

 The management and evaluation of teaching performances is accurate and based on lesson observations. The targets set for teachers are linked appropriately to school priorities and pupils’ achievement as well as individual staff needs.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school has developed good practices to improve subject leadership roles, given the challenges posed by low staffing numbers in a very small school. Prioritised subject developments are linked to school improvement plans and monitored to ensure continuity of practice throughout the school.

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The leadership and management are good

 There is a strong sense of teamwork in the school, particularly in planning lessons together to ensure continuity in learning across mixed-age classes.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school has built excellent relationships with local clusters of schools, and their joint activities, such as shared staff training and assessing standards of pupils’ work together, considerably enhance learning outcomes for pupils.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school’s leaders recognise that staff do not have enough opportunities to share best teaching and learning practices and have identified further opportunities to enable them to teach more consistently and outstandingly well.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school has strong links with the local village community. Parents are very well informed of their children’s progress and the work they are studying, and they attend numerous school celebrations and activities.

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The leadership and management are good

 Pupils talk of the exciting way they are taught different subjects, and how this helps them to improve their reading and writing skills. There is a strong practical element to learning across the different subject areas, with enquiry and exploration skills developed well.  Subjects are linked to each other in well-planned topics to make them more interesting. Pupils develop good scientific skills in visits to museums and working with visiting scientists. They role- play and develop artistic impressions in anti-bullying week, and increase their global knowledge during citizenship weeks and world book days.

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The leadership and management are good

 The local authority has a clear understanding of the recent journey the school has made and an accurate assessment of its present strengths and weaknesses. It is promoting an ‘open schools’ policy where clusters of schools share and develop joint initiatives, and it considers Doveridge as a school ‘sign-posted towards excellence’ within this scheme.

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The leadership and management are good

 The governance of the school:  The governors receive detailed information from the school, including performance data linked to national expectations.  They have a good set of skills and experience to manage the performance of teachers, and a good awareness of the targets set to improve teaching and pupils’ progress.  The governing body makes sure that all safeguarding arrangements meet current national requirements.  Governors oversee the arrangements for the spending of the pupil premium and are aware of the impact of this, and other spending, on pupils’ achievement.  The governing body appropriately challenges the headteacher through its performance management procedures, but does not fully challenge the wider aspects of the school’s work through full involvement in the process of evaluating strengths and weaknesses and assessing their impact on pupils’ achievements.

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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 112537 Local authority Derbyshire Inspection number 411913

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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 4–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 90 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Colin Bryan Headteacher Natasha Clark Date of previous school inspection 22 September 2009 Telephone number 01889 563346 Fax number 01889 563346 Email address info@doveridge.derbyshire.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

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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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