Terrington St John Primary School

Terrington St John Primary School School Road, Terrington St John, Wisbech, PE14 7SG

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Good 2 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 school that requires special measures.  Teaching is inadequate. Teachers do not set pupils work that matches their abilities. As a result, pupils do not make enough progress in lessons.  By the end of Year 6, pupils have not made adequate progress from their starting points in Year 1, particularly in writing and reading.  Reading and writing are not taught well enough. The teaching of the links between sounds and letters is weak, and teachers do not give enough attention to literacy when teaching other subjects.  Teachers do not explain to pupils how well they are doing and what they need to learn next, when they mark their books.  Pupils’ attendance is below the national average.  Checks made on teaching and learning by senior leaders are not frequent or rigorous enough to lead to improvements in the quality of teaching or to ensure that all pupils make good progress in their work.  Leaders are not fully aware of the school’s

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

weaknesses and plans for improvement are not sharp enough.  The governing body has not been given sufficiently accurate information to challenge leaders about pupils’ inadequate achievements.

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The school has the following strengths

 Pupils who have special educational needs make good progress when they receive extra support.  The school is a friendly place where pupils are confident and welcoming. They feel safe.

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Information about this inspection

 The lead inspector observed parts of nine lessons, one of them jointly with the executive headteacher.  She held meetings with the Executive Headteacher, assistant headteacher, the federation’s special needs coordinator, teachers and the Chair of the Governing Body for the federation.  The inspector looked at work in pupils’ books; some pupils read to her and others spoke to her about their experiences at the school.  She spoke to the local authority’s representative for the school and the federation.  The inspector took account of the four responses to the online questionnaire (Parent View) and spoke to several parents and carers.  She looked at a range of school documents. This included the school’s self-evaluation, data about pupils’ progress, and information relating to safeguarding, behaviour, exclusions and attendance.  Questionnaires from five staff were considered.

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Inspection team

Nicola Hardman, Lead inspector 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. The school should not appoint newly qualified teachers.

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Information about this school

 Terrington St John is smaller than the average-sized primary school.  The proportion of pupils for whom the school receives the pupil premium (additional government funding for pupils known to be eligible for free school meals, those with a parent in the armed services or those in the care of the local authority) is below the national average.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those with special educational needs supported through school action is above the national average. The percentage of pupils supported by school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs is below the national average.  The proportions of pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds and those who speak English as an additional language are lower than the national average.  A higher proportion of pupils than is typical joins or leaves the school at other than the usual times.  The school meets the government’s current floor standard, which sets the minimum expectations

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Information about this school

for attainment and progress.  The school is part of a three-school federation, with the same executive headteacher and governing body. One of the other federated schools, Walpole Highway Primary, was inspected on the same two days as this school. It has a separate inspection report.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the quality of teaching by ensuring that teachers: – give pupils work that is at the right level for them, especially ensuring that it is hard enough to challenge the more able – use the skills of support staff effectively during all parts of the lesson – have sufficiently high expectations of the quality and quantity of pupils’ written work – encourage pupils to learn to work without always having direct help from adults.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve pupils’ achievement, especially in writing and reading, by: – improving teachers’ knowledge of how to teach reading and writing, particularly the links between letters and the sounds they make – ensuring every opportunity is given to all pupils to practise their literacy and numeracy skills in subjects other than English and mathematics – making sure that marking highlights the strengths in pupils’ work, provides clear guidance about how it can be improved, and gives enough attention to the quality of writing and handwriting, whatever the subject – improving pupils’ attendance.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve leadership and management by ensuring leaders: – check regularly that teachers’ lessons and lesson plans result in pupils making better progress in their work, including those receiving support through the pupil premium – give all staff performance management objectives for improving their teaching, providing them with any necessary training to help achieve their targets, and holding them to account for the progress pupils make – use evidence in pupils’ books to be sure that assessments of standards and progress are accurate, and record and present these judgements clearly – use more accurate information about how well the school is doing to write sharply focused plans for improving the school’s performance – carefully, consistently and robustly follow up and record any inappropriate behaviour or incidents of bullying.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Ensure governors gain a clear view of the school’s effectiveness and the quality of its teaching within the federation, and demand improvements from leaders. An external review of governance should be carried out, in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management could be improved.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Achievement is inadequate. Standards are not good enough by Year 6 because of weaknesses in teaching, in the curriculum and because pupils are not encouraged to show initiative and work well independently of their teachers. This is the case for pupils of all backgrounds.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Progress is inadequate across Years 1 to 6. Progress in writing is poor because too often teachers do not take account of what pupils know already and do not plan suitable work to meet the needs of individual pupils. Pupils in Key Stage 2 struggle with spelling and grammar, and continue to make the same mistakes. Pupils do not use their skills in literacy and numeracy in other subjects and so do not deepen their understanding.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Work in pupils’ books is often untidy and poorly set out, is sometimes unfinished and does not show what they have learnt. Few pupils develop a joined-up style of handwriting as they get older, which means they write too slowly.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Gaps between the achievement of different groups in the school and similar pupils nationally are not closing quickly enough. Disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs do well when they are taught out of class and have specialist work provided for them, but they are not given suitable work in many lessons when they are with the whole class. More-able pupils are often asked to do work that is too easy for them and few achieve the higher levels of which they are capable, particularly in Year 2.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Pupils known to be eligible for support through the pupil premium funding make slower progress than other pupils. National test results for these pupils in Year 6 in 2012 show that they were about five terms behind other pupils in English and mathematics.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Most children enter the Reception class with skills and abilities that are in line with those expected nationally for their age. Their progress through Reception requires improvement. Adults make sure that the children have the chance to learn through play as well as through taught sessions, but they sometimes do not expect enough of the more-able children.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Pupils are not confident learners. They are too dependent on adult help and often give up too readily rather than to try working things out for themselves.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The school’s test results show that teaching has not been good enough to ensure that pupils make sufficient progress by the end of Year 6. Information about the standards that current pupils are reaching shows that their progress has also been too slow. Teaching is not good enough to help pupils to catch up. This is especially so for pupils in Years 3 to 6.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teachers’ expectations of pupils are too low, especially for the more able. Information about what pupils already know and can do is not taken into account when teachers are planning and it is not used effectively to ensure all work is appropriate for every pupil. This is compounded by the fact that assessment information is not always accurate.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teachers do not know how to teach reading and writing effectively. Pupils do not learn as much as they could in sessions about the links between sounds and letters, because the teaching is not precise and lacks pace. Pupils cannot transfer these skills to help them with their everyday reading.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teacher’s marking of pupils’ work is variable in quality. Marking does not help pupils understand how well they are doing and how to improve their work. Marking makes little reference to improvements that are needed in pupils’ handwriting, spelling and punctuation.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teaching assistants do not always support pupils’ learning throughout the lesson. Often they are observers during introductions to lessons, and some are not given the information about how they are expected to support individuals and groups of pupils. Few of them pass on to the teacher what they have found out about pupils’ learning during the lesson.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Attendance is below average and this is having a negative impact on the pupils’ learning.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Behaviour in some lessons is not good enough. Although pupils usually have positive attitudes to their learning, when teaching is not demanding enough, some pupils lose concentration and become restless.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Most pupils are happy and enjoy school. They show respect and tolerance for each other and staff. They feel safe, and are confident and polite to visitors.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils have a secure knowledge of how to stay safe when using the internet and can explain some forms of bullying. They say that bullying is not a problem in the school and that other pupils are friendly.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 While there are few incidents of bullying, the school is not keeping good enough records. Staff are not following the school’s procedures and the behaviour records do not include all incidents that occur. This means that some incidents are not acted upon by the adults who supervise the pupils. Incidents are also not tracked or analysed rigorously to check for patterns of poor behaviour.

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The leadership and management is inadequate

 Leaders do not demonstrate the ability to secure essential improvements. Current arrangements for driving improvement and raising standards are inadequate.

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The leadership and management is inadequate

 Self-evaluation is inaccurate and does not correctly identify the school’s weaknesses. Plans for improvement are not sufficiently focused on the key things that need to be done. Not enough attention is given to checking the impact of teaching on pupils’ learning.

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The leadership and management is inadequate

 While the school has some information about pupils’ attainment and progress, it is not presented clearly so that staff and governors can quickly and easily understand how well pupils are achieving. Many of the assessments do not match with work in pupils’ books and senior leaders do not check the accuracy of the information carefully enough.

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The leadership and management is inadequate

 Performance management is not used effectively to hold staff to account for the progress of the pupils they teach. Leaders do not check regularly enough that teachers’ planning and their teaching results in the work in pupils’ books showing that they are making good progress.

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The leadership and management is inadequate

 The local authority raised concerns recently that the school’s self-evaluation was inaccurate and that judgements made had not been supported by strong evidence from the senior leaders of the school. However, it has not managed to provide sufficient support and challenge to halt the school’s decline.

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The leadership and management is inadequate

 The governance of the school:  The Chair of the Governing Body is aware of the strengths and areas for development of the school and has begun to challenge its leaders. However, the governing body as a whole does not have an accurate view of the school’s performance and does not use information available effectively. Within the federation, governors lack a thorough understanding of this individual school’s weaknesses, including in teaching. This is partly due to inaccurate information that has been presented by the current senior leaders. As a result, governors have not yet addressed weaknesses in teaching urgently enough and have not ensured that performance management has been used to create a link between what teachers are paid and the quality of their work. Governors have not made sure that the pupil premium funding allocated to this school within the federation has been used effectively to support the learning of those pupils

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The leadership and management is inadequate

for whom it was intended. The arrangements for safeguarding meet requirements.

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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 120883 Local authority Norfolk Inspection number 408943

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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 53 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Chris Baldwin Headteacher Richard Chamberlain (Executive Headteacher) Date of previous school inspection 9 February 2010 Telephone number 01945 880340 Fax number 01945 880340 Email address head@terrington-st-john.norfolk.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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