Setting

Mr Paul Mattausch Burrows Headteacher Twerton Infant School Poolemead Road Twerton Bath BA2 1QR

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School

Following my visit to your school on 28 June 2013, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the findings of my visit. Thank you for the help you gave me and for the time you made available to discuss the actions you are taking to improve the school since the most recent section 5 inspection.

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School

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in May 2013. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

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Evidence

During the visit I met with you, one member of the Governing Body, your deputy headteacher, the Early Years Foundation Stage leader and a representative of the local authority. You gave me a tour of the school and I was able to see some of the children at work. I looked at a range of school documentation including recent governing body minutes and evaluated the school’s plans for improvement.

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Main findings

Working with your senior leaders, you have moved quickly to ensure the school will be judged good at its next inspection. This is because you are taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the recent section 5 inspection. Tribal 1–4 Portland Square Bristol BS2 8RR T 0300 123 1231 Text Phone: 0161 6188524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Direct T 0117 311 5359 Direct F 0117 315 0430 Email : christina.bannerman@tribalgroup.co.uk A good example of this is your swift action to establish a consistent approach to marking across the school. Senior leaders quickly identified the approach to marking you wished to adopt. This was explained to staff and monitored to ensure delivery in classrooms. This was followed by a whole school book scrutiny to monitor initial impact. The fact that further monitoring will take place before the end of term sets a brisk pace of change so that senior leaders can evaluate where this is working well

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Main findings

across the school and where further refinement is needed.

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Main findings

The combination of your decisive action and the good explanation and support provided to staff ensures that new procedures are adopted quickly. The introduction of clear monitoring procedures provides teachers with clear deadlines to work to with the knowledge that additional support is available, if needed.

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Main findings

As a result, there is clear evidence that the quality of marking and feedback to pupils is improving across the school. As we discussed, it is important that you adopt the same approach to developing the consistency of the teaching of phonics.

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Main findings

Members of the governing body have met to discuss the inspection report and had an initial meeting with the independent consultant identified to carry out the external review. They are taking the findings of the inspection seriously and have considered how they will be monitoring the progress of the school. However, they need to strengthen their own organisation so that they can play a full part in the work that lies ahead.

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Main findings

To maintain the pace of current work the school should take further action to:

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Main findings

 ensure pupil progress meetings focus on pupils who are not making sufficient progress and that resulting actions are recorded and revisited  make sure senior leaders use clear evidence to make accurate judgements of pupil progress in lessons  be clear about how you will evaluate teaching over time and use these measures to judge the impact of school improvement activities  support the governing body to identify and appoint a temporary Chairperson to cover the absence of the current Chair and Vice-Chair and ensure that the terms of reference and constitution are up-to-date.

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Main findings

Ofsted may carry out further visits and, where necessary, provide further support and challenge to the school until its next section 5 inspection. I will return to the school during the autumn term to carry out whole-school monitoring of phonics to support senior leaders with the second and third points above.

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External support

The school is making good use of the support on offer from the local authority. The local authority have put a strong programme of support in place for the governing body involving the support of a national leader of governance and is providing additional training and support as part of the review of the governing body. The local authority is also convening a series of formal meetings with the school to evaluate the impact of support.

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External support

I am copying this letter to the Chair of the Governing Body and the Director of Children’s Services for Bath and North East Somerset.

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