Setting

Gordon McBurnie Chase Terrace Primary School Rugeley Road Chase Terrace WS7 1AH

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Primary School

Following my visit to your school on 2 October 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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Primary School

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in 27 June 2013. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

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Primary School

Senior leaders and governors are not taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the last section 5 inspection and plans are not sharply focused on rapidly bringing about improvement. The school should take immediate action to:

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Primary School

 strengthen the school action plans to involve actions over an appropriate period of time and improve monitoring and evaluation procedures  ensure pupils’ targets are aspirational to ensure all pupils make at least good progress.  help teachers to improve the quality of teaching though individual support programmes, making sure lessons are interesting, with relevance and purpose, leading to pupils making good progress.  plan training for the governing body so they are able to hold leaders to account for their actions. Serco Inspections Colmore Plaza 20 Colmore Circus Queensway Birmingham B4 6AT T 0300 123 1231 Text Phone: 0161 6188524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Direct T : 0121 679 9153 Direct email : naik.sandhu@serco.com

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Evidence

During the visit, meetings were held with you, the deputy headteacher, representatives from the governing body, a representative of the local authority and the Local Leader of Education. The school action plans were evaluated, a number of short visits were made to lessons and school documentation was examined.

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Context

Since the last inspection, two new class teachers have been appointed to replace temporary staff. The senior leadership team has been strengthened with two leaders sharing responsibility for Key Stage 1.

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Main findings

Following the last inspection, a new action plan has been written by you and senior leaders. It is focused on the areas for improvement identified in the last Ofsted report. However, actions are not sharply focused enough and the monitoring and evaluation procedures are not rigorous enough. There is too little involvement by the governing body, the local authority and the Local Leader for Education in checking how well actions are carried out.

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Main findings

The plan indicates some timescales but these do not continue past the next two months. As a result, there is a lack of clarity of how the intended actions will develop and improve outcomes for pupils. Subject leaders for English and mathematics have devised action plans to improve their subject areas. These plans have identified focus groups of pupils that need to improve, according to their outcomes, in 2013. However, again these actions do not include any detail beyond December 2013. This leads to a lack of strategic direction of how the school will improve.

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Main findings

There are targets for all year groups of what levels pupils should achieve in reading, writing and mathematics. These targets are not aspirational enough and do not support the pupils to make enough progress so they can catch up with their learning.

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Main findings

The senior leadership team has monitored lessons and carried out a range of other monitoring activities. Some of this is effective and will help the school move forward. However, some monitoring does not focus on how well groups of pupils are achieving and some judgements made are over optimistic.

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Main findings

Training for teachers has been delivered, focusing on the school’s key issues. Effective work is developing to link improving the quality of teaching to the management of the performance of teachers. Links have been made with a local good school and this is beginning to provide effective training. However, initial evidence from lessons and pupils’ books would indicate that this training has not been acted upon quickly enough by some teachers. For example, too much teaching lacks relevance for pupils because there is an over-reliance on pupils completing worksheets. Furthermore, plans to improve the quality of teaching are not implemented quickly enough to help the school to improve in the required timeframe.

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Main findings

The governors are committed to challenging and supporting the school. They have quite correctly identified the need to focus on the use of the pupil premium funding. This is additional funding provided by the government for pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and those looked after in public care. As a result, governors now have a greater understanding of how this money is spent and they have monitored the impact of this funding. Governors can demonstrate how the gap in attainment between pupils supported by the pupil premium and others has narrowed. While governors are getting better at asking pertinent questions to measure the difference senior leaders are making, they have not received training to support this development. As a result, they are not holding you and leaders to account as well as they should.

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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.

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External support

The local authority has provided a range of support to help the school to improve. They attend ‘core group meetings’ with senior staff and governors, where progress against key issues is discussed. They review the performance of the school and are involved in monitoring the quality of teaching. Training to help the younger children with transition into Year 1 has been carried out and they are linking with a local school. The Local Leader of Education is supporting work to improve teaching and learning and leadership and management.

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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 Staffordshire.

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