St Andrew's CofE Junior School

St Andrew's CofE Junior School Hadfield Road, Hadfield, Glossop, SK13 2DR

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Good 2 This inspection: Requires improvement 3 Achievement of pupils Requires improvement 3 Quality of teaching Requires improvement 3 Behaviour and safety of pupils Good 2 Leadership and management Requires improvement 3

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This is a school that requires improvement. It is not good because

 Pupils do not make consistently good progress in reading and mathematics.  Disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs and pupils known to be eligible for the pupil premium do not always achieve as well as they should.  Teachers’ expectations for what pupils, including the more-able, can achieve are not always high enough, particularly in reading.  Teachers do not consistently plan lessons that make good use of the time and resources available or reflect what pupils know and can do.  Pupils are not consistently provided with clear guidance to help them improve their work, especially in mathematics.  School leaders’ reviews of teaching and pupils’ achievement are not sufficiently robust to ensure weaknesses are identified precisely and tackled quickly and effectively.

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The school has the following strengths

 Attainment in writing is rising. Gaps between the achievement of different groups are starting to reduce.  Pupils enjoy school and their attendance is consistently above average.  Pupils’ positive attitudes, good behaviour and the warm relationships they have with each other and staff contribute greatly to their sense of well-being in school.  The school cultivates pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development well.  The school’s good procedures for checking on pupils’ welfare and for promoting their safety ensure that pupils are safe and well cared for.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed teaching in 13 lessons taught by 10 teachers or teaching assistants. Two of these lessons were observed together with the headteacher or assistant headteacher.  Samples of Year 3 and Year 6 pupils’ work in English and mathematics were analysed. An inspector talked to a few Year 6 pupils about their favourite books and listened to them reading.  Meetings were held with school staff, a group of pupils, two governors and a representative from the local authority.  Inspectors took account of the 14 questionnaires completed by staff and the 30 responses by parents to the online questionnaire (Parent View).  Inspectors looked at a range of evidence including: the work in pupils’ books; monitoring records; improvement plans; the school’s own data on pupils’ attainment and progress; local authority consultants’ reports; and policies, procedures and records relating to safeguarding,

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Inspection team

Derek Aitken, Lead inspector Additional Inspector Colin Lower Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 The school is smaller than most primary schools.  Most pupils are from White British backgrounds. No pupil is currently at an early stage of learning English as an additional language.  The proportion of pupils supported by the pupil premium, which is additional funding for certain groups such as those known to be eligible for free school meals, is average.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs supported through school action is below average. The proportion supported at school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs is above average.  The school meets the government’s current floor standard, which sets the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in English and mathematics.  The school has experienced significant disruption, through staff illness, to its senior management team since the previous inspection.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Make teaching consistently good or better by ensuring all teachers:  provide more consistent support for disabled pupils, those who have special educational needs and those eligible for the pupil premium to ensure they all make faster progress  make better use of teaching time, resources and information about what pupils know and can do when planning lessons  have high expectations for pupils’ progress, give more-able pupils work that challenges them and encourage all pupils to read more demanding texts  make better use of marking and targets, especially in mathematics, to help pupils improve their work.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management, including governance, by ensuring:  all procedures for checking and reviewing of pupils’ performance are sufficiently robust to ensure weaknesses in pupils’ skills are identified precisely and tackled quickly  leaders systematically check the impact that all new initiatives, including those relating to the use of the pupil premium, have on pupils’ achievement  leaders’ judgements on the quality of teaching are robust and points for development for individual teachers are followed up rigorously.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

An external review of the school’s use of the pupil premium should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and governance may be improved.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils’ progress requires improvement. The proportions of Year 6 pupils exceeding expected progress in reading, writing and mathematics in 2013 were all below average.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Although pupils often have very positive attitudes to learning, inconsistencies in teaching hold back their progress because lessons are not always planned tightly enough to ensure they acquire and apply their skills at a fast rate, and more significantly, in mathematics.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Not all lessons offer the most able pupils the level of challenge they need to perform really well. Fewer pupils than average gained the higher level 5 by the end of Year 6 in mathematics last year. In general, pupils are not consistently given the demanding reading texts they need to develop their skills to the full.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Year 6 pupils known to be eligible for pupil premium funding did not achieve as well as they should have done in 2013. Although the school has used this funding to provide them with various forms of support, including one-to-one tuition, by the time they left, these pupils were approximately four terms behind their classmates in reading and writing and about two and a half terms behind in mathematics.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The achievement of disabled pupils and those with special educational needs is not consistently good. Some of these pupils did not make enough progress in 2013, especially in mathematics, and performed less well than equivalent pupils nationally.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Leaders are now working much more effectively to improve pupils’ achievement in writing. This has been achieved, for example, by providing pupils with more opportunities for writing for ‘real- life’ purposes, and through the helpful introduction of target cards to enable pupils to edit and improve their work in class.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Most pupils read competently, understand what they are reading and have a secure knowledge of the techniques they can use to work out the pronunciation or meaning of unfamiliar words. They delight in exploring expressive forms of language, such as poetry.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Although recent improvements in support programmes are not yet having the impact the school was hoping to see, differences in the achievement of potentially vulnerable groups and other pupils are reducing. Disabled pupils and those with special educational needs currently in Year 6, for example, are making good progress, especially in English, and rates of progress for some pupils in receipt of the pupil premium have also increased since last year.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Too much teaching requires improvement. Whilst some teaching is good, the variation in teachers’ effectiveness is the direct result of weaknesses in important aspects of their planning.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teachers’ expectations for pupils’ progress are not always high enough. Teachers do not consistently use their knowledge of what pupils can already do to plan lessons that are appropriately challenging or that ensure all pupils acquire key skills.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Occasionally, progress slows because pupils are not encouraged to extend their learning by applying it to new situations, or to develop their understanding in depth by discussing the questions they are set with their classmates. Similarly, limitations in the school’s accommodation sometimes restrict opportunities for practical work and this, too, prevents pupils planning and exploring new ideas for themselves.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Mathematical skills are taught adequately but teachers do not routinely ensure pupils gain a deep understanding of new concepts and help them solve problems by setting them tasks which require them to think really hard.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Disabled pupils benefit from sensitive one-to-one support from teaching assistants and often make valuable contributions to class discussion. However, teachers do not always plan lessons carefully with teaching assistants so that they know the learning points they are to stress in order to accelerate the pace of pupils’ learning.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teachers’ marking is regular and provides due praise for the work that pupils do well. Nevertheless, it does not provide pupils with enough guidance, especially in mathematics, and is insufficiently related to the targets pupils are set that are intended to improve their work.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teachers’ management of pupils’ behaviour is very good. This is sometimes interlaced with dashes of humour which pupils appreciate and this adds enjoyment to pupils’ learning.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 The most successful lessons are well planned. Here, teachers demonstrate a clear view of the skills they expect pupils to have developed or acquired by the end of the lesson. In these lessons, teachers use resources carefully to ensure pupils achieve their targets and they question them very effectively to enable individual pupils to clarify or to expand their ideas and thereby, to support their classmates’ learning. Pupils are encouraged to identify gains in their learning in their workbooks as they are taught to use teachers’ prompts and reminders to check their own work.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The behaviour of pupils is good and this, together with their very positive attitudes, is a major strength of the school. Relationships are warm and supportive. Pupils greatly enjoy each other’s company at work and play and are extremely polite and thoughtful in their dealings with adults, including visitors. All parents who responded to the online questionnaire indicated their satisfaction with the school’s work in ensuring pupils behave well.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Pupils in all year groups are reflective and mature. Routines are well understood and pupils are quick to cooperate with staff’s requests to settle to their work or to tidy up quickly at the end of lessons. When given the opportunity to participate in discussion in lessons, pupils listen carefully and support each other’s learning well. Pupils collaborate well in paired activities and most pupils are keen to answer the teacher’s questions. They are self-disciplined and groups can be relied upon to work with minimal supervision while the teacher is helping other pupils.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Pupils enjoy lessons and usually concentrate and persevere very well, even when activities are sometimes mundane in those lessons where the teaching requires improvement.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is good. Any rare concerns pupils have regarding bullying or other forms of unacceptable behaviour are quickly followed up. Incidents are routinely recorded and necessary precautions, such as fire practices, are held regularly. Behaviour logs show that prejudice-based incidents and exclusions are very few and far between. Attendance is consistently above average.  Pupils are comprehensively trained in how to stay safe and to combat potential dangers, such as ‘stranger danger’ and cyber-bullying. Pupils play their part by showing consideration for each other’s needs to stay safe during ball-games and energetic chasing games at playtimes.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Case studies show that the school works extremely well with external agencies and parents to support the various needs of individual pupils, especially in welfare and safeguarding matters.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Lengthy periods of absence affecting key staff have reduced the capacity of senior and middle leaders to drive improvement quickly since the previous inspection.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Not enough purposeful use is made by leaders of the school’s systems for tracking pupils’ progress to pinpoint relative weaknesses in the skills of individual pupils or groups of pupils. Action is consequently not always taken quickly enough to tackle these weaknesses and to support pupils who need extra help. Some useful new initiatives have been implemented by middle leaders but others are not always sharply focused and consequently their impact on improving achievement has been inconsistent.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Senior leaders’ evaluations of the quality of teaching are over-optimistic. Appropriate procedures are in place for conducting lesson observations, but leaders do not follow-up areas that have been identified for development for individual teachers in a rigorous or timely way.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The school has coped well with the disruption caused by illness to key staff. Careful planning by governors, teachers and other senior staff has meant that staff stepping into senior leadership positions have been well supported. This has allowed staff morale to remain high and ensured the smooth running of the school until colleagues are well enough to resume their posts. Although standards remain only average, the school has reversed the dip to below average seen in 2011 and pupils’ attainment in writing has risen.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Leaders, including governors, have worked hard and successfully to create a strong community spirit within the school and to ensure pupils are well looked after. Pupils enjoy a wide range of interesting enrichment activities and leaders spare no effort in ensuring that pupils develop strong citizenship values. Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is promoted well, for example, in assemblies and through active projects undertaken with the local community and the school’s partner school in Zimbabwe.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The local authority has provided the school with useful support to help the school overcome staffing difficulties at senior level.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The first instalment of the recent national sports funding for primary schools has been spent suitably, for example, in employing a physical education specialist and in extending the range of clubs and activities for pupils. Some evidence of impact is already apparent in the increasing numbers of pupils participating in sporting activities and in the developing confidence of non- specialist teachers who have benefited from recent training.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The governance of the school:  Governors have a comprehensive, well-informed view about how well the school works with the local and international community to promote pupils’ citizenship values and the quality of the school’s work in supporting pupils’ spiritual, social, moral and cultural development. They have ensured the school has coped with the illnesses of key staff well.  Governors do not maintain sufficient oversight of the achievement of different groups of pupils. They know why and how pupil premium funding is spent in various ways but have not rigorously assessed its impact on eligible pupils.  Governors’ actions for reviewing the headteacher’s performance are appropriate. They make sure that suitable procedures are followed whenever decisions are made about staff pay rises and promotion.  Governors make sure that the school’s systems for safeguarding are secure and meet current national 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 112869 Local authority Derbyshire Inspection number 431716

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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 Junior School category Voluntary controlled Age range of pupils 7–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 188 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair David Mundy Headteacher Andrew Cartledge Date of previous school inspection 14 March 2011 Telephone number 01457 852328 Fax number 01457 852328 Email address info@st-andrews-jun.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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