Norbriggs Primary School

Norbriggs Primary School Norbriggs Road, Mastin Moor, Chesterfield, S43 3BW

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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’ underachievement in Key Stage 2 over the last three years has resulted in lower attainment than should have been expected at the end of Year 6.  Disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs do not always achieve as well as they should.  A few weaknesses in teaching hold back the development of pupils’ writing skills.  Teachers do not consistently plan lessons that enable pupils to acquire and to apply their skills systematically and quickly.  Not enough use is made of assessment and pupils’ targets to accelerate their progress in Key Stage 2.  Some leadership roles and responsibilities are not fully developed across the school. This limits the contribution these leaders make to checking teaching and learning and to improving the school’s effectiveness.

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The school has the following strengths

 Most pupils from Nursery to Year 5 are now making good progress.  Gaps between the achievement of pupils known to be eligible for extra funding and their classmates have closed.  Pupils have positive attitudes to learning and behave well in lessons and around school. The school ensures they are kept safe.  The new headteacher is already making an impact on school improvement. Staff morale is good.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed teaching in 14 lessons taught by 10 teachers or teaching assistants. Two of these lessons were observed together with the headteacher.  Samples of pupils’ work in writing and mathematics were analysed. An inspector listened to a sample of Year 2 pupils reading.  Meetings were held with school staff, a group of pupils, governors and a representative from the local authority.  Inspectors took account of the 25 questionnaires completed by staff. There were insufficient responses to the online questionnaire (Parent View) for them to be published. However, inspectors took into account the results of the school’s own recent surveys of parents’ views. An inspector spoke informally to some parents at the beginning of the school day.  Inspectors looked at a range of evidence including: the work in pupils’ books; monitoring records; consultants’ reports; the school improvement plan; the school’s own data on pupils’

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Information about this inspection

attainment and progress; and policies, procedures and records relating to safeguarding, behaviour and attendance.

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Inspection team

Derek Aitken, Lead inspector Additional Inspector Geoffrey Dorrity 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. Very few pupils are 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 above average.  The proportions of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs supported through school action, at school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs are a little above average.  The headteacher and deputy teacher took up their posts in September 2013. Since then three other new teachers have joined the school.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in English and mathematics.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Make teaching consistently good or better, especially in Key Stage 2, by ensuring all teachers:  provide more consistent support for disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs  choose lesson activities carefully to enable pupils to acquire and to apply new learning systematically and at a brisk pace  make better use of assessment and pupils’ targets to accelerate pupils’ learning and progress.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve pupils’ achievement in writing by ensuring all teachers:  pay close attention to pupils’ handwriting and correct any mistakes as they occur  discuss topics that they wish pupils to write about fully to enable pupils to organise their ideas clearly and to write in sufficient depth.

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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 leaders carry out robust checks on teaching and learning within their areas of responsibility to enable them to contribute fully to school development planning and the raising of pupils’ achievement.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Over the last three years, after a good start in Reception and Key Stage 1 and generally above average attainment by the end of Year 2, pupils’ progress has slowed and attainment at the end of Year 6 has been no better than average.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The proportions of pupils in Year 6 in 2013 who made and exceeded expected progress in reading, writing and mathematics were below national averages.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 While Key Stage 2 pupils’ attainment in writing has risen considerably in the last three years, weaknesses in handwriting skills hold back their progress. For example, bad habits made in Key Stage 1 in forming letters are sometimes not corrected. Not all lessons offer more-able pupils the level of challenge they need to perform really well, which reduce the opportunities they have to write extendedly and in depth.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils with a statement of special educational needs benefit from one-to-one help from teaching assistants and mostly make good progress. Other disabled pupils and those with special educational needs are not consistently well supported. Although short-term support programmes have helped some individual pupils to catch up, gaps in learning have, more commonly, not been tackled quickly or systematically enough. This flaw has slowed the progress of these pupils in the current Year 6 class.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The attainment of Year 6 pupils known to be eligible for the pupil premium improved in 2013, especially at the higher Level 5. Nonetheless, these pupils were working, on average, about two terms behind their classmates in reading and writing, and one term behind in mathematics. Small-group tuition is now helping these pupils to make faster progress.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Children join Nursery with levels of skills and aptitudes which are well below those typically expected for this age. They make fast progress in Reception.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils also do well in Key Stage 1. Results in the Year 1 screening test for phonics (the sounds that letters make) matched the national average. Year 2 pupils understand letters and sounds well and read accurately.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The picture in Key Stage 2 is now considerably brighter. The proportions of pupils making good progress in Years 3 to 5 are much improved. Attainment in Year 5 is well above average and, across the school, pupils eligible for pupil premium funding are achieving as well as their classmates.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 The quality of teaching in Years 3 to 6 has, over time, been too variable to ensure that pupils make good progress in Key Stage 2.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Weaknesses in the use of assessment and pupils’ targets have reduced the impact of the useful actions which have been taken since the previous inspection to tackle identified areas for improvement in pupils’ skills in Key Stage 2.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teachers do not consistently plan lessons to enable pupils to acquire and to apply their new skills systematically. Teachers sometimes do not consider closely what they want pupils to have achieved by the end of the lesson. They do not routinely choose activities carefully enough, make the best use of resources or guide pupils’ learning well. This reduces the time available for pupils to build their knowledge and skills. It also restricts opportunities for teachers to review and to develop pupils’ knowledge.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Mistakes in the formation of individual letters or numbers are sometimes overlooked. In some lessons teachers do not question pupils or discuss topics in sufficient depth before pupils start to organise and to express their ideas in written tasks. However, good use has been made of visits and visitors to provide pupils with a wider range of opportunities for writing for ‘real life’ purposes. In other lessons teachers make purposeful use of resources to extend pupils’ descriptive vocabulary.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teachers do not always plan lessons carefully with teaching assistants so that they can better accelerate the learning of different groups of pupils, including disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 In the best lessons teachers demonstrate a clear view of the skills they expect pupils to have acquired or developed by the end of the lesson. They select activities carefully to ensure pupils achieve these aims and use time expertly to review, clarify and extend the learning of different groups of pupils, including the more-able.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 In Reception and Year 2, good examples were seen of teachers’ high expectations for pupils’ progress; their sharply focused lessons ensured that pupils acquired knowledge and added depth to their learning quickly. For example, more-able Reception children, prompted by the teacher, suggested more complex words such as ‘cauldron’ as alternatives to ‘pot’ and moved on confidently from their knowledge of two-dimensional shapes to identify the properties of three- dimensional shapes.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The behaviour of pupils is good. Children settle well in the Early Years Foundation Stage. They respond quickly to adults’ prompting, take a keen interest in their work and most children show initiative, for example in helping each other out or in selecting materials to work with.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 From Year 1 upwards pupils also have positive attitudes to learning. They interact well with each other in most lessons to practise and to check their learning. Year 5 pupils, in particular, are very keen to answer the teacher’s questions and help each other out willingly by suggesting alternative ways of solving problems. Staff manage pupils well and relationships are respectful and supportive.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Pupils behave well in corridors and in the dinner-hall. They report few problems with behaviour, apart from the occasional ‘fall-out’ in the playground. Pupils’ attendance is checked closely. It recovered in 2013 after a dip in 2012 and is now average. There were very few exclusions last year and there has been only one fixed term exclusion since September 2013.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is good. Staff have a detailed knowledge of the medical and social needs of younger pupils and use this information well to keep a close eye on pupils’ welfare, for example during playtimes. Parents, as indicated in the school’s own questionnaires and discussions with an inspector, are very satisfied with staff’s efforts to ensure pupils’ well-being in school.  Pupils know how to play safely and can, for example, explain why safety barriers are in place to guard against potential dangers from the building site. They are confident that teachers would deal effectively with any instances of bullying. School councillors play their part too, through having a say in changes to the school’s behaviour policy and anti-bullying initiatives.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The well-considered actions which have been taken since September 2013, for example for tightening up assessment procedures, are not yet deeply rooted in the school’s work. Although new staff have settled well, consistency, for example, in the use of marking and pupils’ targets has not been achieved.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Senior and middle leaders, including new appointees, have not carried out checks on teaching and learning within their areas of responsibility in sufficient detail to enable them to exert a strong influence on the school’s work and direction. The progress of disabled pupils and those with special educational needs is not monitored closely enough to ensure these pupils make good progress in lessons led by class teachers.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The new headteacher has an accurate view of the quality of the school’s current work. He quickly identified causes of pupils’ underachievement in Key Stage 2 and developed clear plans to tackle them systematically. The benefits of the school’s new tracking system are already apparent in pupils’ improved rates of progress in Years 3 and 4. Questionnaires indicate that his forceful leadership enjoys staff’s full confidence and morale is good.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is fostered adequately through the curriculum. Enrichment activities, for example visits to the Viking Centre, support the development of pupils’ writing effectively. There are few planned opportunities outside the classroom to promote pupils’ awareness of cultural diversity.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The local authority was slow to take effective action to tackle the underachievement of Key Stage 2 pupils. Since the new headteacher’s appointment they have increased their level of support.

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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 professional coaches to improve staff’s and pupils’ skills. This expenditure, together with a recent, successful National Lottery bid has enabled the school to run an extended range of sports clubs every evening and boost pupils’ participation in sport, including in competitive events.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The governance of the school:  Governors acknowledge that, in the past, they have not held senior leaders rigorously to account. They have been considerably more effective in the last six months. They have taken sensible decisions over pupil premium funding through appointing a teacher to oversee this area of the school’s work. They have undertaken a skills audit and rearranged committees to help them review the school’s work more closely.  They keep targets for the headteacher’s performance under regular review and now participate more fully in decision-making. They are aware of the aspects of pupils’ skills which require improvement and have an adequate overview of the quality of teaching.  They are making sure that suitable procedures are followed when decisions are taken about staff pay rises and promotion.  Governors make sure that the school’s systems for safeguarding are secure and meet current

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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 112705 Local authority Derbyshire Inspection number 440356

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School details

This inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was also deemed a section 5 inspection under the same Act.

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School details

Type of school Primary School category Community Age range of pupils 3–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 213 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Elaine Tidd Headteacher Tim Clarke Date of previous school inspection 14 October 2010 Telephone number 01246 473398 Fax number 01246 470917 Email address info@norbriggs.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

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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