Robert Shaw Primary and Nursery School

Robert Shaw Primary School Southfield Road, Western Boulevard, Nottingham, NG8 3PL

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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 Requires improvement 3 Leadership and management Requires improvement 3

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

 Pupils make expected, rather than good, progress.  Throughout the school, pupils do not spell, punctuate and construct sentences well for their ages.  Work for the most-able pupils does not enable them to develop the necessary skills to reach higher levels over time.  The quality of teaching is inconsistent and not enough of it is good.  Marking does not regularly tell pupils what they have done well and what they need to do next.  Teachers do not give pupils regular chances to practise specific writing skills in other subjects.  Not all pupils behave well in lessons that do not interest them or make them want to learn.  The school does not provide break and lunch time activities that keep pupils purposefully occupied.  Leadership and management responsibilities are not shared out effectively. Senior and subject leaders do not have specific roles or accountability for gathering and assessing information about pupils’ progress. They do not

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

take responsibility for the quality of teaching, learning and the curriculum in their areas.  The headteacher is driving improvement, but does not keep a close enough check on the work of subject leaders.  The governing body does not have a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of teaching and achievement, in order to hold leaders to account.

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The school has the following strengths

 Children in the Reception year achieve well.  Pupils feel safe and have a good understanding of possible dangers and how to avoid them.  Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is promoted well, and pupils get on well with each other.  Teaching assistants support pupils well.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspectors watched 21 lessons, of which two were observed with the headteacher.  They spoke with many pupils during lessons and break times, and formally with a group of pupils to find out their views about their school. One inspector listened to pupils read. Another inspector spoke with parents before the start of the school day.  The inspectors held meetings with the senior leadership team, subject leaders, members of the governing body and with a representative of the local authority.  They looked at a wide range of documentation, including information about the standards and progress of all groups of pupils, samples of their work, the school’s improvement planning, its policies to safeguard pupils, and attendance records.

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Inspection team

Lynne Blakelock, Lead inspector Additional Inspector Jacques Szemalikowski Additional Inspector Patrick Cook Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 The school is larger than other schools of its type and the number on roll continues to rise.  A higher proportion of pupils than nationally join or leave the school at other than the expected times.  The proportion of pupils supported through the pupil premium (additional funding for looked- after children, those from service families and those known to be eligible for free school meals) is below average.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs supported at school action is average. The proportion supported at school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs is well below average.  The proportion of pupils from ethnic minority backgrounds or who speak English as an additional language is well above average.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress.

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Information about this school

 The school works with a local family of schools to improve teaching and leadership. The headteacher, in her role as a Local Leader of Education, supports schools to strengthen their effectiveness.  The learning area for children in the Early Years Foundation Stage has just been re-built.  There have been numerous staffing changes since the last inspection and including very recently.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the quality of teaching so that it is at least consistently good or better, and enables pupils to make quicker progress and reach higher standards by making sure that:  work for the most-able pupils enables them to develop the understanding, knowledge and skills throughout the school to reach higher levels  marking tells pupils what they have learnt well and what they need to do next.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Raise standards in writing by ensuring that pupils:  spell and use punctuation accurately and construct sentences well  practise specific writing skills in other subjects very regularly.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Promote the good behaviour of all pupils in lessons, at break and lunch times through:  teaching and learning that consistently interests and motivates them  the provision of interesting playground activities.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Strengthen the impact of leadership and management at all levels by ensuring that:  senior and subject leaders have specific roles, and are accountable for driving improvement quickly, starting with responsibility for collecting and analysing information about pupils’ achievement  senior and subject leaders check the quality of teaching, learning and the curriculum in their areas regularly and thoroughly to identify and tackle aspects for improvement promptly  the deputy headteacher has accountability for meeting formally and regularly with subject leaders to assess their progress towards their goals  the governing body has a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the school’s work and its impact, in order to hold leaders to account.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

An external review of governance 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 make expected, rather than good, progress throughout Key Stages 1 and 2. This is because not enough teaching is consistently good. Standards, especially in writing, are not high enough because until recently teaching did not focus on the skills pupils most need to know and practise. Although many pupils always try hard in lessons, some do lose concentration and this slows their progress.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Standards by the end of Year 6 rose considerably from 2012 to 2013 and are on track to be broadly average in 2014. They are lower in writing but the school’s good strategies in Reception and Key Stage 1 are starting to work through the rest of the school. Pupils’ reading skills are stronger than their writing and mathematics skills. Most groups of pupils read well, due to a consistent focus on reading from Reception onwards.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The standards that pupils reach by the end of Year 2 have fallen in recent years in reading and writing. However, progress is now quickening because assessments of pupils’ learning are accurate, more teaching of literacy is good and the school makes sure that from Reception onwards children read and write very often. In Year 1, a growing proportion of pupils are using capital letters and full stops more confidently. Throughout the school, overall, pupils do not spell, punctuate and construct sentences accurately enough to help them to make rapid progress.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Children start Reception with attainment that is well below the levels of knowledge and skills typically found nationally for their age. They make good progress in all areas of learning although only a minority achieve the Early Learning Goals. From the start of Reception, the children develop very secure skills in using phonics (the sounds that individual letters and groups of letters make) to help them read and write. In the national Year 1 phonics check pupils reached above average standards. This shows good improvement on the 2012 results and is due to effective teaching and plenty of chances to practise phonics.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils’ progress in writing is beginning to quicken because they are expected to write, including at length, and writing tasks are interesting.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Most groups of pupils make similar rates of progress by the end of Year 6, including disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, pupils who speak English as an additional language and boys and girls, because they receive appropriate support. This includes the notable proportion of pupils who join the school late.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 In Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, too few of the most-able pupils reach higher levels or make good progress in reading, writing and mathematics. They do not get enough opportunities to practise or transfer their skills in situations that really make them think.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils who are supported by pupil premium funding benefit from one-to-one and group support in literacy and numeracy and extra resources for reading. They make expected progress through the school. The standards that they reached last year were a term in front of their classmates in reading and mathematics and – a little more than this in writing.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils are developing a wider range of skills through an increased range of activities made possible by the primary sport funding and the teaching of the sports coach. It is developing pupils confidence and enjoyment of physical activities and their understanding of the importance of healthy lifestyle, including diet.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 The quality of teaching across the school is inconsistent and work is regularly undemanding for the most-able pupils. This includes the teaching of English and mathematics. Activities do not enable pupils to develop their understanding and skills so that they make quick progress. In just a few lessons, work is too hard for pupils working at lower levels.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Marking, while excellent in some lessons, is too inconsistent to support pupils’ good progress over time. It does not often enough tell pupils what they have learnt well and, particularly, what to do next to make more progress.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Pupils become inattentive when teaching does not interest them and when they just want to get on with learning for themselves.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Although pupils get regular chances to practise their reading, writing and mathematical skills in other subjects, they are not often the specific skills they have just learnt. A good exception to this was in a numeracy lesson where pupils answered a number question by creating a sentence about speech marks, which they had learnt about in the previous literacy lesson.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 In some classrooms, especially in Reception and Key Stage 1, bright, helpful displays include reminders and tips of what pupils need to learn and do.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Although too much teaching requires improvement, some teaching across the school is good. A Year 6 lesson had a really interesting start. The teacher shared her holiday experiences, and in doing so, provided rich, powerful vocabulary and a very clear purpose to learning.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 In Reception, teaching is good. Children learn well in the bright, stimulating environment. Words are displayed everywhere. Children develop a love of reading and words because the stories they listen to and the words they chant so expressively are great fun to learn and write about.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teaching assistants know the help that pupils need and support them to become more confident and secure in what they are learning. They were especially effective in Reception in helping children with their specific needs and in a small mathematics support group in Year 5. Pupils learnt at the right pace, building step-by-step on their existing skills, and found out how to solve simple problems.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The behaviour of pupils requires improvement. It is variable in lessons, depending on the quality of teaching, with a small number of pupils getting a little restless and not concentrating as well as they should.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure requires improvement. In the playground, behaviour can get boisterous, and although pupils are well supervised and are safe, it worries some of them. The problem is that there is not much to do at break and lunch times.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Many pupils always behave well, whether learning or playing, and understand the importance of good behaviour. When teaching is good, pupils’ behaviour and attitudes to learning are always good. They understand the difference between right and wrong, with one pupil explaining it as ‘an invisible wall’ separating the two.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils are polite and friendly towards adults, support their classmates in their learning, and get on well with each other, in this harmonious and culturally diverse school.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils look smart in their uniform and keep themselves and their classrooms tidy. They are less careful in the dining room, where there is a lot of food on the floor after the pupils have eaten their lunch.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils like having responsibilities, such as being monitors in the classroom, and getting the computers ready. The school council makes a difference and is very keen to improve playground facilities.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Despite a little concern about the playground, pupils say they feel very safe in the school and well cared-for. The staff take pupils’ worries seriously. The school makes sure that pupils have a good understanding of possible dangers, including when using the internet and talking to strangers.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils’ attendance continues to improve and is close to the national average. The school works hard to raise attendance levels and continues to inform parents of the impact on their children’s progress of taking them out of school during term time for holidays.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Leaders at all levels are very committed and working hard to strengthen their areas. However, too much responsibility rests on the shoulders of the headteacher. Senior and middle leaders are not held to account sufficiently for checking the quality of education in their areas and taking action to bring about improvement.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Leaders do not have specific roles and accountability for gathering and analysing information about pupils’ achievement. Regular and robust checks on the quality of teaching, learning and the curriculum are not made to identify and address areas for improvement quickly. There are no formal meetings between individual leaders and senior leaders, such as the deputy headteacher, to check progress.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Teachers’ targets, which are set as part of the management of their performance, are in the main helping to strengthen teaching. However, not all targets are measureable, and writing and progress of the most-able pupils do not feature sufficiently in them.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Despite a number of changes in staffing, including very recently, the headteacher has a good understanding of the quality of teaching. She is driving improvements, including in the teaching of writing, helped by more detailed tracking of pupils’ progress and staff’s accuracy in judging the quality of pupils’ work. The school ensures that staffing reflects the language skills and needs of the pupils.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 All of the staff are working well together to improve the quality of teaching and to raise standards. They feel that the training they are given is very helpful in enabling them to improve their teaching skills.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The curriculum places an increasing emphasis on promoting writing, as well as reading and mathematics. Learning opportunities include French, music and creative skills as well as supporting pupils’ personal, social and health education. Pupils’ cultural awareness is promoted very well, including through an assembly about the Chinese zodiac. There are very regular opportunities to support pupils’ spiritual, moral, and social understanding.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The school has made appropriate decisions about how to spend primary sport funding, not just to increase the number and range of activities and pupils’ involvement, but also to develop teachers’ skills.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Parents told the inspectors that they are very happy with the school, which hosts regular events to involve them in school activities. The school helps parents to support their children’s learning. Other partnerships result in local schools working together to support each other to improve teaching and leadership.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The local authority supports the school very appropriately through training events that match the staff’s individual needs. It values the headteacher for her wider role in working with schools that need support, including assisting those experiencing difficulties.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The governance of the school:  The governors are committed to the school and support its work. They know some of its strengths and areas for improvement, including the need for more of the most-able pupils to achieve higher levels. They also know that teaching is variable. They find out some things about the school for themselves although this is not planned regularly. Governors do not have the depth of knowledge or understanding of national data, the impact of pupil premium spending or the possible outcomes of the management of teachers’ performance, to challenge the school., The governing body has already booked training with the local authority to increase its capacity to move the school forward. Finances are sound, and governors check that safeguarding procedures meet the statutory requirements, regularly.

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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 122437 Local authority Nottingham Inspection number 440411

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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 4–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 382 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Doug Sutton Headteacher Karen Coker Date of previous school inspection November 28 2011 Telephone number 0115 9155765 Fax number 0115 9155768 Email address admin@robertshaw.nottingham.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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