Coleshill Heath School

Coleshill Heath School Marlene Croft, Chelmsley Wood, Birmingham, B37 7JT

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Satisfactory 3 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 do not achieve as well as they could and standards by the end of each stage of the school are not as high as they should be.  Children in the Reception Year do not learn well enough during sessions planned for them to learn through play.  There is too much teaching that is not good to ensure consistently good learning.  Teachers do not always make sure that questions make pupils think things out fully or that they develop a better understanding of what they are learning.  Pupils are not given work that is difficult enough to move them quickly to the next stage of their learning.  Too often pupils are given too long to complete tasks so they lose concentration.  In lessons, pupils do not always listen carefully to the teacher or work as hard as they can to complete their work.  Some staff are new to their leadership responsibilities and have not yet had training to equip them to contribute to improving the

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

school.  Governors have not been quick enough to hold school leaders to account for improving the quality of teaching and pupils’ progress. They are aware of how the school is doing and know mostly which aspects need to improve.

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The school has the following strengths

 The senior leadership team has brought the school through a period of high staff turnover and there are now signs of improvement in pupils’ progress.  Children learn well in the Nursery. They make good progress in the Reception Year when they are being taught by adults.  Pupils are kept safe while in school.  The school provides a wide range of good- quality clubs and out-of-school-hours activities which pupils enjoy a great deal.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed 24 lessons. Of these, 20 observations were carried out jointly with the headteacher, the deputy headteacher or the assistant headteacher.  Meetings were held with the headteacher, senior leadership team, four school governors, the school improvement team and the Early Years Foundation Stage leader. An inspector had a telephone conversation with a representative from the local authority.  Discussions were held with groups of pupils, and the behaviour of pupils was observed around the school and on the playground at lunch and break times.  Inspectors listened to pupils read.  Inspectors scrutinised the behaviour and incident logs, minutes of governing body meetings, action plans, performance management documents and school performance information.  A selection of pupils’ exercise books from across the school was looked at.  Inspectors talked to parents collecting their children after school, and also took into account the

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Information about this inspection

views of the 81 parents who completed the online questionnaire, Parent View.  Inspectors took account of the 34 questionnaires completed by staff.

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Inspection team

David Speakman, Lead inspector Additional Inspector Rachel Johnson Additional Inspector Martin Spoor Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 This is a larger than average-sized primary school.  Most pupils are White British. The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic groups is below average. Very few pupils speak English as an additional language.  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 average.  The majority of pupils are supported by extra funding through the pupil premium. In this school, it applies to pupils who are in the care of the local authority and those known to be eligible for free school meals.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in English and mathematics.  Since the previous inspection, there has been a significant amount of turnover in teaching staff.

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Information about this school

 There is day nursery, Chuckles and Chums. It is run by the governing body but is inspected separately.  The school provides before- and after-school care. This was visited as part of this inspection.  The school is a member of Unity Trust Ltd, a collaborative of 19 schools in North Solihull. One aspects of the trusts' work is to provide training for staff.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the quality of teaching so that all teaching is at least good by making sure that:  pupils at all ages and levels of attainment are set more difficult work that quickly moves their learning on  teachers’ questioning is effective in developing pupils’ skills to think things out for themselves and better their understanding  pupils complete their work more quickly and that pupils listen carefully to the teacher in lessons and remain on task throughout.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Increase the rate at which pupils make progress so that standards at the end of all stages improve by:  when children in the Reception Year are learning through play, their activities are carefully planned to ensure that they make better progress  increasing the number of pupils who make more than the nationally expected progress, especially those pupils for who the school receives pupil premium funding and more-able pupils.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve leadership and management by providing staff new to their leadership roles with appropriate training to enable them to contribute fully to effective school improvement.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

An external review of governance and a review of the school’s use of the pupil premium should be undertaken to assess how these aspects of leadership and governance may be improved.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 In Years 3 to 6, too few pupils made better than expected progress in reading, writing and mathematics. In the end of Key Stage 2 tests in 2013, standards were average. Pupils joined the key stage with average standards so progress between Years 3 and 6 was not good.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The number of pupils who achieved the higher levels at the end of Year 6 was below the national average, especially in writing, and this means that more-able pupils did not achieve well enough.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 In the Year 2 teacher assessments in 2013, standards fell to below the national average in reading, writing and mathematics. This is because the school had introduced more robust assessments and says that information now gives a more accurate picture of pupils’ attainment and progress than previously. The proportion of pupils achieving the higher level was below average, showing a lack of progress for more-able pupils.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils for who the school receives the pupil premium funding made similar progress to others, but they did not catch up and remained about two terms behind others in reading, writing and mathematics.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Last year, too few children in the Reception Year achieved the levels expected of them by the time they joined Year 1. When children start school, their levels of knowledge and understanding are much lower than those typical for their age. Last year, a lack of effective leadership and teaching in the Early Years Foundation Stage meant that children did not make progress good enough to catch up.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Children in the Reception Year still do not learn effectively all of the time they are learning on their own when choosing activities for themselves. Resources for learning outside do not provide well for learning through play, as there is a strong emphasis on physical development and less on developing language and mathematics. As learning through play is a substantial part of each day, valuable learning time is too often lost. They learn well when they are being taught directly by an adult.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Currently, achievement throughout the school is improving as staffing has become more settled and school leaders take effective action to improve teaching. Results of the Year 1 screening check in phonics (letters and the sounds they make) are in line with the national proportions of pupils reaching the expected standard for all pupil groups, including those supported through the pupil premium. Older pupils read fluently and with expression. They have a good understanding of what they read and predict what they think will happen next.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Children in the Nursery are making good progress, both when adults teach them and when they are working on their own and exploring for themselves. They learn well through structured play.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Achievement in the Reception Year is better now and assessments show standards closer to those nationally expected for their age. Pupils in Years 2 and 6 are currently working at levels that are close to those expected for their ages in reading, writing and mathematics.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs make similar progress to their classmates. Extra lessons have been arranged and teachers are giving suitable work to these pupils. As a result, they are now making expected progress and some are making good progress in relation to their individual and particular needs.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Sometimes, lessons are not planned well enough to ensure that pupils are given sufficiently challenging work. This means that the progress pupils make in lessons is variable. In a reading session, the groups being directly taught by an adult made good progress. Others, who were left to read on their own, were not brought back on task when their attention drifted and so they covered little ground. The teacher did not check on the work of all groups so had only the sketchiest idea of progress overall.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 In Reception, adults set out a wide range of well-resourced and interesting activities for children to choose from. However, insufficient checks are made on whether children are learning effectively through play or are simply playing. On occasions, there is too little questioning or interaction between adults and children; at other times this is good.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teachers do not consistently make it clear that they expect good behaviour and that pupils should concentrate throughout the lessons. There are occasions when teachers do not know which pupils have grasped new ideas and are ready for more difficult work, and which ones are struggling. Where this is the case, pupils lose concentration as lessons proceed even when the teacher is talking to them.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 More-able pupils are not always given work that is hard enough for them or which enables them to reach the levels they are capable of achieving. This holds back their progress, and too few achieve the higher levels at the end of Years 2 and 6.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 The impact of teaching assistants in supporting pupils with their learning is variable. Some are very skilled at asking the right questions and encouraging pupils to think for themselves. Others, however, have too little interaction with pupils and do not fully support teachers in making sure that all pupils progress well enough.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 In Nursery, adults are managed effectively so they have maximum impact on children’s learning. Parents of nursery children speak highly of their children’s learning and progress.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Effective learning is promoted as teachers build on the knowledge and skills pupils have been taught in previous lessons. Clear planning against pupils’ individual targets makes sure that pupils at all levels of attainment are given work that is challenging enough to make sure they all make good progress.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Learning improves when pupils are helped to understand the reasons why they are learning particular skills. They complete tasks successfully, showing that they have met the high expectations of the teachers. Because the teachers expect good behaviour, and because pupils are interested, behaviour in these lessons is at least good and sometimes outstanding. For example, in a writing lesson, Year 5 pupils were included in all discussions, the teacher had very high expectations of what pupils could do and, as a result, pupils were keen to develop their own ideas. They worked hard and improved their creative writing skills significantly during the lesson.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Pupils’ work is marked frequently and teachers make comments which are helpful to pupils in improving their work.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The behaviour of pupils requires improvement. This is because some pupils do not listen to the teacher very well in lessons and, on occasion, talk at the same time as the teacher. Pupils do not always try to do their best work and sometimes spend periods of time off task.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The behaviour observed in lessons matched the quality of teaching. Attention wavers when the pupils are given too much time to complete work or when work is not set at the right level. There are some occasions when pupils did not concentrate well enough because behaviour was not managed well. When pupils are given work that interests them and are expected to do their very best, behaviour can be outstanding.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The majority of pupils do work hard and as a result make better progress in lessons.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Behaviour in the Early Years Foundation Stage is consistently good. Children listen carefully and respond quickly to the requests of adults. They pay full attention in adult-led activities, but concentration in activities they choose for themselves is of a shorter span.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils are polite and courteous to visitors to the school. They are well mannered, including when eating their lunch and at breakfast club before school. Although there is some boisterous behaviour at break times, this does not give any cause for concern.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is good. Pupils have a good knowledge about how to stay safe, including how to avoid the dangers of the internet. However, the school is constantly addressing issues linked to a lack of parental control over their children using social networking sites.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils say there is some bullying, but their definition of being bullied is quite broad and includes instances of occasional name-calling. They say that assemblies addressing gang culture have been effective in stopping this. They know who to ask for help and are confident that, should they have any worries, these will be dealt with effectively.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils attending the Breakfast Club get a very good start to the day. This is linked with a range of sporting activities, which are delivered in a highly professional way. Breakfast provides a healthy start to the day. Pupils enjoy socialising and the physical activity.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Before-school clubs have a positive impact on attendance, which is average. Attendance has improved; figures so far this year are better than the same time period last year. Pupils mostly arrive on time.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Leadership and management require improvement because leaders have not done enough to improve teaching and pupils’ achievement. There has been a number of staff changes since the school was last inspected, including some with key leadership roles. This has slowed the rate of school improvement.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Senior leaders have set priorities for improving the quality of education and hence pupils’ achievement. They have a detailed view of the school’s work which draws on an appropriate range of evidence and forms the basis of the school improvement plan. Their evaluations of pupils’ achievement, teaching, the quality of leadership and management and the schools’ overall effectiveness are accurate.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 A new school improvement team has recently been formed, drawing in staff new to important areas of leadership responsibility. As this team is new, governors and senior leaders have not yet had time to put all the necessary training in place to equip them with the skills to do their jobs effectively. They are currently still developing and defining their role in improving the school.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 There are appropriate procedures to manage the performance of staff, and the governors have set demanding targets for the work of staff to improve their performance. Targets are monitored but teaching still requires improvement.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The curriculum is planned to meet pupils’ needs. There is a focus on reading, writing and mathematics. A new commercial literacy scheme has been properly implemented and is having a good effect on pupils’ progress in English. The curriculum generally gives pupils equal access to learning opportunities. However, pupil premium funding has not proven effective in enabling eligible pupils to catch up in reading, writing and mathematics. The funding has been allocated to one-to-one and small-group support, improving behaviour and purchasing learning resources. It is also used to enable eligible pupils to join activities for which there is a charge.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 There are detailed arrangements for allocating the primary school sport funding. The school has a physical education specialist who improves and widens opportunities for more pupils to take part in sports activities and improve teachers’ expertise in teaching gymnastics, sports and games. This has been highly effective and this aspect of the school’s work has been included in the Department for Education’s ‘best practice project’.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development has improved. Pupils have a suitable range of cultural experiences. Moral development is adequate and reflected in pupils’ behaviour. Pupils have good opportunities to develop a spiritual and social dimension through considering others, valuing their own and others’ achievements and through the school’s extensive extra activities and clubs.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 A representative of the local authority has joined with the school in checking on pupils’ progress. The support provided is adequate and in line with their assessment that the school is in need of some support.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Although only recently formed, the strategy manager of the Unity Trust has made a good start in supporting this school, identifying some areas for school improvement, such as providing staff with the skills to help them do their jobs more effectively. There are plans for her to work with governors.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The governance of the school:  Governors are committed to the school’s success and have questioned leaders about pupils’ recent achievement. Nonetheless, they have not held leaders sufficiently to account to ensure pupils achieve well, and governors do not visit the school enough to check for themselves what is going on in school.  Some governors have recently joined and some have taken on new responsibilities. They are aware that training is not up to date and that this needs to be tackled. Through headteacher’s reports and their own understanding of assessment data, governors spoken to know the strengths and weaknesses of the school.  Governors make sure that national requirements are met, including those for safeguarding and procedures for vetting staff and visitors. They ensure that the school site is safe and secure.  Governors set suitable targets for managing the performance of the headteacher and staff.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

They have an adequate idea of how well staff are carrying out their responsibilities through this process. They are up to date in linking teachers’ pay increases to the progress of pupils.  Governors manage finances well. They are familiar with how the pupil premium funding is used, although not fully aware that it is not having the intended impact on pupils’ progress. They manage the primary sports funding to good effect.

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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 104070 Local authority Solihull Inspection number 431137

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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 Primary School category Community Age range of pupils 3–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 465 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Denise Caswell Headteacher Meirion Williams Date of previous school inspection 16 May 2012 Telephone number 0121 779 8070 Fax number 0121 779 3128 Email address office@coleshill-heath.solihull.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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