Broadwas CofE Aided Primary School

Broadwas CofE Aided Primary School Broadwas-on-Teme, Worcester, WR6 5NE

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Outstanding 1 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

 Achievement is not good because too few pupils of higher ability make rapid progress in mathematics. Pupils do not reach the high levels in writing that they do in other subjects.  Teachers do not challenge average or higher- ability pupils to work hard enough in lessons. This slows the progress these pupils make.  Teachers do not make clear to pupils how well they are doing or what they should do to improve their work and reach higher levels.  Too many responsibilities fall to the headteacher, so he has not been able to focus sufficiently on checking the quality of teaching and challenging the underperformance of some teachers. As a result, improvement has been too slow and pupils’ achievement is not yet good.  Governors have not ensured leadership functions are shared beyond the headteacher, or that teachers fulfil the responsibilities commensurate with their pay grade.

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The school has the following strengths

 The school’s values are strongly reinforced by every aspect of the day-to-day experience of pupils. As a result, pupils enjoy coming to school because they feel happy, safe, valued and treated with respect.  Pupils’ achievement in reading is good. From an early age, they read often as part of their learning, in a variety of subjects. This helps them quickly make sense of different texts and styles of writing.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspection was conducted by one inspector.  The inspector observed nine lessons, or parts of lessons, and carried out a short walk to look at specific aspects of the school’s work. Most of these activities were conducted jointly with the headteacher.  The inspector looked at the work in pupils’ books with the headteacher and the teacher with responsibility for English across the school. She heard some pupils read as part of their lessons.  The inspector talked to pupils in lessons, in the playground and as they moved around school.  Meetings were held with: the headteacher; four members of the governing body, including the Chair; a group of teachers; and the school’s improvement adviser from the local authority. The inspector spoke informally with other members of staff.  There were insufficient responses to the online questionnaire (Parent View) to enable the inspector to consider this information. The inspector took account of the school’s recent

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Information about this inspection

questionnaire to parents. She spoke informally to parents of pupils in all year groups as they collected their children from school at the end of the day. The five questionnaires submitted by members of staff were considered.  The inspector looked at a range of documentation which included: the school’s self-evaluation and plans for improvement; evidence about how teachers are set targets to improve pupils’ progress; records of observations of the quality of teaching; minutes of meetings of the governing body; the school’s information about pupils’ progress over time; and records relating to safeguarding.

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Inspection team

Sandra Hayes, Lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector

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Information about this school

 The school is much smaller than most primary schools.  Only a very small number of pupils are supported by the pupil premium. The pupil premium is extra money from the government, allocated to support the achievement of pupils who currently receive free school meals, or who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years, as well as children who are looked after by the local authority and children from service families.  The proportion of pupils who are given extra support for learning through school action is below average. The proportion supported at school action plus, or who have a statement of special educational needs is much higher and is well above that in most schools.  A larger-than-average proportion of pupils join the school after the usual entry point at the beginning of the Reception Year.  The school currently meets the government’s floor standards, which set out the minimum

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Information about this school

requirements for attainment and progress.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the quality of teaching, so that pupils of average and higher-ability achieve consistently well in both writing and mathematics, by ensuring:  pupils are challenged to work hard in all their lessons  teachers know how well pupils are learning and move them on to harder work as soon as they are ready  marking gives pupils specific guidance on how to improve their work  pupils act on this guidance to make the expected improvement.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the management of the performance of teachers by leaders by:  setting sharper targets for teachers, which focus on speeding up progress for underachieving pupils  using work in pupils’ books to inform judgements about the quality of teaching and achievement  making more frequent checks on the quality of teaching  using these checks to give teachers clear guidance on how to improve their teaching  ensuring teachers act upon guidance immediately.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the effectiveness of the governing body, by ensuring:  leadership functions are shared more widely and not carried out by the headteacher alone  systems for tracking the achievement of different groups of pupils are made more effective  decisions about increasing teachers’ salaries are linked closely to how well teachers are improving pupils’ achievement

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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

 Achievement requires improvement because pupils of higher ability do not make rapid enough progress across the school as a whole in mathematics and too few middle ability pupils go on to gain the same high levels in writing that they do in other subjects. This happens because teachers do not challenge them to work as hard as they can in Years 1 to 6.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Children who join the school in the Reception Year generally have skills that are typical for four- year-olds. Some pupils who join the school in Years 1 to 6 are working at levels below those expected for pupils of similar ages.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Children are taught well in the Early Years Foundation Stage and so make good progress. Consequently, by the time they enter Year 1 they have become confident, enthusiastic learners who are ready to start the National Curriculum.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 National assessments for Year 2 in 2013 showed pupils’ progress was too slow from their high starting points at the end of Early Years Foundation Stage, leading to attainment that was below average overall. Year 1 pupils did not perform as well as other pupils nationally in the check on their phonics skills (understanding about letters and the sounds they make).

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Test results at the end of Year 6 have been at least average for the last three years and sometimes above average. The small numbers of pupils in each year group make year-on-year comparisons difficult. However, an apparent dip in 2012 was reversed in 2013, when every one of the 15 pupils in Year 6 made at least the minimum progress expected of them.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs make good progress from their starting points because of the good support they consistently receive.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 There were too few pupils who were eligible for the pupil premium leaving Year 6 last year to make a secure judgement about their attainment; there is too great a risk that individuals could be identified. Across other classes, pupil premium funding, which provides additional resources and one-to-one teaching, is used well to support eligible pupils who find learning more difficult. It is used less effectively to support the achievement of eligible pupils who are more able.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils achieve well in reading because they are expected and encouraged to do so. They read often in lessons to support learning in a range of subjects. Younger pupils practise their reading frequently at home. Although Year 1 pupils have not performed well in the national phonics checks, even the very youngest in the school can talk about sounds and use their knowledge to help them read new words.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Efforts to improve the writing of middle and higher ability pupils have been less successful; these pupils do not progress as quickly to the higher levels in their writing as they do in other subjects. Pupils’ books show the construction of sentences is often under-developed. This is because pupils have not systematically been taught the skills they need to make their writing interesting.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Pupils’ knowledge of number facts is not always secure, so they sometimes struggle to complete calculations correctly. For example, an able pupil in Year 4, when calculating 67 divided by 4, found it difficult to use the method she had been taught because it relied on the 4 times table, which she did not know.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teaching requires improvement in Years 1 to 6 because it does not promote good achievement for all groups of pupils. Teachers know what levels pupils are working at, but are not always ambitious about what individual pupils might achieve.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teachers do not expect pupils to work hard enough. Pupils are not challenged enough and often spend time completing work that is too easy for them, or waiting for the teacher to give them something else to do.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teachers do not routinely move pupils on to harder work quickly enough. The books of average or higher-ability pupils show this happens most often in writing and mathematics. This is why achievement in these subjects is below that in reading.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Some teachers provide helpful guidance through their marking to help pupils improve the quality of their writing. Not all teachers do this. Mathematics books contain fewer suggestions than writing books. Where next steps are given, teachers do not ensure pupils act upon the advice. Consequently marking contributes insufficiently to pupils’ progress.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teaching assistants support lower-ability pupils, disabled pupils and those with special educational needs effectively by encouraging them to talk through ideas and by using resources to help make difficult concepts easier to understand.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage make good progress because the teacher and the teaching assistant keep a close check on how well they are learning. The teacher then carefully designs activities around what she knows children need to learn next.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teachers skilfully use information and communication technology to make learning more interesting. In the Reception Class, some children practised forming letters correctly on a large interactive whiteboard during a phonics lesson. The rest of the group watched attentively while the teacher modelled how children could improve each letter practised.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teaching makes a strong contribution to the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils. Whether working on their own, or with an adult, pupils show perseverance and resilience. When they work with others, they collaborate to share ideas and reach a common understanding with due regard to everyone’s contribution. During the inspection, pupils in Years 5 and 6 were observed working in this way to design a theme park within a given budget.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The school’s values promote love, respect, friendship, trust, kindness, caring, courage, perseverance, truthfulness and forgiveness. Staff consistently model these attributes and enable pupils to do the same through clear expectations and established routines. Consequently, the behaviour of pupils is good.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Pupils demonstrate these values in their learning, when they move around school, when they talk to adults and when they play together. At playtime, pupils of all ages play happily, sharing available space and activities sensibly, clearly enjoying one another’s company.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 No pupil asked was aware of bullying ever happening, but confirmed they are confident they could get help if it did. Pupils say no one uses unkind names as everyone understands it is wrong to insult others on the basis of them being ‘different’ in some way. Parents spoken to were unreservedly positive about how the school promotes good behaviour. The school’s recent parent survey results echoed this evidence.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Pupils apply themselves eagerly to the tasks they are given. Where these tasks are interesting and challenging, pupils work tenaciously to complete them as well as possible. Even when tasks are too easy, most pupils obediently persevere and then wait patiently for the teacher to give them something else to do, sometimes for quite long periods of time. Occasionally, however, when they do not feel challenged, some pupils become bored and fidgety.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is good. Appropriate policies set out procedures for safeguarding pupils and to protect children who may be at risk of harm. These policies are understood by all staff.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 During the inspection, pupils were involved in a range of activities for Safer Internet Day. Following these lessons, pupils were able to explain clearly to the inspector what they would do to stay safe and avoid being bullied when using the internet. These activities were reinforced by a well-attended information evening for parents led by the local authority.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The school keeps a close check on pupils’ attendance and has used these systems well to ensure the previously high levels of absence of a few pupils have reduced. Overall rates of attendance are above average.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Leaders, including governors, have not shown the same drive to ensure pupils’ academic achievement is high as they have to supporting pupils’ social and personal development. As a result many pupils do not achieve as well in writing and mathematics as they should, given their starting points.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Systems introduced by the headteacher to set teachers targets and check the quality of teaching lack rigor and so have not driven improvement quickly enough. Teachers’ targets refer to improving overall attainment but do not focus sharply on speeding up progress for underachieving pupils. This has led to teachers being awarded pay increases, even when pupils’ performance has not improved, or has declined. Targets for teachers with wider responsibilities, on the upper pay scale, have not ensured the work of these staff is of the high standard required to justify their enhanced salaries.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The headteacher and teachers responsible for subjects keep accurate records of pupils’ levels of attainment. The headteacher has used this information to identify and address the slippage seen in overall standards in Key Stage 1 and now checks more closely how well pupils are attaining in these year groups. Inspection evidence shows this is making a difference and achievement is beginning to improve. However, leaders do not closely measure the progress made by pupils of different abilities closely enough, so have not identified that many are not achieving as well as they could in writing and mathematics.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Too many responsibilities fall to the headteacher. As a consequence, the headteacher does not have time to keep a close enough check on the quality of teaching in all classes.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Judgements on the quality of teaching are based principally on lesson observations and do not take account of the quality of work in pupils’ books and the evidence this provides of pupils’ achievement. As a result, the school’s view of the quality of teaching is overly positive.  Staff are overwhelmingly positive about the headteacher’s leadership of the school. They say he supports them to do their job well and has created an environment in which pupils can thrive. Parents spoken to appreciate the headteacher’s willingness to be immediately available to discuss any concerns.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Pupils enjoy the interesting themes and topics they are given to explore, such as learning about different times and places. Interesting displays around the school and pupils’ books show these topics help link aspects of learning through artwork, drama and writing in different subjects.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The school uses the primary school sport funding well. It works with other local schools to increase the range of sporting events and physical activities available to pupils. Pupils and parents are delighted that activities such as hockey and cross-country are now available. The school’s football team, made up of both boys and girls, recently won the Worcestershire Schools Football Association finals and will now represent the county at a regional competition.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Since the last inspection, the local authority has provided support that has been limited to an annual visit to discuss the school’s self-evaluation. Though it is now improving, in the past this has led to an incomplete picture of the school’s effectiveness and insufficient challenge to support the school in rigorous self-evaluation.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The governance of the school:  Governors support school life through regular visits. They ask some challenging questions. However, these questions do not sufficiently probe the impact of actions on the achievement of pupils, which is not yet consistently good as a result.  Governors are proud of how the school prepares pupils socially and emotionally for the next stage of their education. They are less ambitious for pupils’ academic success. The headteacher informs governors about pupils’ attainment, but not in sufficient detail to give a full picture of strengths and weaknesses. Consequently, governors believe pupils achieve well, when too many do not. Similarly, their view of the quality of teaching is informed by the headteacher’s judgement, which is too generous.  One reason why achievement is not yet good is that governors do not understand the system for managing teachers’ performance. They are unclear about the link between pupils’

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The leadership and management requires improvement

achievement and teachers’ salaries. Therefore they have sanctioned pay rises for some staff whose performance does not meet the requirement of their salary grade.  Governors’ programme of reviewing policies ensures arrangements for safeguarding pupils are secure and other statutory responsibilities are met.

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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 116870 Local authority Worcestershire Inspection number 440544

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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 Voluntary aided Age range of pupils 4–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 85 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Caroline Smith Headteacher Mark Allen Date of previous school inspection 27 June 2007 Telephone number 01886 821347 Fax number 01886 821347 Email address office@broadwas.worcs.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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