Setting

Mrs Joanne Rosegreen Headteacher Chilvers Coton Community Infant School Fitton Street Nuneaton CV11 5RB

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Community Infant School

Following my visit to your school on 4 April 2014, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the findings. Thank you for the help you gave me and for the time you made available to discuss the actions you are taking to improve the school since the most recent section 5 inspection.

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Community Infant School

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in January. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

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Community Infant School

Senior leaders and governors are taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the recent section 5 inspection. The school should take further action to:

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Community Infant School

 ensure that monitoring activities focus on the progress that groups of pupils make  extend the capacity of the senior leadership team to coach staff and monitor improvements  present information about the attainment and progress of groups of pupils in a clear and succinct way to enable governors to ask challenging questions.

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Evidence

During the visit, meetings were held with you and the deputy headteacher, three members of the governing body and a representative of the local authority to Serco Inspections Colmore Plaza 20 Colmore Circus Queensway Birmingham B4 6AT T 0300 123 1231 Text Phone: 0161 6188524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Direct T : 0121 679 9161 Direct email : ann.morris@serco.com discuss the action taken since the last inspection. The school improvement plan was evaluated, along with minutes from governors meetings, monitoring records and information about pupils’ progress. We also made short visits to all classrooms to talk to pupils and look at the work in their books.

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Context

Since the inspection in January one teacher has resigned and is leaving at the end of the term. A temporary teacher has been employed for the summer term and a permanent teacher has been appointed and will start in September. A reception teacher has been on sick leave since March and has relinquished the role of Early Years Foundation Stage leader and assistant headteacher. One new parent governor has been appointed. In September, an additional reception class will be admitted to the school.

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Main findings

You and the deputy headteacher now have an accurate understanding of the challenges facing the school and are ambitious for the school to improve quickly. You have produced an action plan that is appropriately focussed on the areas for improvement outlined in the inspection report. The plan reflects your sense of urgency and the planned actions are appropriate. It makes clear who will be responsible for making the improvements and how senior leaders and governors will measure the success of the actions taken. It also states who will make checks on the improvements but these checks are not yet sufficiently regular to ensure improvement is rapid and sustained. The main barrier to the school improving at a rapid rate is the reduced capacity of the senior leadership team. Recent resignations and underdeveloped subject leadership means that you and the deputy headteacher are the only leaders able to drive forward and check on improvements.

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Main findings

You have rightly focussed on improving the quality of teaching. However, checks on the quality of teaching do not yet focus sufficiently on the progress made by pupils. Teachers have benefitted from training on the teaching of phonics and from observing teaching in other schools. The way pupils are grouped for phonics has been changed and children in Nursery now have a daily phonics lesson. Information that you have about pupils’ progress indicates that the proportion of pupils meeting the required standard this year in the phonics check will be much higher than last year and most pupils who did not meet the standard last year will now meet it.

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Main findings

Teachers and subject leaders have also benefitted from coaching from the deputy headteacher, external consultants and from staff from other schools. Visits to other settings have been helpful in making some initial improvements to the learning environment in Early Years Foundation Stage to help pupils to make faster progress.

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Main findings

The governors have responded positively to the findings of the review of governance and have begun acting upon the recommendations. For example, they have booked a range of training activities and have begun to make more rigorous visits to the school to check for themselves the improvements that are being made. The governors who spoke to me were very knowledgeable about the actions the school is taking, and are committed to ensuring the school becomes good as quickly as possible.

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Main findings

In order to ensure the information about pupils’ progress is accurate you have begun to look at pupils’ workbooks more regularly. This information is now being used alongside the teaching that you observe and the data that teachers provide about their pupils, to enable you to have a more accurate view of the quality of teaching. Plans are in place to work with the local authority and other schools to ensure teachers are making accurate judgements about the levels that pupils are working at. The information that you have indicates that attainment at the end of Year 2 in reading writing and mathematics will be much better than it was last year. Together we discussed ways of presenting data in a more accessible way to enable governors to ask more searching questions and for senior leaders to have a better view of how well groups of pupils are progressing. You have agreed to revise the way you currently do this.

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Main findings

Ofsted may carry out further visits and, where necessary, provide further support and challenge to the school until its next section 5 inspection.

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External support

The local authority was slow to react to the dip in attainment in 2013 and did not contact the school to discuss this until after the inspection in January. However, since the inspection the local authority have provided appropriate support and the improvement advisor plans to make regular visits to the school to support with monitoring activities and provide challenge to senior leaders.

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External support

I am copying this letter to the Chair of the Governing Body, the Director of Children’s Services for Warwickshire.

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