Setting

Mrs Michelle Hooper Headteacher West Heath Primary School Rednal Road Birmingham B38 8HU

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Special measures monitoring inspection of West Heath Primary School

Following my visit to your school on 30 April 2014, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to confirm the inspection findings. Thank you for the help you gave during the inspection and for the time you made available to discuss the actions which have been taken since the school’s recent section 5 inspection.

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Special measures monitoring inspection of West Heath Primary School

The inspection was the first monitoring inspection since the school became subject to special measures following the inspection which took place on 29 November 2013.

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Evidence

During this inspection, I met with you and your senior leadership team, five members of the governing body, a representative of the local authority, a National Leader of Education who is providing support to the school and two members of staff, one of whom is new to teaching. I reviewed the local authority’s statement of action and the school’s improvement plans. In addition, I reviewed the data that the school has on the quality of teaching and pupils’ progress, and you and I visited all the classrooms to observe pupils’ learning. Additional documentation was scrutinised, including the vetting checks on staff new to the school.

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Context

Since the inspection in November 2013 an assistant headteacher and deputy headteacher have been appointed to replace the previous post holders, who have Serco Inspections Colmore Plaza 20 Colmore Circus Queensway Birmingham B4 6AT T 0300 123 1231 Text Phone: 0161 618 8524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Direct T : 0121 679 9158 Direct email : rachel.dayan@serco.com left the school. Four classroom teachers have also left and been replaced. Leadership responsibilities at senior and middle leadership level have been restructured.

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The quality of leadership and management at the school

Since your appointment just before the inspection in November 2013, you have acted swiftly and with urgency to address the issues raised by the inspection. There are now clear structures and lines of accountability. The introduction of a commercially produced system for tracking pupils’ progress has ensured that each middle leader and classroom teacher is held to account for all aspects of their work. New systems introduced to improve the quality of teaching are being managed with thoroughness and consistency by school leaders. Judgements on the quality of teaching are informed by data on pupils’ progress and the work in their books, and have been checked by the local authority and the National Leader of Education. As a consequence, school leaders have judged that the quality of learning is good or better in the majority of lessons. However, it is not yet consistently good in all year groups.

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The quality of leadership and management at the school

The way disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs are catered for has been reviewed and improved. As a result, teachers are better informed about the needs of individual pupils and now plan appropriate learning opportunities. This planning includes how teaching assistants will support the learning and progress of pupils in their care.

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The quality of leadership and management at the school

The appointment of a family support worker and the introduction of a more rigorous approach to tackling pupils’ absence have helped raise attendance. The overall figure has risen from 93% at the time of the inspection to 96.3% at the time of the first monitoring inspection. Persistent absence, the percentage of pupils missing 15% of lessons a year, has fallen from 12.6% to 2.3% in the same period.

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The quality of leadership and management at the school

Communication with parents has improved. Parents are being kept informed of developments in the school by a weekly newsletter, a parent forum group and the introduction of workshops to help them support the learning of their children. Information provided by the school shows that a greater number of parents are satisfied with the work of the school and the progress their children are making.

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The quality of leadership and management at the school

The external review of governance, including a specific focus on the school’s use of pupil premium funding, took place on 9 April 2014. The governing body, reconstituted in November 2013, is now more effectively holding leaders to account and more rigorously checking the school’s progress towards its targets for improving learning and teaching. However, the governors have not yet finalised the structure of their sub-committees or how these committees will monitor the impact of the pupil premium spending.

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The quality of leadership and management at the school

The local authority has taken positive action to enable West Heath Primary School to move forward. This includes identifying you, prior to the inspection in November, as a headteacher of an outstanding school to support the school. You are now the permanent post holder. The local authority has also provided support through a National Leader of Education from an outstanding school. A member of the local authority chairs the Monitoring Task Force strategy group which meets half-termly and maintains close oversight of how improvement strategies are making a difference to the quality of education of pupils in each year group. This group holds school leaders and governors to account for driving improvements. It supervised the formulation of the local authority’s statement of action and the school’s action plan, both of which are thorough and well-focused documents and usefully aligned. However, the plans do not identify what actions are to be taken during the next

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The quality of leadership and management at the school

academic year, 2014/15, or who will monitor and evaluate actions led by other colleagues.

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The quality of leadership and management at the school

Following the monitoring inspection the following judgements were made:

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The quality of leadership and management at the school

The local authority’s statement of action is fit for purpose.

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The quality of leadership and management at the school

The school’s action plan is fit for purpose.

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The quality of leadership and management at the school

The school may appoint one newly qualified teacher before the next monitoring inspection. This teacher should be appointed to a year group containing a strong teacher whose pupils make or exceed expected progress in reading, writing and mathematics.

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The quality of leadership and management at the school

I am copying this letter to the Secretary of State, the Chair of the Governing Body and the Director of Children’s Services for Birmingham. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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