Hurley Primary School

Hurley Primary School Heanley Lane, Hurley, Atherstone, CV9 2HY

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Good 2 This inspection: Good 2 Achievement of pupils Good 2 Quality of teaching Good 2 Behaviour and safety of pupils Outstanding 1 Leadership and management Outstanding 1

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school.  The inspirational headteacher, other dedicated leaders and staff have established a strong sense of community in this rapidly improving school where every pupil is valued. They care deeply about pupils’ wellbeing and help them to do their best. As a result, pupils leave the school academically and socially very well prepared for secondary education.  Pupils achieve well from their individual starting points in reading, writing and mathematics.  The proportions of current pupils on track to reach the expected levels at the end of Years 2 and 6 are above average.  Leaders have ensured that teaching is always good and increasingly outstanding. Teachers prepare productive and fun activities that challenge all pupils, including the most-able.  Governors have a clear understanding of all aspects of the school’s work. They work closely with the school’s leaders providing both challenge and support.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Pupils say they love coming to school as they enjoy the very rich and wide ranging learning opportunities that are on offer. Attendance is, therefore, consistently above average.  Behaviour is outstanding and pupils’ exemplary attitudes make a strong contribution to their successful learning. Pupils feel very safe, as they know staff take good care of them.  Parents who responded to the online survey, who spoke to inspectors or wrote in, were unreservedly positive about all aspects of the school’s work. Every one of them would recommend this school to other parents.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 Not all pupils are making rapid progress.  Occasionally, when pupils have fully understood their work, they are not given harder exercises to challenge them further.  Intermittently, pupils are not helped to fully understand how to improve their work and deepen their learning.  The Reception outdoor area does not promote learning well as it is dull and uninspiring.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed 16 lessons taught by ten teachers. They also observed small-group support sessions. Ten of these observations were carried out jointly with the headteacher or assistant headteacher.  Meetings were held with the Chair of the Governing Body and three other governors, staff, groups of pupils and a representative of the local authority.  Inspectors observed the school’s work and looked at documentation including teachers’ planning, the school’s analysis of its strengths and weaknesses and resulting development plans, information on pupils’ attainment and progress, records of the monitoring of teaching and governing body meetings, safeguarding documentation and samples of pupils’ work.  Inspectors listened to pupils read, spoke with them about their learning and behaviour and reviewed the work in their books.  Inspectors considered the 42 responses to the online questionnaire, Parent View, and 19

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Information about this inspection

responses to the staff questionnaire. They also spoke informally to parents as they brought and collected their children from school, spoke to those who came in requesting to meet an inspector and considered e-mails sent to the inspection team.

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Inspection team

David Radomsky, Lead inspector Additional Inspector Carol Worthington Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 This school is smaller than the average-sized primary school.  Most pupils come from White British backgrounds.  The proportion of pupils supported by the pupil premium (additional government funding which in this school supports pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and those looked after by the local authority) is average.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs supported through school action is above average. The proportion supported through school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs is below average.  The proportion of pupils joining or leaving the school at other than the usual time is much higher than found nationally.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress.  The school caters for children in the Early Years Foundation Stage in Reception.

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Information about this school

 The headteacher is a Local Leader of Education (LLE).

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Increase the proportion of pupils making rapid progress by:  teachers always giving pupils who have understood their work, more challenging exercises to further stretch them  making sure that pupils always understand precisely how to improve their work so that they act on the helpful advice given and deepen their learning.  developing the outdoor Reception area to the same stimulating standard as the indoor learning environment found throughout the school.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 From their individual starting points, all pupils, including the most-able, make good and sometimes rapid progress during their time in school. This is because learning is well planned to challenge all ability groups and pupils have exemplary attitudes to learning, always working hard and trying their best.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Children start Reception with skills which typically are slightly below those expected for their age, especially in literacy and numeracy. The proportion of children reaching a good level of development at the end of Reception is increasing. As a result, they start Year 1 as confident learners.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Pupils, including late joiners, make good progress in reading, writing and mathematics across Key Stage 1. In 2013, standards at the end of Year 2 increased on previous performance and were above average in all subjects and, at the higher levels, in writing and mathematics. Current Year 2 pupils are on track to reach similar above average standards this year.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Progress across Key Stage 2 over time is typically good. Although the very small 2013 cohort, with many late joiners, including during Year 6, attained below national standards in reading and mathematics. Pupils in all other year groups across the Key Stage made good and in some cases rapid progress in all subjects. Inspection evidence confirms the school’s information that the proportion of the current Year 6 cohort on track to reach the expected levels is above average, including at the higher level 6 in mathematics.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Pupils’ reading skills are well developed. From the start, Reception children understand the letters and the sounds that they make. Parents of all infant children benefit from being invited in every week to attend their children’s phonics lessons and all are given their child’s reading improvement targets. Parents therefore are well supported to be able to help develop their child’s reading skills at home.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The proportion of pupils in Year 1 reaching the expected level in the national phonics check is consistently above average. Across the school, standards are rising steadily as pupils read in school daily. Any pupils experiencing difficulties are given additional adult support. As a result, pupils become enthusiastic readers, reading with expression and understanding.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Pupils know what is expected of them in order to improve the quality of their writing and as a result, pupils’ good written work, is improving further at a fast rate. Pupils write about a range of topics that interest them and they know how to adapt their style for different purposes and audiences.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Progress in mathematics is good. From the start pupils are helped to understand how mathematics is used in real life, such as in using numbers to tell the time in a Reception class. Pupils are also given many opportunities to apply their mathematical skills across other subjects.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs as well as the many late joiners are very well supported to meet their individual needs. As a result, they make the same good and sometimes rapid progress as their classmates. This demonstrates the school’s very strong commitment to ensuring that all pupils have an equal opportunity to succeed.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The pupil premium is used well to help individual pupils make good progress. It pays for extra tuition opportunities and for pupils to engage in enrichment and confidence building activities such as the Glee club. In 2013, the attainment of eligible Year 6 pupils was the equivalent of one year ahead of their peers in reading, three months below in writing and eight months below in mathematics. Eligible pupils making expected progress in reading was well above other pupils in the school, similar in writing but slower in mathematics. Current eligible Year 6 pupils are making faster progress than their peers in all subjects, so attainment gaps are closing.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The primary school sports funding has ensured additional opportunities for pupils to participate in sports related activities. As a result, they have a good understanding of how to keep healthy and are improving their fitness levels well.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teaching is consistently good and there is some outstanding practice across the key stages.

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The quality of teaching is good

 In every class there are excellent relationships between the teachers, teaching assistants and pupils. The adults model enthusiasm for learning and set very high expectations for the pupils. As a result, pupils participate eagerly, respond to their teachers’ prompts and directions, work diligently and try their best. No time is wasted.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers and teaching assistants work diligently together to prepare a very wide range of activities that keep pupils interested and motivated to learn well. The termly themes are very well planned to enable pupils to gain a wide range of skills across a variety of subjects and to promote their spiritual, moral and social development exceptionally well. For instance, the current theme is `food glorious food’. In one lesson seen pupils were developing their artistic skills by drawing fruit and in another; pupils were designing a menu for astronauts’ applying their mathematical skills to calculate the calorie content of the meals. Following a recent visit to a farm, pupils developed their writing and thinking skills and moral understanding of animal welfare issues by evaluating the pros and cons of the production of battery and free range eggs.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teaching assistants work very well with all pupils and particularly with pupils who have special educational needs, emotional difficulties and late joiners, the result of which is the strong achievement of these pupils.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Books and work folders show that teachers prepare a good variety of tasks which stretch and challenge the wide range of abilities in their classes, including the most-able. It is evident that on the odd occasion however, when some individual pupils have fully grasped and understood a concept, they are given more of the same work rather than something more difficult to challenge them to think deeper. This stops those pupils from making the rapid progress of which they are capable.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers’ marking and feedback to pupils, although highly effective in almost all classes, lacks consistency across the school. In a small number of cases teachers do not provide clear enough advice for pupils about how to further improve their work. In these few instances, pupils are held back from improving their work and making the rapid progress of which they are capable.

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The quality of teaching is good

 In all classrooms, the hall and corridors there are well chosen displays that celebrate pupils’ work and achievements. Displays also provide useful learning support such as key vocabulary, prompts for grammar, definitions and examples of key literacy terms as well as mathematical operations.

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The quality of teaching is good

 There are a good range of books available around the school to support learning, such as dictionaries and non-fiction texts, books related to the current themed topics as well as reading books for pleasure. This creates a warm, inviting and very positive learning environment.

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The quality of teaching is good

 In Reception, teachers and teaching assistants ensure that children enjoy their learning and have many opportunities to work and interact with adults, often in small groups. The indoor area provides a stimulating environment and a rich variety of resources to promote good learning across all areas. The outdoors however, is poorly developed as it does not reflect the richness of the resources found indoors to boost children’s progress. This slows learning.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 The behaviour of pupils is outstanding. Pupils are very proud of their school and the way that everybody cares for one another. Everyone is made welcome. For instance, the many pupils who join the school at other than the usual time are helped by class `buddies’ to integrate successfully into the school’s routines and they rapidly make new friends.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 Pupils expressed to the inspectors their great sense of appreciation for the generous care and help that they receive from all adults at the school, whether to help them with their learning or in sorting out personal difficulties. These comments exemplify the extremely caring nature of the school where pupils are at the heart of everything that the school does. Pupils and adults work together with a common purpose and respect, so all can learn and thrive.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 Pupils’ behaviour in lessons is exemplary. They arrive punctually, ready and eager to learn. They get on with their work without any fuss and enjoy solving problems in pairs or in groups. As activities are made so interesting, pupils develop a thirst for learning. There is a palpable buzz of excitement and engagement around the school. A number of parents told inspectors that every day their children come home and cannot wait to tell them what they have learnt that day.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 In Reception, children follow well established routines, play and share well together and happily tidy up at the end of sessions.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is outstanding. Pupils and their parents confirm that pupils feel extremely safe in school. They know how to stay safe in and outside of school, including when using the internet and through many planned activities such as the recent work on e-safety and the annual `police week’. A small group of pupils are currently leading the school’s road safety campaign.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are outstanding

 Very few incidences of bullying occur and, if they do, pupils are confident that they would be dealt with promptly and effectively. Pupils know about the different forms of bullying, including cyber bullying.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The headteacher, ably assisted by all school leaders and governors, leads with drive and determination to give every child who joins the school the best chances in life. This ethos permeates throughout the school, everyone is on board and morale is exceptionally high.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The school has built up an excellent reputation in the local community and beyond, especially for its work in integrating and nurturing vulnerable pupils and for the positive way it works with parents. Leadership for inclusion is exemplary. This accounts for the many pupils that join the school other than at the usual time and the fact that in the past three years the number on roll has risen by about twenty five percent. One set of parents, for example, whose child experienced major difficulties in his previous school, came into the school especially to tell inspectors that the school had `transformed the lives’ of their child and family. Other parents also expressed similar views.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The Early Years Foundation Stage Leader and subject leaders seek specialist advice and attend training so that they can share expertise with their colleagues. There is a strong culture in the school of all leaders and teachers working and planning collaboratively. All leaders and teachers readily share ideas and resources and learn from each other’s best practice. As a result, planning across the subjects is thorough and offers pupils a broad and exciting education at this school.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 Leaders, including subject leaders and the Reception Leader, have robust and detailed systems for reviewing all aspects of the school’s work, for identifying priorities for improvement and planning appropriate actions. Similarly, comprehensive appraisal systems are used to set teachers ambitious targets for pupils’ progress and for identifying and planning high quality support and professional development for all staff. As a result, achievement is rising rapidly because all teaching is now at least good and improving at a fast rate. Leaders have ensured that pupils’ behaviour and attitudes to learning are exemplary. Pupils thus leave very well prepared for secondary school, both academically and socially.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 All leaders and teachers frequently check on pupils’ progress. Any pupil who is falling behind is given additional support so that they can quickly catch up with their classmates.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 Leaders and teachers benefit from the opportunities they have to work with colleagues at partner schools in the local area. They undertake joint training, sharing of best practice, shared moderation of work and arranging cross school initiatives for pupils such as the `spelling bee’ competition. As a Local Leader for Education, the headteacher provides leadership support to other local schools, and one of the assistant headteachers is currently on secondment as an acting headteacher to a local school.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The rich curriculum gives pupils an abundance of exciting experiences that captures their imagination, motivates them to work hard and ensures that they learn to behave in a sensible and mature manner. Pupils love the many opportunities for visits that are linked to the topics that they are studying such as to the national space centre and a museum about the Victorian era. There are an extensive range of opportunities to ensure that pupils apply and develop their writing and mathematical skills, such as problem solving.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The wide range of visitors, visits such as to explore sustainability, many clubs such as singing, opportunities to perform, such as the Year 4 presentation on the Victorians and competitions such as the `Great Hurley Bake off’ and charity collections, for example, make an extremely strong contribution to pupils’ outstanding spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The new funding to support sport and physical development is being used well. External experts are training staff to improve their skills and to run additional activities for pupils, including the `healthy hearts’ programme. This has increased pupils’ participation, for example, in the additional gymnastics club and in inter-school sporting competitions and is ensuring their physical wellbeing.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The local authority knows the strengths of this good school and provides appropriate and effective support as necessary.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The governance of the school:  The governing body is made up of a good mixture of governors with extensive experience and new governors who are bringing additional skills and new ideas to the table. They visit the school regularly, going into lessons, talking to pupil and to staff. Scrutiny of pupils’ performance information is high on the agenda of every full governing body meeting. Governors therefore know how well the school is doing in comparison with other schools nationally. Additionally, through the headteachers’ regular reports and the verification by an external consultant, governors are fully aware of the quality of teaching, the school’s strengths and what needs improving. They therefore, offer school leaders a good balance of support and challenge. Finances are well managed. For example, governors consider how well pupil premium money is being spent and how effectively it supports eligible pupils. They are

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The leadership and management are outstanding

involved in decisions as to whether teachers should be rewarded with salary increments, and they set and review targets for the headteacher. Governors make sure that safeguarding procedures meet government requirements.

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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 125515 Local authority Warwickshire Inspection number 444045

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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 4–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 182 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Karen Orman Headteacher Glyn Morgans Date of previous school inspection 22 April 2010 Telephone number 01827 872207 Fax number 01827 872207 Email address head2032@welearn365.com 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 and 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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