Christ The King Catholic Primary School

Christ The King Catholic Primary School Warren Farm Road, Kingstanding, Birmingham, B44 0QN

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Overall effectiveness

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

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 The school has improved rapidly since the last inspection. This is due to the highly effective leadership of the headteacher, subject leaders and governing body.  The achievement of all groups of pupils in reading, writing and mathematics is outstanding. Pupils’ attainment at the end of Year 6 is above the national average.  Rates of progress for all groups of pupils are above the national average. Disabled pupils and those with special educational needs have rates of progress in excess of those of their peers in school.  Those pupils with visual impairment also make rapid progress in line with their peers. This is due to the excellent teaching and provision that help them overcome their learning difficulties.  Teaching has rapidly improved and is consistently good in the early years. In Key Stage 1, much of the teaching is outstanding and, in Key Stage 2, teaching is consistently outstanding.  All staff have high expectations and aspirations for

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

all the pupils. Work set is challenging yet appropriate for each ability level.  Teachers and the other adults who support learning work well together and demonstrate high levels of skills.  Pupils’ attitudes to learning are exemplary. As a result, pupils’ behaviour is outstanding. The pride they take in their work is extraordinary and all their books are immaculate.  Pupils feel safe and say they enjoy coming to school. This is reinforced by their above-average attendance.  Parents are highly positive about the school.  The early years provision is good and all children make at least good progress. This provides a positive start to their school lives. Good teaching ensures that all teaching areas are very bright and vibrant. Activities are engaging and fun and so children develop a love of learning.  The governing body challenge and support senior leaders effectively. They ensure they have all the information they need to oversee finances, monitor

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

the performance of all staff and make accurate decisions about their pay.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspection team observed a range of teaching across the school, covering a wide range of subjects. The team members were joined in a number of these observations by members of the senior leadership team. The inspection team also observed pupils’ behaviour during break and lunchtimes.  Meetings were held with members of the senior leadership team, representatives from the governing body and with a number of pupils. A telephone conversation took place with a representative from the local authority.  The inspectors took account of the 40 responses to the Ofsted online questionnaire, Parent View, as well as the comments raised during a meeting with parents. The inspection team also took account of the 47 responses to the staff questionnaire.  The inspection team scrutinised a range of documents. These covered aspects relating to the work the school does to safeguard the pupils. The school’s self-evaluation document and improvement plan were

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Information about this inspection

reviewed. Documentation related to pupils’ attendance and achievement were scrutinised. Minutes of governing body meetings were sampled, and inspectors examined the school’s plans for the use of the school sports fund and the extra support to disadvantaged pupils.

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Inspection team

Ronald Hall, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Inspection team

Pippa Jackson-Maitland Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 Christ the King Catholic Primary School is a larger than average-sized school.  The large majority of pupils are white British, with others coming from a wide range of minority ethnic backgrounds. The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds is above average, as is the proportion of pupils learning English as an additional language.  There are more girls than boys.  A well above-average proportion of pupils are eligible for funding through the pupil premium. This is additional funding for pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and those in local authority care.  The proportion of pupils supported at school action is above average but the proportion of pupils supported at school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs is well above average.  The school provides specially resourced provision for pupils with special educational needs; it caters for up to six pupils between the ages of 3 to11 years of age who have visual impairments. These pupils are

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Information about this school

taught within the main school classes.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Review the assessments made when children first start in the early years to ensure consistency and so better inform teachers’ planning in order to raise levels of achievement further.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 Christ the King Catholic Primary School is provided with excellent leadership by the headteacher, senior leadership team and subject leaders. This resulted in marked improvement across the whole school last year.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The senior leadership team and governors have constantly improved the school, set high expectations of the pupils and even higher standards for all the staff. Systems for tracking, monitoring and assessing pupils’ progress are very robust. This ensures that all leaders and managers know how well all pupils are achieving and can quickly intervene should any underachievement occur.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The phase and subject leaders are highly trained and carry out their responsibilities with great skill. They support, challenge and hold staff accountable to ensure that all pupils progress at their optimum rates. In turn, they are held accountable by the senior leadership team and governing body.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 Targets for all staff have been highly focused on raising rates of progress and pupils’ attainment across the whole school. All leaders and managers recognise good and outstanding practise and school leaders use this effectively to help develop all staff further.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 Imaginative planning for lessons across the full range of subjects, together with exciting additional activities, for example in music and sport, make learning memorable. Local and wider community links are used very effectively, alongside the religious context of the school, to ensure that there are excellent opportunities for pupils to understand the British society in which they live.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The leadership and management of the provision for the visually impaired pupils are excellent. Great care is taken to ensure that, in every lesson, visually impaired pupils can and do participate fully and are treated as equals to their peers. The specialist staff ensure that the right resources are always available to the class teachers. They provide guidance and support for the teachers as they plan their lessons and the best way for these pupils to achieve the best they can from their lessons.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 Parents are highly positive and all of those who replied to Parent View stated they would recommend the school. A school survey seen during the inspection further supported this positive view. These views were also clearly expressed during observations of a parent meeting which took place. Parents demonstrated an active involvement in the school, as well as wishing the team to know how highly they valued the school.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The primary sports funding has been used to rapidly increase the participation of pupils in physical activities. Checks on fitness levels have shown a marked rise in the past year and all pupils spoken to state they enjoyed sports. Many pupils now attend community groups outside of school as well as participating in a wide range of inter-school competitions.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 Pupil premium funding has been used to provide three specialist teachers to support extra mathematics and English sessions which have raised the levels of achievement for these pupils. This is carefully monitored by the teachers and the senior leadership team to ensure this extra support is very effective. As a result, pupils supported by this funding have made rapid rises in their progress and attainment levels.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 Although in the early stages, the senior leadership team has begun making plans to develop systems of assessment without the use of National Curriculum levels. All staff have been involved in such discussions, as have the governing body, so that a shared and agreed system can be worked out.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The senior leadership team and all staff strive to ensure that everyone is treated equally and have the opportunities they deserve. The pupils, staff and parents all feel the school is a safe environment and behaviour is excellent. All the school behaviour logs are very well kept and these show a marked reduction in incidents of poor behaviour over several years, with no reported incidents of serious issues for some time.  All current statutory regulations and requirements are being met. All policies and procedures are consistently applied by all staff and this helps ensure the smooth running of the school, as well as all pupils knowing exactly what is expected of them.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The school uses the positive links it has with the local authority, high school and several other primary schools to evaluate its work and confirm the accuracy of teachers’ assessments of the levels at which pupils are working. This is further checked by the external consultant who supports the school. This results in the senior leadership having an excellent and highly accurate view of the school. Alongside the rigorous analysis of information on pupils’ progress and attainment, senior leaders and managers use all this information to provide a view of how well they are doing.

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The leadership and management are outstanding

 The governance of the school:  The governing body uses the personal skills of its membership, coupled with regular training, to ensure that it provides a very high level of challenge and support to the school. It closely monitors the performance of all groups of pupils and the skills of all staff. This information is then used to decide on the level and rate of teachers’ pay and professional development based on their performance.  Governors ensure that the extra funding received by the school is well spent and that the effects on the pupils are highly positive. Governors visit the school on a weekly basis and mix these visits with formal and informal assessments of the work of the school. This results in them having a highly accurate picture of the school. In turn, this means that they know how Christ the King Catholic Primary School compares to other schools nationally.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is outstanding. Pupils across the school are articulate, polite and courteous, both to each other and all adults. Their attitudes to learning are exemplary, and this can be clearly seen in all their books. This is due to the way in which all adults treat the pupils and each other. This permeates the whole school and produces an environment where all are happy, safe and prosper.

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Behaviour

 Staff foster highly positive relationships and, as a result, there is no discrimination or bullying. The dining hall, classrooms and playground are all harmonious places because the pupils love working, playing and socialising with each other. They use the wide range of sporting equipment provided at break times to enjoy themselves and help them keep fit and active.

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Behaviour

 Pupils are eager to take responsibility for a wide range of duties, from being eco-monitors to playground leaders. They take their responsibilities very seriously and wear their badges with pride.

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Behaviour

 School records, which are detailed and thorough, show there have been no serious instances of poor behaviour for some considerable time. The number of minor issues arising has also fallen dramatically, resulting in very few being recorded over the past 12 to 18 months. Pupils with visual impairments assured inspectors that they were treated no differently from any of the other pupils. They also stressed that the other pupils treated them as their classmates and, where help was needed, were only too happy to help them.

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Safety

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is outstanding. All pupils spoken to state they feel very safe in school and both the parental and staff questionnaires positively support this view. Pupils stated the teachers care for them, look after them and make sure they are always as happy as they can be.

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Safety

 Pupils are adamant that bullying and unpleasant language are very rare. They are aware of the various forms of bullying and have a good understanding of e-safety. They know how to stay safe and healthy, both in and out of school.

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Safety

 Parents and staff are very clear that they feel the school is a safe and secure place for the pupils and themselves.  Pupils attend their lessons punctually and without fuss. Their attendance has improved rapidly over time and is above the national average.

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The quality of teaching is outstanding

 Teaching has been consistently improved across the whole school and it is never less than good. In Key Stage 1, and especially Key Stage 2, much of the teaching is outstanding. As a result of the quality of teaching, pupils’ achievement across the school has steadily risen over several years. Lessons are very well planned for all groups of pupils in their class. The other adults who support learning are used effectively to support small groups and enable them to make rapid progress in lessons.

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The quality of teaching is outstanding

 Those teachers who have visually impaired pupils in their class plan very effectively for their learning. They take care to ensure they have all the right resources for the pupils. For example, larger print and visualizers are provided, which allow pupils to see enlarged text and pictures. Teachers work closely with the specialist staff who support the visually impaired pupils to make sure that any specific skills, such as fine motor skills, are developed alongside other learning.

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The quality of teaching is outstanding

 Teachers plan lessons that are fun, engaging and relevant to the pupils’ lives. Year 6 pupils were observed developing various numerical skills. These were closely linked to their lives; for example, visits to the shop purchasing multiple items, and a wide range of other scenarios. The rapid questioning of the teacher added greater challenge to the work. On asking one pupil what they thought, they told inspectors, ‘We love it. The teacher really stretches us and we work fast but well.’

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The quality of teaching is outstanding

 All staff have high expectations at all times and they are aspirational for the pupils in their classes. This, in turn, has developed an attitude in the pupils of wanting to achieve their very best. In lessons observed pupils were regularly heard discussing the merits of their work in relation to their future lives.

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The quality of teaching is outstanding

 Senior leaders introduced an informative marking system across the school and a book scrutiny of previous pupils very clearly showed when this was introduced. The effect on the pupils’ work can be clearly seen in pupils’ books, especially when pupils were given the opportunities to improve their work based on the comments made. Both written and verbal feedback given to pupils is informative and enables pupils to understand how to improve.

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The quality of teaching is outstanding

 Teachers use excellent explanation skills to ensure that all pupils fully understand what they are expected to learn. Teachers have excellent subject knowledge, carry out their duties very effectively at all levels and so the national Teachers’ Standards are being met. Questioning skills are used effectively as an aid to assessing what the pupils are learning and in order to change lessons to ensure that all pupils achieve as well as they possibly can. As a result pupils, make at least good progress in lessons.

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The quality of teaching is outstanding

 Teachers provide a wide range of learning opportunities, from the core subjects of mathematics and English, to Spanish and a wide range of musical instruments. This gives greater depth to the pupils’ learning opportunities and so fires them up even more to learn. As one pupil stated, ‘We have loads of subjects and so we really enjoy our learning.

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is outstanding

 Achievement across the school has risen sharply due to the excellent leadership and teaching in the school. All groups, including disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, have made rapid progress. Progress for these pupils, which includes those with visual impairment, has in fact been faster than that for their peers in school.

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is outstanding

 The most-able pupils have been further supported through specialist teaching at the local high school. This initiative has resulted in these pupils’ attainment and progress being above that seen nationally and is rising rapidly.

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is outstanding

 Progress rates for all pupils have exceeded the national averages for both expected progress and better than expected progress in reading, writing and mathematics. Pupils who are supported through pupil premium, have completely closed the gap with their peers in school. This is the case in reading, writing and mathematics, where their rates of progress are higher than both their peers in school and all pupils nationally.

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is outstanding

 The 2013 national results indicated that pupils were not doing well in reading. The senior leadership team reacted quickly to those results. This has led to progress and attainment by the end of Year 6 in reading, writing and mathematics exceeding the national averages.

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is outstanding

 A scrutiny of a range of books for all groups showed that pupils’ presentation skills have improved rapidly over the past eighteen months. Books at the beginning of this period were untidy and hindered learning. Books seen in every classroom during the inspection were immaculately neat and tidy. These improvements have taken place in line with their rapidly rising achievement and are of a very high standard. This, in turn, means that pupils can clearly see and understand what they are doing, which aids their learning. As one pupil commented, ‘Our work is expected to be neat and tidy. We like our books to look good and it makes our work easier.’

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is outstanding

 The most-able pupils, like all other groups, are fully challenged in all lessons. The result of this has been an increase in the number of pupils reaching the higher Level 5 and, for the first time, Level 6 grades in English and mathematics in national assessments at the end of Year 6.

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is outstanding

 Pupils start at the school with skills and knowledge well below those expected for their ages. Throughout the early years provision, children improve these skills and knowledge and are provided with a positive start to their education. This good progress is continued in Key Stage 1 and, by the end of Year 2, they have caught up. This is due to the pace of pupils’ progress rapidly increasing due to the good and often outstanding teaching.

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is outstanding

 In the national phonics screening check in Year 1, the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in phonics (the sounds that letters make) was well above average. In a number of classes in both the early years provision and Key Stage1, pupils were heard practising a wide range of their letter sounds and basic blends and these were done with complete accuracy. These skills are then used by the pupils across the whole school, contributing to the improvements seen in reading.

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is good

 From their well below-average starting points, children make good progress to join Key Stage 1 with skills a little below age-related expectations. This is due to high-quality teaching, the warm and caring environment staff create, and the fun and interesting activities that staff provide.

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is good

 Children make good progress in their language and communication skills due to the excellent phonics teaching and modelling of language by staff. This helps children to become confident learners with the skills to develop further in the future.

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is good

 All activities designed by the teachers are very carefully planned to meet the children’s interests and abilities. This is particularly strong in Reception, where teachers have a clear understanding of the children’s capabilities when they start with them. This results in teachers being able to plan effectively and accurately. However, the processes for assessing the children when they first enter the school are not as yet as accurate and so opportunities are missed to ensure that all the children’s skills and understanding are taken into account right from the start of their time in school. This results in their initial rates of progress not being as rapid as they might be.

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is good

 There is an excellent range of activities planned for the children, some of which are supported by the adults and some allow children to work with each other or alone if they wish. From a very early stage, staff involve the children in their learning by targeting activities to their lives and the things they tell the teachers they like. Although careful assessment is made of each child’s abilities before they enter the school, this information is not always recorded carefully enough. This means that staff do not initially always take account of some of the skills the children lack although this improves as staff get to know the children.

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is good

 Excellent routines quickly ensure children follow basic hygiene rules and know what is expected of them and how to behave.

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is good

 Leadership and management of the early years provision are excellent. They have ensured that the quality of teaching has improved and, with it, the rates of progress and children’s achievement overall. Parents are kept fully informed and involved with their child’s learning, and they feel there is a highly positive relationship between school and home.

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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 failing

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Grade Judgement Description

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 103423 Local authority Birmingham Inspection number 448248

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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 Voluntary aided Age range of pupils 3–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 401 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Clare Gutteridge Headteacher Adam Hardy Date of previous school inspection 7 September 2009 Telephone number 0121 4649800 Fax number 0121 4649824 Email address enquiry@christkng.bham.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 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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