Moor Green Primary Academy

Moor Green Primary School Moor Green Lane, Moseley, Birmingham, B13 8QP

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Not previously inspected This inspection: Inadequate 4 Leadership and management Inadequate 4 Behaviour and safety of pupils Inadequate 4 Quality of teaching Inadequate 4 Achievement of pupils Inadequate 4 Early years provision Good 2

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a school that requires special measures.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Standards are low by the end of Year 6, especially those reached by boys. Pupils’ achievement is inadequate, particularly in writing and mathematics. Their skills are not developed effectively in these subjects.  In common with all other groups, the most able pupils do not do as well as they should because teachers do not expect enough of them.  The achievement of disadvantaged pupils varies too much and they are not taught well enough to help them catch up with other groups.  Weaknesses in teachers’ skills severely limit pupils’ achievement. These include the questions teachers ask to check and extend pupils’ progress, and the way they plan and manage learning.  Support for disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs is ineffective.  Pupils’ behaviour is inadequate and their enjoyment of academy life are not consistently good. They are not enthusiastic learners. Attendance is low.  The academy’s information on pupils’ attendance

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

and the performance of different groups is incomplete, disorganised and confused.  As a result of leaders’ inaccurate, generous judgements on the academy’s effectiveness, little has been done to tackle staff underperformance, improve teaching or raise pupils’ achievement. Leaders do not demonstrate the capacity to bring about sustained improvement.  Governors lack the training and expertise necessary to enable them to hold senior leaders effectively to account.  Partnerships between the academy and the Trust are too weak to drive improvement. Staff and governors have not received sufficient support from the Trust to enable them to carry out their jobs and duties properly.

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The school has the following strengths

 The Early Years Foundation Stage is led well. Children enjoy a wide range of stimulating activities and are better taught than older pupils, so they achieve well.  The academy is making good use of extra sports funding to train staff and improve pupils’ sporting skills.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed teaching in all year groups through visits to classrooms to check on pupils’ learning. Two lessons were observed together with the acting headteacher.  A range of pupils were heard reading.  Samples of Key Stage 2 pupils’ work in writing and mathematics were looked at with the acting headteacher.  Meetings were held with academy staff, a group of pupils and four governors.  Inspectors took account of the 16 questionnaires completed by staff and the 22 responses made by parents to the Ofsted online questionnaire, ‘Parent View’. They also considered parents’ responses to the academy’s own recent survey of their views. An inspector spoke informally to some parents at the beginning of the second day of the inspection.  Inspectors checked a range of evidence including: monitoring records; consultants’ reports; the academy improvement plan; the academy’s own data on pupils’ attainment and progress; and policies, procedures

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Information about this inspection

and practice relating to safeguarding, behaviour and attendance.

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Inspection team

Derek Aitken, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Full report

In accordance with the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

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Information about this school

 The academy opened on 1 January 2013 as part of the Headteachers, Teachers and Industry Trust (HTI). The acting headteacher and deputy headteacher took up their posts in September 2014.  The Chair of the Governing Body was appointed in September 2014.  The number of pupils is increasing. There are now two forms in each year group, up to and including, Year 3.  The academy is larger than the average-sized primary school.  A quarter of the pupils are from White British backgrounds, and a quarter from Pakistani backgrounds. The remaining pupils come from a wide range of minority ethnic backgrounds. Some, mainly in the younger age groups, are at an early stage of learning English as an additional language.  The proportion of disadvantaged pupils supported by the pupil premium, which is additional funding for pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and those in local authority care, is above average.

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Information about this school

 The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs is well below average.  The academy meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum requirements for pupils’ attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 6.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve teaching and learning by ensuring that all teachers:  check learning carefully, clear up any misconceptions and move pupils on quickly to the next task  ask questions skilfully to improve the range and quality of pupils’ spoken responses in lessons  make sure that pupils behave well in all lessons  provide the most able pupils with work that makes them think hard and learn as quickly as they can.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Raise pupils’ achievement and enjoyment, especially in writing and mathematics, by ensuring that:  pupils develop their multiplication skills securely  pupils present and write out their calculations neatly and accurately  weaknesses in pupils’ use of punctuation and spelling are tackled effectively  pupils are given good opportunities to write on a range of topics and for different purposes  effective support is provided for boys, disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs  disadvantaged pupils make consistently good progress so they catch up with other groups  attendance improves to at least the national average.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve leadership and management by ensuring that:  procedures for collecting, organising and sharing data about pupils’ performance are effective, and assessment information is used well to improve pupils’ achievement  all staff apply the school’s behaviour policy effectively  rigorous systems for managing staff performance are established and used effectively to identify training needs, and to improve teaching, leadership skills and the quality of self-evaluation  governors rapidly improve their capacity to hold leaders firmly to account  partnership work between the Trust and the academy is effective.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

An external review of governance, to include a specific focus on the academy’s use of the pupil premium, should be undertaken.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The academy’s systems for collecting information about pupils’ attainment and progress are weak. Data, including information on pupils’ attendance, are poorly organised and communicated. Assessment data do not provide a coherent picture of how different groups of pupils achieve across the academy. Consequently, leaders at all levels are unable to account convincingly for variations in pupils’ performance.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Senior leaders’ evaluations of the academy’s effectiveness are generous. The monitoring of teaching has lacked rigour and ambition and consequently the arrangements for managing staff performance are ineffective. Training needs have not been identified precisely to hold staff accountable for pupils’ achievement and behaviour, or to develop their leadership skills to support succession planning.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Expectations for pupils are not high enough. The achievement of most groups has not been monitored closely so underperformance, for example that of boys, has not received due attention. Weaknesses in the skills of other pupils in danger of falling behind have not been tackled in a timely way and too much time has elapsed before the impact of actions taken has been measured.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Underdeveloped assessment procedures have meant that staff have not tracked pupils’ progress closely or used information well to plan teaching. The academy is in the early stages of working towards full implementation of its preferred approach to assessment following removal of National Curriculum levels.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Most leaders who have responsibilities for key aspects of the academy’s work do not show the capacity to drive improvement. They do not have a clear idea about how well pupils are doing and do not know precisely what actions need to be taken to improve teaching and raise achievement. The needs of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs are not assessed accurately enough to ensure resources are carefully allocated or to inform teaching for these pupils.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Although there have been some recent improvements in arrangements for checking the performance of disadvantaged pupils, the pupil premium funding is still not being used well enough to close gaps in attainment. It has been most effective in specific support programmes for small numbers of pupils. Weak teaching has reduced the impact of support for pupils in writing and mathematics.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Major weaknesses in pupils’ achievement in writing and mathematics show that the academy’s curriculum (the subjects taught) does not prepare pupils adequately for the next stages in their education. Provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is patchy. Pupils learn about British values and democracy, for example through elections to, and participation in, the academy council. The Eco suggestion box encourages them to reflect on the environment. Pupils gain an understanding of human conflict and how different societies operate, for example through their study of the Second World War. However, they have few opportunities to investigate and write about other cultures.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The partnership with the academy trust is ineffective. It makes very little contribution to shaping the academy’s direction. It has not developed sufficient capacity, despite some recent improvements, to provide continuous, high-quality support for improving pupils’ education. It has not carried out an adequate range of checks on the academy’s effectiveness.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Over time, the academy has established a wide range of partnerships with local educational institutions. There is, however, scant evidence that these links have helped to raise standards.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 National sports funding has been spent well. These monies have been used, for example, to improve staff skills in teaching a wide range of sports and to help pupils achieve higher distance targets in swimming. Useful baselines have been established to measure improvements in pupils’ performance.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The Early Years Foundation Stage is led and managed well as shown by the improvements in children’s progress and performance in 2014.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The acting headteacher and acting deputy headteacher have taken some useful preparatory steps to tackle staff underperformance and to improve the quality of teachers’ marking and the curriculum, for example, by facilitating trips to the Harry Potter studios to stimulate pupils’ interest in writing. However, there is still a great deal more than needs to be done to reverse the trend of pupil underachievement across Key Stages 1 and 2.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 It is recommended that newly qualified teachers should not be appointed.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The governance of the school:  Governors are supportive. However, while they have some awareness of weaknesses in pupils’ achievement, they have not acquired a well-informed view of pupils’ performance, including that of vulnerable groups such as disadvantaged pupils. They rightly recognise that they have not had sufficient support from the academy trust to help them accumulate the range of skills needed to carry out their responsibilities well. These include investigating or challenging senior leaders’ inaccurate evaluations of the academy’s effectiveness or contributing suitably to improvement planning.  Governors have not formed a secure, independent view of the quality of teaching and pupils’ progress and so have not been able to ensure that arrangements for managing staff performance, including that of the headteacher, are effective.  Governors carried out an appropriate safeguarding audit last year to help them ensure that current

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The leadership and management are inadequate

statutory requirements for safeguarding are met.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils Inadequate

 The behaviour of pupils is inadequate. The positive attitudes to learning and behaviour they develop in Reception are not built upon sufficiently enough in the later key stages.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils Inadequate

 Sometimes teaching does not encourage or inspire pupils to develop a deep love of learning or great enjoyment of life at the academy. This is shown in rates of attendance, which are well below schools nationally.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils Inadequate

 Pupils report that they occasionally find lessons boring, for example when they have to write about topics they find uninteresting. They say that, in a few classes, they are distracted by some other pupils’ inappropriate behaviour. In lessons, pupils mostly relate well to each other and to staff but teachers do not always help pupils to develop the necessary skills for independent learning. In some lessons, for example, pupils become restless, flick through reading material or move about the classroom, which disturbs the learning of others.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils Inadequate

 In public areas, such as in corridors or in the dining-hall, pupils behave well. This is mostly also the case in the playground, where pupils make good use of apparatus such as the climbing frame to take vigorous physical exercise at break-times. At lunchtimes most pupils organise themselves sensibly to play cricket and football and respect the rules and routines of these games. However, the boisterous behaviour of a few non-participants on a few occasions spoils their fun.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils Inadequate

 Most pupils are polite, well-mannered and considerate towards each other. They usually respond quickly to instructions and requests. They are keen to talk to visitors to tell them about their lives. Some older girls are especially reflective. They talk thoughtfully about their learning and the useful roles, such as play- leaders and councillors, which they and other pupils undertake to help others.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils Inadequate

 The academy’s work to keep pupils safe and secure requires improvement. Pupils are taught about different types of bullying and say they have an adult to turn to if needed. However, they report that more could be done to ensure good behaviour. Staff who supervise pupils in the playground do not always deal with boisterous behaviour quickly enough. Pupils of different ethnic backgrounds nearly always mix well (although school logs record four incidents of boys using racist words against others).

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The behaviour and safety of pupils Inadequate

 There have been very few exclusions since the academy opened and recorded incidents of misbehaviour have been promptly and suitably followed up with all parties concerned. Where a trend has been identified, this has been discussed in assemblies. Conversations which inspectors conducted with parents and pupils reflected some contrasting views on the quality of staff’s promotion of pupils’ behaviour and well-being.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 While teaching in Reception is good, teaching in other year groups requires improvement or is inadequate.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Pupils do not learn well because most teachers do not have a secure knowledge of what pupils can already do and what they are capable of. This is reflected in their planning and expectations for pupils’ work-rate and progress over time. Pupils’ learning is not managed well. Teachers do not check pupils’ work closely enough in lessons, so misconceptions are not identified and tackled quickly and teachers do not recognise when pupils are ready to move on to harder work.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The most able pupils often spend too much time on undemanding tasks, and this reduces opportunities for them to extend their skills. They sometimes lose concentration and chat to their classmates.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Speaking skills are not practised well. Teachers do not routinely ask questions that require more thoughtful answers, or encourage pupils to explain their ideas fully. They sometimes neglect to draw out responses from quieter pupils. This very often prevents pupils who speak English as an additional language from gaining confidence in extending their vocabulary, and limits the range and quality of their responses to the teacher’s questions.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Pupils are not routinely taught accurate writing or spelling habits. Mistakes in their spelling and expression are sometimes overlooked, and occasionally teachers do not use Standard English correctly to model language for them.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Mathematical skills are not taught well. For example, several pupils in Year 5, lacking confidence in their ability to handle multiplication, resorted to adding long lists of identical numbers. During this lengthy procedure they made errors and lost focus.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs do not make enough progress. Leaders do not know precisely where resources, for example teaching assistants, can best be allocated to provide the support they need to succeed. Due to data inaccuracies, teachers’ understanding of how best to help these pupils is vague. Teachers often do not work effectively with teaching assistants to plan suitable work.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Standards at the end of Year 6 in 2013 were low overall. There were some variations in achievement with girls doing better than boys, especially in reading, and Pakistani pupils performing better than their White British classmates. Provisional results for Year 6 pupils in 2014 show a broadly similar picture. Once again, less than half the boys achieved the nationally expected Level 4 in reading, writing and mathematics combined. Their progress in reading and mathematics was inadequate.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 In 2013, disadvantaged eligible for pupil premium funding in Year 6 were working about two terms behind their classmates in reading and mathematics and one term behind in writing. However, they were one year behind all pupils nationally in these skills. Across the academy, the achievement of disadvantaged pupils varies but overall these pupils make inadequate progress.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Pupils who speak English as an additional language make inadequate progress. Their attainment was low in 2014, and broadly similar to that of boys.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Disabled pupils and those pupils with special educational needs underachieve. Weak arrangements for checking their progress mean that they do not get the right support quickly enough to enable them to do well.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Pupils’ underachievement is most marked in mathematics, where teaching is especially weak. Many pupils do not develop their skills securely in this subject and cannot, therefore, apply their knowledge confidently or consistently when solving problems. While pupils keep their exercise books neat and tidy, they are less careful about how they organise and present their work. Consequently, they make unnecessary mistakes, for example with column additions and subtractions.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 The quality and quantity of pupils’ writing vary in Years 5 and 6. Year 6 pupils’ work shows inconsistent use of punctuation and misspellings of common words. Pupils have limited opportunities to develop their skills in creative contexts, such as poetry, or to write for a range of purposes.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 The most able pupils do not do as well as they should, especially in Key Stage 2, where too few achieve the higher levels. Teachers do not make them work hard enough. These pupils often find tasks too easy and lose concentration through wasting time on going over work they have already mastered. Many lack the skills to work without direct support from adults, for example while using a thesaurus to research information. While some take evident pride in their work, they do not receive enough helpful feedback, for example through teachers’ marking, to inspire them to aim higher.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Pupils’ attainment when they join Year 1 is broadly average. Results in the Year 1 screening check for phonics (the sounds that letters make) were below the national average in 2013. Provisional results for 2014 show that Year 1 pupils also performed below the 2013 standard.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Pupils do not achieve well enough in mathematics in Key Stage 1. Less-able pupils in Year 2 usually read accurately and know how to sound out and blend words. Most pupils understand the meanings of words and can draw suitable inferences to show they understand the stories they read.

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The early years provision is good

 The academy’s records show that children’ skills and aptitudes when they join Reception are below those expected for their age. Reception children make good progress, especially in their personal and social development. The percentage of children who reached a good level of development increased in 2014 and exceeded the 2013 national average.

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The early years provision is good

 Children learn well because their enthusiasm and curiosity are skilfully directed by the teaching staff. They understand when to listen and when to observe, because expectations are clear and routines and instructions are respected. Nearly all children concentrate well, both in activities led by staff and those they choose for themselves. Children feel safe because relationships with each other and with staff are warm and friendly. They find learning enjoyable, as shown when they practised the ‘s’ sound by singing ‘the snake is in the grass’. They share resources happily and explain cheerfully to each other how to use them if there are any uncertainties.

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The early years provision is good

 Children understand letter sounds and show good fine motor skills when writing. While some children already use complex vocabulary, others are still working within a restricted range. Most, however, can explain the purpose of their learning. They demonstrate a clear recall of instructions previously given, for example in music lessons, when they counted out the beats before striking their instruments. Most children can match amounts of objects to their numerical equivalents.

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The early years provision is good

 Staff select resources carefully to support children’s learning. Children show confidence in using a range of media, including paint, chalks and glues, to develop their skills in the expressive arts. Staff ask questions carefully to challenge children to extend their learning. This was observed, for example, when staff encouraged them to draw conclusions about how alterations to the angles of guttering might affect the speed of their toy boats.

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The early years provision is good

 Teachers and additional adults support children’s learning well and enable them to acquire a secure understanding of key concepts and themes. They plan tasks systematically and know which children need extra help.

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The early years provision is good

 The Early Years Foundation Stage is led and managed well. Assessments are used carefully to identify comparative weaknesses in children’s skills and to direct teaching to remedy them.

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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 139000 Local authority Birmingham Inspection number 447838

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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 Academy sponsor-led Age range of pupils 4–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 299 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Dave Bagley Headteacher Ann Bashir-Pugh (Acting Headteacher) Date of previous school inspection Not previously inspected Telephone number 0121 464 5662 Fax number 0121 464 5062 Email address enquiry@moorgreenprimary.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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