Bickleigh on Exe Church of England Primary School

Bickleigh on Exe C of E Primary School Bell Meadow, Bickleigh, Devon, EX16 8RE

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Not previously inspected This inspection: Requires improvement 3 Leadership and management Requires improvement 3 Behaviour and safety of pupils Good 2 Quality of teaching Requires improvement 3 Achievement of pupils Requires improvement 3 Early years provision Good 2

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This is a school that requires improvement. It is not good because

 Over time, mathematics has been the weakest subject and as a result, pupils’ overall achievement by the end of Year 6 is not good.  The progress of lower attaining pupils is not as strong as that of other pupils.  Teaching requires improvement because pupils’ progress from their different starting points is inconsistent in different year groups.  Teachers do not always make clear their expectations about the quality and quantity of work to be completed. As a result, some pupils do not complete enough work at times and this limits their progress.  The leadership of subjects is not effective enough because the quality and amount of work in different subjects varies too much.  The quality of marking and feedback in subjects is not consistently good. Pupils are not always given enough information about how to improve their work, or given time to correct their mistakes.  Leaders, including governors, do not always check

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This is a school that requires improvement. It is not good because

the quality of teaching carefully enough to make sure that it is helping pupils to achieve well. As a result, leadership requires improvement

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The school has the following strengths

 Leaders, with the support of governors are now making changes which are starting to bring about improvement, including in mathematics.  The pupils benefit from the cohesive nature of the school, caring staff and a positive learning environment.  The more able pupils do well in writing by the end of Year 6. In 2014, the majority of pupils reached the higher level.  The early years provision is good. Children get a good start in the Reception class and make good progress in their learning and development.  Pupils behave well and feel safe in school. They express their views confidently and are respectful towards each other.  Leaders have identified accurately where improvement is necessary.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspector observed seven lessons, all of which were observed jointly with the headteacher.  The inspector held meetings with staff and members of the governing body, including a member of the academy trust.  The inspector talked with groups of pupils, as well as individual pupils during lessons and play times to find out their views about the school. He also listened to pupils read.  The inspector took account of the 53 responses to the online parent questionnaire (Parent View). Parents’ views were also gathered from written comments.  The views of staff were gathered through discussions and 18 returns to the Ofsted staff questionnaire.  The inspector observed the school’s work and looked at documents, including improvement plans, safeguarding documents, records relating to attendance, systems for tracking pupils’ progress and the school’s data on pupils’ attainment and progress .

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Inspection team

Peter Clifton, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 Bickleigh on Exe Primary School converted to become an academy school in January 2012. When its predecessor school, also called Bickleigh on Exe Primary, was last inspected by Ofsted it was judged to be good overall.  The Chair of the Governing Body is also a member of the academy trust.  The school is smaller than the average-sized school.  Almost all pupils are of White British heritage.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs is below average.  The proportion of pupils supported by the pupil premium is very small, including those in Year 6 in 2014. In this school, this provides additional funding for pupils known to be eligible for free school meals.  The school’s provision for pupils in the early years is full time.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Establish consistently good teaching in order to strengthen pupils’ progress across the school by:  improving the support provided for lower attaining pupils so that they can learn as well as possible  setting clearer expectations about the quality and quantity of work to be completed in books  improving marking in writing and mathematics so that pupils have a clearer understanding about how to improve and allowing them time to rectify mistakes.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Raise pupils’ attainment and quicken their progress, particularly in mathematics, by driving through identified improvements more robustly.  Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management by:  strengthening the role of subject leaders to work across the school to ensure that improvement in different subjects is more rapid  ensuring that the leaders carry out regular and more rigorous checks on the quality of teaching, linking teaching securely with pupils’ learning and progress.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Leadership and management require improvement because there is too much inconsistency in pupils’ achievement. Leaders and governors have not ensured that teaching is enabling different groups of pupils to make good progress.  Leaders’ views about the quality of teaching are too generous because there is not a strong enough link between the regular checks of teaching in lessons and the impact of teaching on pupils’ learning and progress.  Middle leaders, such as those in charge of subjects, have not been fully involved in driving improvement within their areas of responsibility and this has led to inconsistencies in quality across different subjects. Recent action taken by subject leaders to improve mathematics teaching has been partially effective. Leaders have a detailed awareness of teaching strengths and weaknesses for different classes and progress is beginning to improve. However, it is too early for these changes to have had a strong impact

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The leadership and management requires improvement

and attainment in mathematics in the current Year 6 lags behind that in reading and writing.  Inconsistencies in the amount of work completed by pupils in their books in both writing and mathematics, and variability in the quality of marking mean that leaders have more to do to bring about rapid improvement.  The school is committed to promoting equality of opportunity and discrimination is not tolerated. However, leaders are aware that there is current variation in the achievement of different groups of pupils.  Leaders use additional government funding to boost skills in literacy and numeracy and have recently reviewed its effectiveness. The school’s information about how well pupils are doing show that any gaps in attainment are beginning to close as a result of this.  Effective leadership, teaching and learning have been established in the early years. Children’s progress is carefully tracked and annotated.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Leaders and other staff engage effectively with parents. Parents are rightly confident that their children’s personal needs are met well.  The leaders' promotion of a caring school where pupils feel safe and learn in a respectful and harmonious environment is a strength of the school. Good behaviour in lessons is consistently expected. Tolerance and respect are promoted successfully. This helps to prepare pupils for life in modern Britain.  Staff promote the pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development effectively. Assemblies have a strong spiritual and moral message. The curriculum is improving; overall, it promotes literacy securely and is being adapted to more closely meet pupils’ different needs in mathematics.  Additional government sports funding is used to enhance pupils’ experience of physical education through the employment of specialist teachers and coaches. Pupils have been trained to support active play at

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The leadership and management requires improvement

lunchtimes. There has been a rise in the number of pupils taking part in a range of competitive sports and after school clubs.  The academy trust has supported developments, for example in mathematics, including visits to other schools and a thorough review of current strengths and weaknesses. This is helping the school to improve.  The school’s safeguarding procedures are effective; checks on staff meet statutory requirements.  The governance of the school:  Governors recognise that there remains more to be done to improve pupils’ attainment and progress in mathematics. They have supported change which is beginning to improve pupils’ achievement. They have a secure understanding of progress data and this has helped them to ask challenging questions. They know about how additional funding is used, and are provided with separate information about the performance of eligible pupils. They are also clear about how the money from the primary sports

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The leadership and management requires improvement

funding has been allocated and know this has increased pupil participation.  Performance management arrangements for the headteacher and other staff are secure. Governors receive clear information about how well staff are doing based on the progress they make against targets. Therefore, they are suitably involved in making decisions about rewarding good teaching performance and tackling weaknesses. However, until recently they have not focused enough on how well teaching and learning are being managed and their overall view about the quality of teaching is too generous. Governors have undertaken training in safeguarding which has recently been updated. They have a secure grip on the budget.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is good. Nearly all pupils concentrate well in lessons and try hard. Classroom routines are well established in the early years.  Behaviour is typically good during break and lunch times and older pupils take on the responsibility to ensure that younger children are happy. They often help to resolve issues such as when pupils occasionally ‘fall out’ with each other.  Pupils’ above average attendance reflects the school’s positive engagement with pupils and the good links it fosters with parents. Pupils spoken to agreed that they enjoyed school and that learning was fun.  There are times in lessons when activities in lessons fail to interest pupils, and their attention wanders. However, pupils are quick to respond to teachers’ questions and much enjoy discussing their learning with each other.

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Safety

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is good.  Teachers and other adults make sure that pupils are safe at all times. Pupils know that discrimination is wrong and say they are always treated fairly.  Older pupils actively promote anti-bullying messages. Pupils comment that there are few incidents of misbehaviour and bullying and that any are quickly dealt with by staff.  Pupils say that they feel very safe at school and know about the different types of bullying, for example, cyber and physical bullying and the use of racist language. They are confident to share any concerns with staff because they know they will be listened to.  The school’s bullying log confirms that incidents are rare, and clearly recorded.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teaching requires improvement. This is because, over time it has not led to pupils’ good achievement and progress.  Weaknesses in mathematics remain, for example, in lower attaining pupils’ understanding of place value and number and in their confidence to add and subtract accurately. This is because teaching and support for these pupils have not been as effective as that provided for other pupils.  In Year 4, better teaching is improving pupils’ mathematics skills. For example, they use different calculation methods confidently to subtract and divide. The most able pupils enjoy using their mental skills to multiply different numbers.  In the pupils’ books, there is considerable inconsistency in the amount of work presented. In mathematics and writing some pupils have very little recorded work, for example in Years 2 and 3, to show what they have done and understood. This is because teachers do not make clear their expectations about the

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

quality and quantity of work to be completed.  There are inconsistencies in the quality of marking in both writing and mathematics. Marking of some pupils’ work does not give enough help and leads to too little improvement. Pupils are not always given time to correct errors and this slows their progress.  In contrast to this, there are pockets of effective marking, for example in Year 6, which typically gives good information to the pupils about how to improve. They then show that they have understood this in their next pieces of work.  Teaching assistants provide typically good individual support, especially for pupils with complex special educational needs. However, there are a few occasions in lessons when teachers do not deploy additional support well enough to support pupils’ learning.  Relationships between staff and pupils are strong across the school and this helps to promote good attitudes to learning.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Basic reading skills are taught well. This is reflected in the above average proportion of pupils who reach the expected standard in the Year 1 screening check in phonics (letters and the sounds they make). Pupils say that they read regularly in school and are encouraged well by their teachers.  Writing samples in Year 6 show that this group of pupils have been taught effectively to liven up their writing using interesting vocabulary, for example when they write about personal foibles.

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requires improvement

 Achievement is not good because pupils do not make good enough progress from their different starting points, particularly in mathematics, and different groups of pupils do not do equally well.  The 2014 Year 6 results show that pupils did not make sufficient progress in mathematics from their starting points in Year 3. Pupils’ progress in reading and writing was stronger. Lower attaining pupils made the least progress in reading, writing and mathematics.  Overall standards of attainment by the end of Year 6 are in line with the national picture. In the 2014 results attainment was strongest in writing and weakest in mathematics. The school’s attainment records for the current Year 6 pupils indicate a broadly similar picture with some improvement in mathematics.  In Year 2 in 2014, there was a small dip in performance from the previous year and overall attainment was average. Attainment in mathematics was stronger than that in reading and writing.

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requires improvement

 Information on achievement for pupils in Year 2 shows that pupils are on track to reach broadly average standards. Pupils’ work seen by the inspector show that levels are accurately assessed and recorded.  Information on the achievement of disadvantaged pupils supported by pupil premium funding shows that they do not always do as well as their classmates. Numbers are too small to allow any meaningful comparison in attainment between them and their peers, both in the school and nationally. However, the school’s information shows a strengthening picture of progress in reading and writing for these pupils, although it is less consistent in mathematics.  Similarly, results show that the progress of disabled pupils and those with special educational needs varies and some do not do well enough. These are usually lower attaining pupils. Their current achievement is similar to their classmates in reading and writing but remains slightly weaker in mathematics where

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requires improvement

provision is not as strong.  Pupils who are most able make the strongest progress. Their progress is good in reading, writing and mathematics. Pupils’ progress is strongest at the upper end of Key Stage 2 and in the early years where children’s achievement is good.  Pupils across the school say that they enjoy reading. Older pupils have strong preferences for different authors and give reasons for their choices. Phonics are well taught and younger pupils use these skills securely to help them read unfamiliar words.

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is good

 Children come into school with skills and understanding that are broadly typical for their age. They make good progress and achieve well. By the time children reach the end of the Reception year, most are well prepared for Year 1. The proportion of children reaching a good level of development is above the national average.  Effective teaching has enabled the children to settle exceptionally well into daily routines. For example, when learning about the sounds of different letters, they maintain their concentration, listen well and contribute confidently.  Teachers plan activities that are well matched to the children’s individual needs for example, when learning about number in mathematics and this helps the children to make good progress.  Children’s learning journals show that they are making secure progress in developing their writing and several can write simple words and sentences. Photographic evidence shows that they have taken part in

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is good

a broad range of different activities since the start of school.  Support for disabled children and those who have special educational needs is well planned and sensitively delivered. As a result these children enjoy coming to school and learning and make good progress.  The outside area is well organised and offers enjoyable learning opportunities such as building with large equipment and riding in cars.  Leadership and management of the setting are good and shown in the well-organised and well-equipped facilities that are used to promote learning. However, opportunities are occasionally missed to support and develop children’s learning in the outside area.

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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 137776 Local authority Devon Inspection number 444309

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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 converter Age range of pupils 4–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 147 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Adrian Gicquel Headteacher David Goode Date of previous school inspection Not previously inspected Telephone number 01884 855357 Fax number 01884 855357 Email address admin@bickleigh.devon.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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