Woodcroft Primary School

Woodcroft Primary School Goldbeaters Grove, Edgware, Middlesex, HA8 0QF

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Overall effectiveness

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

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 The dedicated and inspirational headteacher leads the school very well. He has a clear vision for improving the school and is supported wholeheartedly by governors and staff.  Senior leaders monitor teaching closely. They provide effective challenge and support to secure improvements in pupils’ learning.  The progress of pupils by the end of Key Stage 2 in 2014 was well above national averages in reading, writing and mathematics.  The quality of teaching is good. Clear guidelines to support successful teaching and learning are in place. Teachers use these ‘passports to success’ effectively.  Governors are actively involved in monitoring the school and know the school well. They deploy funds effectively to support disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs.  Pupils feel safe, are happy and enjoy coming to school. They are keen to learn and behave well both in lessons and around the school.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 The wide ranging curriculum is enhanced by an extremely varied and well attended enrichment programme. An aspirational programme of study called ‘AIM@Woodcroft’ supplements the curriculum. This inspires pupils to do their very best.  Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is promoted and celebrated well. They are extremely proud to belong to the school and work and play together harmoniously.  The school’s website is up to date. It contains extremely useful links to resources which support pupils’ learning.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 The most-able pupils are not always challenged quickly or effectively enough and not all make good progress.  The feedback given to pupils does not always provide them with clear advice about how they can improve their work.  Assessment data in the early years is not analysed thoroughly enough. Not all planned activities enable all children to extend their learning as quickly as they should.  Parents are not given a clear enough understanding of how they can support their child at home and the importance of doing this.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors visited 20 lessons to observe teaching, two jointly with the headteacher and two with the deputy headteacher.  Inspectors undertook ‘learning walks’, comprising short visits to a number of lessons to speak to pupils, look at their work and examine displays.  Meetings were held with the headteacher, senior leaders, a group of governors, a group of staff and teachers with additional responsibilities. In addition, a meeting was held with a representative from the local authority.  Inspectors talked with groups of pupils, listened to them read and observed them during playtimes and lunchtimes. Inspectors also spoke to pupils informally around the school.  The 31 responses to the online parent questionnaire (Parent View) were taken into account, as were the 41 replies to the staff questionnaire. The views of parents were also collected at the start and the end of the school day.  The inspection team reviewed a range of documentation including the school development plan, action

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Information about this inspection

plans, safeguarding policies, minutes of meetings including those of the governing body and information about pupils’ progress. The school’s website was also reviewed.

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Inspection team

Mel Rose, Lead Inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Jeremy Loukes, Team Inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Fatiha Maitland, Team Inspector Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 Woodcroft Primary School is a larger than average sized primary school. It has 15 classes, two in each year group, with the exception of Year 4, where there are three classes. The school also has a Nursery.  Pupils are from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds. Approximately a quarter are from white British backgrounds and around a fifth are from an African background. The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds is well above average, as is the proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language.  The proportion of pupils who are eligible for pupil premium funding, which provides additional funding for pupils known to be eligible for free school meals or in the care of the local authority, is well above the national average.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs supported through school action is above the national average. The proportion who are supported through school action plus or with

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Information about this school

a statement of special educational needs is slightly above average.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards for primary schools, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Increase expectations of all pupils so that attainment is consistently in line with, or above, national expectations by ensuring that:  teachers’ expectations of all pupils are high, and more able pupils, in particular, are appropriately stretched  teachers provide specific and tailored feedback to enable pupils to rapidly improve their work.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve early years provision further by making sure that:  more frequent analysis of data leads to the early identification of, and support for, children whose progress should be more rapid  all activities provided for children are engaging and give them opportunities to make the rapid progress they need to from their relatively low starting points.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve parents’ involvement in, and understanding of, their children’s education so that they are better able to support them at home.

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The leadership and management are good

 The headteacher has a clear vision for the school and an unwavering determination to provide the best education possible for all pupils. His vision is wholeheartedly supported by staff and governors who agree that he has brought about significant improvements.  The headteacher is ably supported by other senior and phase leaders, who effectively check the quality of teaching and learning on a regular basis. Leaders observe teaching and look closely at pupils’ work several times during each term. Senior leaders have clear action plans, which list activities to further improve the school. However, these would benefit from the addition of clearer milestones to ensure improvements are on track. Governors are not checking the impact of action plans securely enough to make sure that improvements happen quickly and effectively.  The school’s innovative approach to school improvement has led to the development of some highly

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The leadership and management are good

effective systems for enhancing pupils’ learning. ‘Passports to success’ provide very clear expectations of what constitutes good teaching in each subject. Similar guidelines for pupils outline the targets they are expected to achieve, as well as the support the school will provide, to enable them to achieve their best.  The curriculum is a strength of the school. It is tailored to the needs of pupils so that they develop the skills needed to prepare them for the next stage of their education. Through the ‘AIM@Woodcroft’ programme, pupils learn about the importance of aspiration and inspiration. The curriculum is further enhanced by an extensive range of extra-curricular clubs. These are attended by a high proportion of pupils, supporting their academic and personal development well. Pupils have a good understanding of, and respect for, different faiths and cultures. They are well prepared for life in modern Britain.

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The leadership and management are good

 Senior leaders have put in place effective systems for managing teachers’ performance. They undertake frequent checks on the quality of teaching. Where areas for improvement are identified prompt action is taken to address them with good use of support and challenge to staff. There are many opportunities for staff to access training and support to improve their practice. This is improving the quality of teaching. However, there are too few opportunities for excellent practice to be shared, which hinders more teaching becoming outstanding.  The leader responsible for disabled pupils and those with special educational needs has put in place a good range of support programmes to help meet the needs of these pupils. She ensures teaching assistants are trained in the programmes they deliver. Close and effective monitoring is in place to effectively identify where teaching assistants’ skills need further development.

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The leadership and management are good

 The deputy headteacher and senior leaders monitor the progress of all groups of pupils, including disadvantaged pupils. The pupil premium funding is used effectively to provide support which enables eligible pupils to make at least similar rates of progress to their peers. In many cases disadvantaged pupils outperform others in school.  The school makes effective use of the primary school sports funding. A specialist PE teacher provides a session a week for all pupils. Teachers observe these lessons and they are rapidly refining their skills in teaching PE. Pupils have the opportunity to participate in a wide range of sports and they compete regularly against other schools.  Parents are extremely positive about the school. They unanimously feel that it is well led and managed. However, the school does not make the most of opportunities to ensure that parents are clear about how to support their children at home, and the importance of doing so to help them all make more rapid

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The leadership and management are good

progress.  The school is in the local authority’s ‘light touch’ category. Local authority officers have carried out a review of the school’s achievement and have worked with school leaders to evaluate accurately strengths and areas for development.  The headteacher is working closely with his counterparts in two local outstanding schools to facilitate faster development of outstanding practice at Woodcroft.

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The leadership and management are good

 The governance of the school:  Governors are actively involved in the life of the school and are providing good support and challenge. Not all governors are familiar with asking more demanding questions so that the school can move from good to outstanding.  The headteacher provides them with regular, detailed information about the schools’ strengths and areas for development. They make regular visits to monitor the actions in the subject or area they have responsibility for. However, they sometimes rely too heavily on information given to them, without checking for themselves how robust the evidence is.  Governors fully understand and support linking decisions on teachers’ pay to their performance in the classroom and how effectively they enable pupils to make rapid progress. Systems for managing the performance of staff and rewarding excellence are in place.  Governors ensure that safeguarding policies and procedures meet current requirements.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is good. Pupils respond well to the high expectations staff have of their behaviour. They settle quickly to work, are keen to learn and want to do well.  A comprehensive system to encourage and reward good behaviour is used consistently throughout the school. As a result, pupils take responsibility for their own behaviour. They are polite and routinely demonstrate good manners.  Pupils behave sensibly during break times and as they move around the school. Pupils of all ethnicities play harmoniously together. They are proud to belong to a culturally diverse school community in which more than 40 languages are spoken.  Democratically elected school council representatives consider ways in which to improve their school and how they can support others. For example, pupils are currently planning a table top sale to raise funds for Children in Need.  The importance of attendance and punctuality are emphasised strongly. Regular reminders appear in the

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Behaviour

weekly newsletter, encouraging a prompt arrival at school. Attendance improved significantly last year and is now close to the national average.

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Safety

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is good. Pupils feel safe and have a good understanding of how to keep themselves safe, including when using the internet. They explain that it is important to exhibit good manners when online, just as it is in everyday life and call it ‘netiquette’. Older pupils know about the importance of protecting their identity and thinking carefully before sharing personal details online.  As a consequence of the school’s good provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, cultural and social development, pupils reflect regularly on the feelings of others. For example, pupils demonstrate their understanding of cyber-bullying by describing its impact on the victim’s emotions. Pupils are aware of other forms of bullying and confirm that incidents are extremely rare. One child summed up other pupils’ comments: ‘We are sociable people. We work together to sort out problems’.

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Safety

 Pupils are keen to adopt leadership roles and to demonstrate how responsible they can be. Older pupils are trained to be play leaders and peer mediators. They help to make playtimes a ‘peaceful and happy’ experience. Other pupils manage the digital strand of the AIM@ programme. These ‘Treehouse keepers’ ensure this aspect of the school’s website is informative and up to date. Junior travel ambassadors teach other pupils how they can stay safe when travelling to and from school.  Staff have a caring approach to their work, going out of their way to ensure the pastoral and personal needs of the pupils are met. Pupils feel confident to talk to their teachers if they have any concerns.  100% of parents who completed ‘Parent View’ at the time of the inspection confirm that their children feel safe and happy at the school.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Classrooms have a purposeful atmosphere and pupils talk positively about how their teachers help them to learn. Displays link to topics pupils are studying. They celebrate pupils’ work as well as provide useful prompts to support their learning.  Where teaching is most effective, there are high expectations of all pupils and the more able pupils are provided with learning that immediately engages and challenges them. However, occasionally more able pupils do not make the progress they are capable of, as they are not stretched quickly or sufficiently.  There are a significant number of highly skilled teaching assistants. Their use of effective questioning supports the needs of the pupils they work with extremely well. These pupils make rapid progress.  Pupils’ work clearly show the good progress they make. Where marking is highly effective, and helps them learn new skills, pupils have a good understanding about what they need to do to improve and are given

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The quality of teaching is good

time to act on this advice. This effective practice is not entirely consistent throughout the school. Occasionally, basic mistakes in both literacy and numeracy are not picked up by the teacher.  The new National Curriculum has been implemented effectively. The significant majority of teaching ensures that pupils have a deep understanding in one area of learning before moving on to the next.  Significant attention is given to supporting pupils’ progress in reading, writing and mathematics. Teachers plan appropriate activities to enable pupils to achieve well. Opportunities to write in subjects other than English support the good development of pupils’ literacy skills. A wide range of numeracy skills are effectively incorporated into other subjects. For example, pupils learn about area and perimeter when designing rockets to land on a specific space station.  However, alongside this, the broad and innovative curriculum also provides well for pupils’ learning in the

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The quality of teaching is good

arts. Success in regional and national dance competitions is indicative of pupils’ aspirations to ‘be the best they can be.’  The teaching of computing is a strength of the school. The school has a highly developed intranet which pupils use regularly and effectively to further their learning. Pupils create ‘wiki’ pages of their learning experiences. One example from Year 6 effectively details their class’ visit to an RAF museum.  Learning is further enhanced by a rich spiritual, moral, social and cultural curriculum, providing pupils with memorable and worthwhile experiences. The school takes opportunities to embrace British traditions. For example, pupils marked Remembrance Day, observing two minutes’ silence following the sounding of the last post. A visiting RAF sargeant explained the significance of the event, its inter faith nature and the meaning of the poppy.  All pupils in Key Stage 2 learn a musical instrument and the orchestra, led by an expert music teacher, has

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The quality of teaching is good

the opportunity to perform outside of school. There is also a choir and pupils are able to sing in two part harmony. During inspection the news came that the school has been shortlisted for a national music award for excellence.  Homework is set regularly and pupils are also expected to read at home. However, where support from parents is lacking, the school does not investigate the reasons for this. As a result, these pupils do not make the progress they are capable of in reading. In Year 6 homework is effectively used to support the development of grammar. As a result, children make good progress from extremely low starting points.

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is good

 Children join the Nursery with knowledge and skill levels that are extremely low compared with those expected for their age. They make good progress, but still start Reception with skill levels below those typical. The majority of children continue to make good progress in Reception. Even so, many start Year 1 with skills below those typically expected.  Results in the phonics check (the sounds that letters make) fell last year and were below national averages. The school implemented new strategies to improve the teaching of phonics this year and the positive impact of these was seen on inspection. A good proportion of those who took the phonics check again in Year 2 reached the expected level.  Attainment at the end of Key Stage 1 is below national averages, although it has steadily improved over the last five years. Disadvantaged pupils perform in line with their peers nationally in writing and

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is good

mathematics. They perform slightly better than their peers in reading.  Pupils make good progress throughout the school. Attainment results at Key Stage 2 in 2013 were above national averages in reading, writing and mathematics. In 2014 attainment is below national average. However, pupils made excellent progress from their very low starting points.  In 2013 the attainment of disadvantaged pupils in Year 6 was in line with pupils nationally but about a term behind other pupils in their year group, although they did better than their peers in school in English grammar, punctuation and spelling.  In 2014, the school significantly narrowed the gap between the attainment of these pupils and others in school and they outperformed their peers in reading, writing and mathematics. They performed equally as well as their peers in English grammar, punctuation and spelling. However, their attainment was about a term behind that of disadvantaged pupils nationally, although their progress was considerably

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is good

better.  Disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs do not attain as well as their peers in school. However, they make good progress. This is because they benefit from an extensive range of well-planned and well delivered support programmes.  The needs of pupils with English as an additional language are well met. Pupils settle quickly into school and by the end of Key Stage 2 they attain above their peers.  Parents are invited to meetings each term to find out about the progress of their children. Although many parents attend these, a significant proportion do not. The school’s expectations of parents, alongside details of how parents can support their children at home, are not defined clearly enough.

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is good

 Children get off to a good start in the Nursery. They join the Early Years Foundation Stage with skills well below those found nationally. A good range of activities, along with skilled intervention from nursery teachers and teaching assistants, ensure children make good progress in all areas of the curriculum.  The outdoor provision has been significantly developed in recent months and provides a stimulating environment for children. However, there are too few activities to promote the development of language and literacy skills outdoors.  The early years’ leader works closely with the nursery providers who link with Reception. She makes sure that the school has an accurate picture of children’s achievements before they start. This ensures no time is lost in supporting them to make good progress.  Teaching is good and relationships between adults and children are strong. Children settle well into

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is good

school and their behaviour is good. The proportion of children who achieve a good level of development is below national average, but children make good progress from extremely low starting points. Children make the most progress in communication and language, understanding of the world and expressive arts and design.  Children are taught to form letters correctly during phonics sessions, where they learn about letters and the sounds that they make. Teachers are providing further opportunities for writing at other times in the day and children are becoming more confident in this area.  Boys do not achieve as well as girls in most areas of learning. Disadvantaged pupils makes good progress and attain as well as their peers. Disabled pupils and those with special educational needs also make good progress and attain as well as their peers.  Assessment information is not always looked at thoroughly enough, so planned activities do not

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is good

always meet the needs of all groups of children. Additional stimulating activities are needed to engage and extend those children whose progress should be more rapid, so that attainment is more in line with national averages.  The systems to keep pupils safe are good. Both indoor and outdoor learning environments provide safe spaces for the children to explore and learn.

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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 134677 Local authority Barnet Inspection number 449695

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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 School Age range of pupils 3−11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 471 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Mrs Liz Court Headteacher Mr Craig Tallon Date of previous school inspection 30 November 2009 Telephone number 0208 959 3244 Fax number 0208 959 0736 Email address office@woodcroft.barnetmail.net 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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