Newdigate Primary and Nursery School

Newdigate Primary School Anderton Road, Bedworth, CV12 0HA

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Requires improvement 3 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

 Newdigate Primary is a rapidly improving happy school where pupils behave well and feel safe.  Leadership and management are good. The headteacher sets a good tone for the school and all leaders contribute effectively to improving the quality of teaching and pupils’ achievements.  Teaching is good. Lessons are interesting and challenging. Teachers ensure that pupils learn English, mathematics and computer skills well and apply them effectively.  All groups of pupils achieve well, including the most able, disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs.  Standards in writing have risen significantly since the last inspection. Pupils now consistently achieve the expected level of attainment in English and mathematics by the end of Year 6.  Provision for the Early Years Foundation Stage is good. Children learn well in both the Nursery and Reception classes and are well prepared for the National Curriculum in Year 1.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Pupils are taught to value and respect everyone equally, regardless of race, ethnicity or belief, and they are well prepared for life in modern Britain.  Governors have played a full part in improving the school since the last inspection. They set demanding targets for the headteacher to reach and insist that similarly high expectations are placed on all staff.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 The teaching does not yet ensure that all pupils, particularly the most able, achieve as well as they can in all subjects.  Reading is not promoted as strongly as writing throughout the school.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors visited all classrooms to observe pupils’ learning. They talked with the pupils about their work and looked through their books. Some of these activities were undertaken jointly with the headteacher and deputy headteacher.  Inspectors heard some pupils reading and observed behaviour during playtimes and lunchtimes, and at the beginning and end of the school day.  Meetings were held with members of staff, groups of pupils and three governors. A telephone discussion was held with a representative of the local authority  The responses of 60 parents to the online questionnaire (Parent View) were taken into account, alongside the school’s recent parental questionnaire and comments made to inspectors by parents. The views of staff were also considered, including the 26 responses to a staff questionnaire.  A range of documents was examined, including safeguarding policies and procedures, the school’s view of

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Information about this inspection

its own performance, and records of the progress of past and current pupils.

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Inspection team

Peter Kerr, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 This is an average-sized primary school.  Most pupils are of White British heritage.  The proportion of pupils for whom the school receives the additional funding known as the pupil premium is about one in three, which is above the national average for primary schools.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs is about one in four, which is above the national average.  The Reception and Nursery classes provide a part-time early years curriculum for children aged three to four and a full-time early years curriculum for pupils aged four to five.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of Key Stage 2.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Further improve the quality of teaching, particularly to challenge the most-able pupils, by:  ensuring that more lessons enable pupils to explore and follow through their own ideas  providing more opportunities for pupils to undertake open-ended investigations in mathematics.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Raise interest and standards in reading further by providing a wider range of books within classrooms and extending opportunities for pupils to look through and talk about books.

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The leadership and management are good

 Leadership and management are good. The headteacher has established an atmosphere in which staff and pupils feel valued and want to do their best. Teaching has improved and pupils want to come to school. They behave well because they want to succeed.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school has successfully tackled the key areas for improvement from the previous inspection and made good progress in the areas for further development that were identified during the monitoring visit in May 2013.

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The leadership and management are good

 Senior, subject and other leaders now have a significant impact on school improvement because of effective delegation. Good leadership of English has helped to raise attainment in writing throughout the school. The gap between the attainment of boys and girls has been narrowed through the introduction of reading material and writing tasks designed to be of interest to boys.

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The leadership and management are good

 Improvement planning is now effective because it makes clear what teachers need to do in order to accelerate progress for pupils in specific areas. For example, pupils' problem-solving skills are now much better because teachers regularly set interesting problems and celebrate pupils’ success in solving them through displays of work around the school. This adds to pupils' motivation and spurs them on to greater efforts.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school’s tracking of pupils' progress and attainment is much improved and used effectively to measure the impact of teaching on progress in reading, writing and mathematics for each class and for different groups of pupils.

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The leadership and management are good

 Parents continue to hold the school in high regard. The responses to Ofsted’s Parent View are overwhelmingly positive and reflect the outcomes of the school’s own questionnaires. The school’s mathematics workshops have been well attended and have succeeded in enabling many more parents to help their children with mathematics homework.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school’s safeguarding arrangements are comprehensive. They fully meet statutory requirements and are effective in ensuring the safety of the pupils.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school promotes equality of opportunity effectively and discrimination is not tolerated. Thorough records are kept of any incidents of suspected bullying and swift effective action is taken to stop it. Pupils who are sometimes uncomfortable in large groups receive good support in small-group sessions to build their confidence and help them to make better progress in class.

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The leadership and management are good

 The curriculum promotes British values well. Pupils develop a sense of citizenship through their environment topics and learn about democracy through the school council. Pupils learn about the different cultures that are represented in the country and around the world in ways that give them positive attitudes to difference.

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The leadership and management are good

 The local authority continues to help the school to strengthen its leadership through support for senior staff in school self-evaluation and in developing key leadership roles. It has also supported the headteacher in improving the school’s analysis and use of data on pupils’ performance.

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The leadership and management are good

 Extra funds to support disadvantaged pupils are used well. The school regularly reviews the impact that the spending has in terms of the targeted pupils’ well-being, personal development and educational progress.

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The leadership and management are good

 The primary physical education and sport premium is used well to boost pupils’ participation and skills in sports and improve teachers’ expertise in teaching physical education and sports. Specialist coaches have been employed to work directly with pupils to improve their skills and to demonstrate effective teaching in gymnastics and dance. Training in supporting play has also been provided for lunchtime supervisors and teaching assistants.

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The leadership and management are good

 The governance of the school:  The governing body has played a significant role in school improvement since the last inspection. Members have challenged and supported the headteacher to delegate leadership and management roles effectively and this has led to the establishment of an effective senior leadership team.  Governors now have a good understanding of data on pupils’ performance and are using this well to check the progress of different groups in the school. This helps them to ensure that the pupil premium is being used effectively to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils.  The visits governors make to school are now better focused on the impact teachers have on outcomes for pupils and they use this information well to make sure that the contribution of staff to raising pupils' achievements and improving the management of the school is linked to the pay increases they receive. The governing body takes effective measures when any staff fail to meet the demands placed on them.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is good. Pupils get on well with each other and have very positive attitudes to work. They play harmoniously at playtimes and confidently chatted to inspectors during lunchtimes, which are civilised, sociable occasions. Lunchtime supervisors know the pupils well and keep order in a very friendly and supportive way.

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Behaviour

 Attendance has been maintained at the national average level since the last inspection. The pupils’ eagerness to learn makes a very positive contribution to their overall progress. During the many visits inspectors made to lessons, nearly all the pupils were wholeheartedly engaged with activities or listening to the teachers. They answer questions readily and are keen to put forward their own ideas.

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Behaviour

 Relationships between pupils are very good and they co-operate very readily. When engaged in practical tasks, they show great enthusiasm and persistence in seeing projects through. The gardening and cooking projects help them to develop good levels of self-confidence and a sense of belonging to a community.

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Behaviour

 Pupils enjoy taking on responsibilities around the school; for example as play leaders. They learn a great deal about the world around them through topic and science work, and they develop a sense of shared responsibility for the environment.

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Safety

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is good. Parents support this view and have confidence in the school.

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Safety

 Pupils know that bullying can take various forms, including name-calling and cyber-bullying. They know what they should do if it happens to them and would trust an adult at the school to help them. They say there are very few bullying incidents, and are very confident that staff deal with them effectively.

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Safety

 Pupils have a good understanding of how to keep themselves safe and they manage risk to themselves in a range of situations. Pupils move around the school with safety in mind and know how to keep themselves safe when crossing busy roads.

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The quality of teaching is good

 The school’s records of checks made on the quality of teaching show that it has steadily improved over the past year. Inspection evidence confirms this view.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers and teaching assistants work well together to ensure that all pupils receive the support they need during lessons to complete tasks and to understand what is being taught.  Teachers ensure that pupils are fully engaged because they organise enjoyable activities which challenge the pupils to think and develop their ideas. For example, in a Year 1 lesson, every pupil was fully focused on weaving activities for a sustained period. This was because they had chosen for themselves the materials to use and were developing their own ideas as they worked.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Similarly, in Year 6, pupils in a mathematics lesson engaged in discussions on ratio and proportion were highly motivated to solve the problem that had been set. This was because it was interesting and could be tackled in a variety of ways, stimulating them to try their own ideas and consider alternative strategies. Discussion with them indicated that the most able had the capacity to take the ideas further and make links with other aspects of their learning in mathematics, but this avenue was not open to them.

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The quality of teaching is good

 The teaching of mathematics is good, with a focus on problem solving in each class reflected in prominent, attractive display boards. Pupils enjoy these tasks and they have deepened their understanding of mathematics.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Writing is taught well. Teachers successfully motivate pupils to write and encourage them to produce their best work. As a result, much of the writing in the pupils' books and in displays around the school is of a high standard. Poetry, drama and role play are used well to enable pupils to rehearse sentences before they write them, adding interest to the work.

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The quality of teaching is good

 The teaching of reading is good. Guided reading lessons ensure that all pupils read daily and this has established the habit of reading throughout the school. Pupils are encouraged to read for information when researching topics but, in most classes, there is a limited range of books available for pupils to enjoy reading and they are not given enough encouragement to read.

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The quality of teaching is good

 On occasions, some pupils, especially the most able, are capable of taking ideas further in an open-ended way, but they are not given the opportunity to do so. For example, a more-able group of pupils was not challenged to find the lowest possible numbers that represented a given proportion when the work they had completed naturally suggested this avenue of investigation.

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is good

 Pupils achieve well. Attainment is below the expected level at the beginning of Year 1 and is broadly average at the end of Year 6 in reading, writing and mathematics. This represents good progress. It also represents a significant improvement since the last inspection. Pockets of underachievement – for example, in boys’ writing – have been eliminated and now all groups of pupils make good progress.

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is good

 By the end of Year 1, pupils have a good knowledge of linking letters to sounds (phonics) because of the success of the school’s systematic approach to the teaching of phonics and spelling. The proportion of pupils who reached the required standard in the Year 1 phonics screening check in 2014 was above the national average. Pupils’ books show good progress in the quality of their writing as they move through the school. They respond positively to teachers’ marking, correcting mistakes and making efforts to improve their work.

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is good

 Pupils enjoy reading. They readily talk about the books they read in groups at school and they read from a wide range of sources, including the internet, when researching topics. Some read a range of authors and express preferences for different styles of fiction, but others have a limited experience of reading books beyond the reading schemes provided in school.

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is good

 A feature of the learning seen during the inspection was the enthusiasm boys share with girls for writing. Year 4 boys, for example, were keen to write imaginary diary entries pretending to be stone-age children because of the stimulating way the topic had been presented. Both boys and girls write neatly, and use correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. The standard of presentation in boys’ and girls’ books is of a similar quality.

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is good

 Pupils use English, mathematics and computer skills well in other subjects. For example, neat, completed charts and graphs show the results of science experiments, with good written explanations of what they show. Also, research carried out on computers is used to provide background information on the topics being investigated.

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is good

 The school’s records show that disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs make good progress relative to their starting points.

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is good

 Disadvantaged pupils make good progress and are beginning to catch up with other pupils in the school. In 2014, they were one term behind their classmates in reading, two terms behind them in writing but slightly ahead of them in mathematics. Compared to other pupils nationally, they were around two terms behind in reading, writing and mathematics. The gap has narrowed for current Year 6 pupils from more than one and a half terms in Year 2 to less than half a term now.

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is good

 The most-able pupils make good progress but it is clear from their books and observations in lessons that some of them are capable of doing better, particularly through open-ended investigations; for example, in exploring and explaining any patterns that emerge in the work they do in mathematics.

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is good

 Provision for the Early Years Foundation Stage has improved since the last inspection, when learning was good in the Nursery but slowed in Reception. Provision is now consistently good in both classes and children make good progress across the seven areas of learning so that they have a smooth transition into Year 1.

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is good

 Children’s levels of development on entry to the Nursery are generally below those typical for their age. Teaching of communication, language and literacy is particularly good. Adults are adept at modelling correct language and they question well to develop the children’s vocabulary and deepen their understanding of language. Children with identified learning needs are supported well and make good progress in relation to their starting points.

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is good

 The activities provided for children give them a wide range of opportunities to learn through play across all areas of learning. Adults encourage the children to practise newly learned skills and consolidate knowledge as they play, and they keep detailed records of their progress. These show that, in 2014, the proportion of the children who had achieved a good level of development was similar to the national average, representing good progress.

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is good

 Leadership and management of the Early Years Foundation Stage are good. There is good teamwork and the phase leader, who is a member of the senior leadership team, has an accurate understanding of the strengths and weaknesses in provision.

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is good

 Safeguarding and child protection are a key focus. All staff are trained to the appropriate level for their posts, including in paediatric first aid. Children behave well and feel safe. They show good behaviour for learning, listening well to each other and adults.

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is good

 The quality of teaching over time is consistently good. All the adults working with the children understand how children of this age learn best and know how to support their learning as they play or when teaching them in small groups. All staff contribute to assessing and recording the children’s progress, which is summarised for each child in a learning journal.

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is good

 The engagement of parents is good. Home visits help to assess starting points and to encourage support once in school. Parents say that staff are approachable, caring and supportive, and they appreciate the availability of resources to support their children’s learning at 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 130896 Local authority Warwickshire Inspection number 453450

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School details

This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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School details

Type of school Primary School category Community Age range of pupils 3–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 287 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Robin Wilson Headteacher Siobhan Marrow Date of previous school inspection 16 January 2013 Telephone number 024 76361662 Fax number 024 76363796 Email address admin2633@welearn365.com guidance ‘raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234 , or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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School details

You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when and as part of the inspection.

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School details

You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk, or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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School details

achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection. Further copies of this report are obtainable from the school. Under the Education Act 2005, the school must provide a copy of this report free of charge to certain categories of people. A charge not exceeding the full cost of reproduction may be made for any other copies supplied. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please

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School details

telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way. To receive regular email alerts about new publications, including survey reports and school inspection reports, please visit our website and go to ‘Subscribe’.

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School details

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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