Long Clawson Church of England Primary School

Long Clawson Church of England Primary School School Lane, Long Clawson, Melton Mowbray, LE14 4PB

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Overall effectiveness

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

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This is a good school

 Pupils’ behaviour in and around the school is outstanding. Their attitudes to learning are excellent and they try very hard with their work.  Pupils have an excellent understanding of how to keep themselves and others safe. They understand what types of bullying could occur and know this would never be tolerated in school.  The staff team work very closely together and share a determination to enable the pupils to develop as confident learners and well-rounded individuals.  The school has maintained the good quality of education it provides since its last inspection, and is improving in some areas.  Pupils of all ages and abilities make good overall progress and achieve well in reading, writing and mathematics.  Teaching is good across the school. Staff have high expectations of pupils academically and socially. All staff have strong working relationships with pupils, who want to do well to please the adults around

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This is a good school

them.  The curriculum provides pupils with imaginative and stimulating experiences, including visits to places of educational interest. Pupils like the links between subjects and use their writing skills well in different contexts.  Leadership of the school is effective. The headteacher and whole staff team readily share ideas of what to do to improve further. This has a positive impact on improving teaching.  Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is promoted particularly well. They are very responsible young citizens who show high levels of tolerance and respect for others and an awareness of British values.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 The checks leaders make on the quality of teaching do not always clearly identify areas for further improvement.  The governing body is currently below full strength and not making a full contribution to improving the school. Not all governors have a strong grasp of information about pupils’ performance.  Some parents are not confident that the school listens to or values their questions or concerns.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspector observed parts of six lessons and a range of other school activities. Lesson observations were carried out jointly with the headteacher. The inspector also looked in detail at the work in pupils’ books and heard several pupils read.  Planned and informal discussions were held with pupils throughout the inspection.  There were discussions with the headteacher, including in her role as special educational needs coordinator. Discussions were also held with staff responsible for provision for the early years children and those leading English and mathematics.  The inspector spoke to two members of the governing body. A discussion by telephone was held with a representative of the local authority.  There were 37 responses to the parent questionnaire (Parent View). The inspector spoke to several parents at the start of each inspection day and also received a small number of written communications

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Information about this inspection

from parents. She also took account of 13 responses to the staff questionnaire.  The inspector scrutinised a range of documents including the school’s own information about pupils’ progress and the monitoring of teaching and learning. She also took account of records relating to behaviour, attendance and safeguarding.

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Inspection team

Sue Hall, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 This is much smaller than the average-sized primary school.  At 22%, the proportion of disadvantaged pupils supported by the pupil premium is a little below the national average. The pupil premium provides additional funding for those who are known to be eligible for free school meals.  Only a very small number of pupils are from minority ethnic groups and none are at the early stages of learning to speak English.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, at around 10%, is below the national average.  There are five classes in the school. Reception children attend on a full-time basis and are taught in a discrete group, as are those in Year 1 and Year 6. Pupils in Years 2 and 3, and 4 and 5, are taught in mixed-aged classes.  The headteacher took on the role five years ago, shortly after the last inspection.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for

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Information about this school

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 leadership and management, and so teaching and learning, by:  ensuring that the monitoring of teaching and learning is rigorous and identifies specific areas for further improvement, particularly in the way staff cater for different ability groups  making sure that governors are well trained and are fully aware of what performance data and other information tell them about pupils’ achievement, so they can pinpoint what to improve  working with parents to give them confidence that the school listens and responds to their concerns.

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The leadership and management are good

 The headteacher provides effective leadership and is well supported by the senior teacher and staff in her drive to improve the school. All staff work very closely together and readily share ideas of how to continually improve teaching, learning and behaviour.

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The leadership and management are good

 Systems for monitoring teachers’ performance are thorough and generally effective. Staff who have leadership responsibilities coach those in new roles to further improve teaching and learning. This sharing of good practice and attendance at training activities ensures many aspects of provision are consistently effective.

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The leadership and management are good

 Leaders, including those responsible for English and mathematics, lead discussions and share ideas and resources for different age groups. This has been particularly successful in mathematics in improving pupils’ problem-solving skills. Strong leadership in English has led to wider use of imaginative writing tasks, as seen in work in Years 2 and 3 on Shakespearean texts.

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The leadership and management are good

 The early years leaders share the role with one of the staff being new to the role. They demonstrate a commitment to maintaining the many long-standing pastoral strengths coupled with improving links between Reception and Year 1.

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The leadership and management are good

 While staff work very well together to continue improving teaching and learning, this makes it difficult at times for leaders to stand back and be critically evaluative of what is provided. While staff carry out checks on pupils’ work across the school, these are not particularly frequent or rigorous. Occasionally, judgements made following the monitoring of pupils’ learning appear a little generous and do not sufficiently focus on areas for further improvement.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school, along with all other schools, is in the process of developing a new and more thorough approach to assessing pupils’ attainment and progress, and analysing the achievement of different ability groups in more detail. Leaders pride themselves on seeing every child as an individual and track their separate progress in reading, writing and mathematics.

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The leadership and management are good

 The staff have worked very successfully to review the curriculum to ensure it is broad and well balanced. There are very effective links between subjects, as seen for example in the high- quality art work in Years 4 and 5, based on the study of what Aztec warriors would wear and why, and the accompanying accounts of their lives.

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The leadership and management are good

 The curriculum successfully helps pupils prepare for their next stage of education and life in modern Britain. The outstanding provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development helps pupils develop as caring young citizens. The excellent quality of singing is noted with pride by many parents, as are the opportunities to join in local cultural events. A wide range of other activities, including links with other schools and organisations locally and further afield, help develop a strong understanding of British society and values.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school takes care to ensure the safeguarding of its pupils, and its procedures meet current requirements and are effective. Leaders ensure careful checks are made of the suitability of staff to work with children.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school has improved its use of pupil premium funding during the year. A part-time teacher is now employed to work specifically with disadvantaged pupils to boost their literacy skills and expectations of what they can achieve. This illustrates the school’s commitment to ensuring equality of opportunity for all and countering discrimination of any kind. The progress of disadvantaged pupils is now accelerating.  The primary school physical education and sport funding is used effectively. The school has employed sports coaches to improve staff confidence in teaching specific skills, including for gymnastics, and in buying new resources.

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The leadership and management are good

 The local authority provides very light support for what it rightly perceives to be a successful school. This includes monitoring of progress data, but limited direct contact with leaders to discuss trends in performance.

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The leadership and management are good

 The majority of parents are pleased with the quality of care and education provided for their children. Discussion with some parents shows their great appreciation of the vibrant and exciting things that happen in school and the consistently high quality of care for children, especially in the early years.

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The leadership and management are good

 A significant minority of parents, however, do not believe their questions and concerns are valued or taken account of by the staff. They also believe that the leadership of the school is not effective. Inspectors found that the school is led and managed well but agree that staff could consult and communicate with parents more effectively.

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The leadership and management are good

 The governance of the school: – Governance requires improvement. This is readily recognised by the governors, who are taking measures to improve their effectiveness and speedily recruit new members. – Governors are supportive of the school and very aware of its many long-standing strengths. Some work very closely with the headteacher and act as a sounding board in strategic discussions and in day-to-day matters. Governors consider data about pupils’ progress when making decisions about teachers’ pay or promotion. A few have attended training to understand what performance data tells them about the progress pupils make and to enable them to ask pertinent questions. However, there are now several vacancies for governors. Some in key roles have not attended training to help them develop their role in supporting while challenging the school. Governors are active in planning to develop their roles including new links with specific year groups. They also plan to develop a programme of

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The leadership and management are good

governor visits as soon as new governors are appointed. Therefore an external review of their work is not required at this stage.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is outstanding. Their conduct in and around the school is often exemplary. This was illustrated by their excellent conduct and participation in an assembly in the local school hall, focused on what makes them feel proud.

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Behaviour

 Pupils behave very well in classrooms and as they move through the school. They have very positive attitudes to learning and readily contribute their ideas. For example, an excellent discussion was seen in Years 4 and 5, when pupils considered what would be best for a trapped lion and the people around it. This discussion showed the pupils’ empathy and maturity in their awareness of different considerations and priorities.

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Behaviour

 Pupils’ books show that most of them take very good care with the presentation of their work and try hard to improve it. Where older pupils are asked to respond to the marking of their work, they do this in a mature and considered manner.

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Behaviour

 Parents are particularly delighted with the strong working relationships between their children and the staff. In their responses, several commented on how much their children appreciate the adults they work with, and how they willingly complete their homework unprompted.

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Safety

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is outstanding. Pupils have a very clear understanding of how to keep themselves and others safe. Older pupils know that their behaviour can have an impact on that of others, and recognise their responsibilities to act as excellent role models for the younger children.

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Safety

 Pupils believe there is little or no bullying in school. They know the different types of bullying that could occur. They recognise that there is a line between thoughtless behaviour and what could be done to deliberately upset someone. Pupils know that name-calling and the derogatory use of words such as ‘gay’ is unacceptable. They understand what e-safety entails and what cyber-bullying is. They are fully confident that staff would take any worries or concerns very seriously.

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Safety

 Older pupils’ understanding of risk and dangers is developed very well, including through discussions in personal, social and emotional development activities.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teaching is consistently good in different age groups and subjects, including in literacy and numeracy, and promotes pupils’ learning and personal development well. This was shown in the samples of pupils’ recent work, records of pupils’ progress and the learning observed in classrooms.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers reflect on their own skills and work very successfully to make activities vibrant and interesting for the pupils. They create a happy learning environment where pupils settle well and thrive. All staff share high expectations of pupils’ work and behaviour. Because pupils want to please the adults around them, they try hard in all they do.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Enthusiastic teaching engages and motivates the pupils. For example, pupils in Years 2 and 3 made excellent progress when learning more about the writing of Shakespeare. Staff recreated scenes between Demetrius and Helena so that pupils were able to identify what the argument was about and could explain much of the language used.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Staff use questions well to check pupils’ understanding. For example, pupils in Year 6 looked at extracts from a biography and the autobiography of John Lennon and considered the differences between them. Here, careful questions and encouragement ensured that all pupils were confident enough to share their ideas, showing a good understanding that there can be different interpretations of the past.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Staff usually plan specific activities for pupils at different ability levels. Just occasionally, tasks are not adapted well for all groups. For example, some younger pupils spent too long mixing counting cubes to the detriment of checking and recording their calculations in a number sentence.

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The quality of teaching is good

 The marking of pupils’ work is thorough and pupils generally respond well. There are some very effective examples using the school’s ‘bubble and block’ technique, with the bubble showing what works well and the block showing the areas for improvement.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Children enter the school with attainment that varies significantly from year to year. Currently most children in the early years have skills above those typical for their age, particularly in their personal and social development and communication. Children settle very well and make good progress in all areas of their learning. They are well prepared to enter Year 1, and records show that many exceed what is expected for their age.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 In Year 1 national checks in 2014, pupils’ phonic skills (their understanding of how to link letters with the sounds they make) were a little above the national average.  With very small year groups, pupils’ attainment in each key stage can vary significantly from year to year. In the 2014 national tests, for example, it dipped in Key Stage 2 from previously high levels. However, the data show that an average proportion of pupils made the progress expected nationally across Key Stage 2 in reading, writing and mathematics. Not quite so many exceeded expected progress.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Current performance data show that progress across the school is good for all groups of pupils. Boys and girls, those supported by the pupil premium, and disabled pupils and those with special educational needs achieve well. Some groups of pupils are making excellent progress because of high-quality teaching.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Pupils across the school generally read well and with enjoyment. Younger pupils are able to use their understanding of phonics to work out new words. Many pupils have very good communication skills and use a wide and sometimes mature vocabulary to express their ideas. This helps to inform their writing, which is often both technically accurate and imaginative.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Pupils are making good progress in mathematics. Reflecting the school’s recent emphasis on problem solving, pupils enjoy this work and their books show they have a good understanding of calculations and of shapes, space and measures.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 In 2014, there were too few disadvantaged pupils in Year 6 to comment on their attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics without risk of identifying individuals. Currently, these pupils are receiving very effective support from a part-time teacher and any attainment gaps compared to other pupils are closing.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Last year some of the most able pupils did particularly well in several areas of their learning. Currently the most able pupils are also making good progress and some of the oldest are on course to achieve Level 6 in several areas.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Disabled pupils and those with special educational needs currently make similarly good progress to their classmates. These pupils benefit from high quality additional support that meets their individual needs well.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Pupils develop healthy lifestyles through a range of physical education activities.

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The early years provision is good

 Children’s skills on entry to the Reception class vary from year to year. The current group joined with skills and understanding above those seen typically at their age. Many display good levels of self-confidence and speaking skills. They are provided with a very interesting range of activities that often contain a practical element to their learning where they have to find things out for themselves. This motivates the children well and enables them to make progress that is at least good.

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The early years provision is good

 Children develop excellent attitudes to their learning. They behave very well and have a strong understanding for their age of how to keep safe when working and playing. Class scrapbooks and individual ‘learning journey’ books show the considerable progress that they make and are much valued by parents.

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The early years provision is good

 Teaching is good. Excellent working relationships between the staff and children are reflected in their enthusiasm to take part in activities. This is shown when searching for pictures of penguins, or extending their speaking skills when animatedly sharing ideas of where to look with their friends. The indoor and outdoor learning environments are bright, stimulating and well organised to promote learning in all areas of their development.

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The early years provision is good

 Very occasionally, staff do not fully challenge all groups of children. For example, after a hunt outdoors for pictures of penguins, the children of middle and higher ability enjoyed trying to write their own sentences, but there was no similar opportunity for the least able.

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The early years provision is good

 Leadership and management of the early years are good. Responsibility is shared between the Reception class leader and a Year 1 teacher, which helps provide consistency of approach and continuity in learning.

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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 120141 Local authority Leicestershire Inspection number 449608

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School details

This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Primary School category Voluntary controlled Age range of pupils 4–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 108 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Simon Shouler Headteacher Catherine Sinclair Date of previous school inspection 7 March 2010 Telephone number 01664 822337 Fax number N/a Email address adminoffice@longclawson.leics.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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