Setting

Miss Amanda Yates Headteacher East Harling Primary School and Nursery Gallants Lane East Harling Norwich Norfolk NR16 2NQ

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School and Nursery

Following my visit to your school on 6 February 2015, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. Thank you for the help you gave me and for the time you made available to discuss the actions you are taking to improve the school since the most recent section 5 inspection.

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School and Nursery

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in November 2014. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

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School and Nursery

Senior leaders and governors are taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the recent section 5 inspection. The school should take further action to:

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School and Nursery

 make sure the governing body gathers first-hand evidence about the work of the school so that governors increase the challenge to school leaders  increase the range of success criteria in the action plan.

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Evidence

During the inspection, meetings were held with you, the deputy headteacher, the leader of mathematics and the head of Norfolk to Good and Great programme (N2GG) to discuss the action taken since the previous inspection. I met with the Serco Inspections Colmore Plaza 20 Colmore Circus Queensway Birmingham B4 6AT T 0300 123 1231 Text Phone: 0161 6188524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Direct T : 0121 679 9162 Direct email : peter.willetts@serco.com Chair and Vice-Chair of the Governing Body. All other governors attended the formal feedback at the end of the day. I visited all classrooms and looked at records of the school’s monitoring of teaching and learning. The school improvement plan was evaluated.

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Context

There are no changes to staffing or the governing body since the previous inspection.

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Main findings

School leaders and the governing body aim to provide pupils with good academic achievements within a year of the previous inspection. The school improvement plan sets out suitable actions and progress checks to achieve this aim within the desired timeframe. The plan has general targets for improving pupils’ achievements but it will benefit from a broader range of measures, such as targets for different groups of pupils and specific milestones to assess the school’s progress at key points in time. Training for staff matches the priorities for improvement well.

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Main findings

The plan ensured that the school’s journey of improvement started in earnest from the beginning of January. You quickly gave staff good opportunities to challenge existing practice and to get to the heart of each area identified for improvement in the inspection report. As a result, a new teaching and learning policy is in place that has the potential to play a significant part in improving the quality of teaching and learning. The policy sets out high expectations, as agreed by teachers and teaching assistants at the beginning of term.

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Main findings

Formal checks on the effectiveness of the actions taken are well planned and well recorded. As a result:

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Main findings

 senior leaders have the time they need to check on the quality of teaching and pupils’ learning, and share responsibilities for school improvement  the checks sensibly involve external consultants, as well as a range of checks by senior staff  senior leaders meet fortnightly to discuss progress through the action plan, they identify the strengths and weaknesses, and provide support and training where needed  teachers and teaching assistants have verbal and written feedback on their work  the governing body has detailed information about what has taken place so far, although it has not yet gathered its own information. Ofsted may carry out further visits and, where necessary, provide further support and challenge to the school until its next section 5 inspection.

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External support

School staff make good use of two sources of external support. The local authority, through the N2GG programme, provides support from a Local Leader of Education and a challenge partner. The headteacher and governing body have commissioned support to develop the early years provision and mathematics.

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External support

I am copying this letter to the Chair of the Governing Body and the Director of Children’s Services for Norfolk local authority.

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