Camelsdale Primary School

Camelsdale Primary School School Road, Camelsdale, Haslemere, GU27 3RN

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Outstanding 1 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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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Pupils achieve well in reading, writing and mathematics across the school, given their starting points.  Good teaching ensures pupils learn well and sometimes very well. Teachers plan interesting lessons that engage pupils in their learning and question them effectively to develop their understanding. This moves their learning on quickly.  Children achieve well in the early years due to effective teaching of key skills.  Thorough checks on pupils’ progress enable the school to identify those not doing well enough and provide effective support to help them catch up.  Pupils’ behaviour and safety are outstanding. Excellent relationships at all levels ensure pupils thoroughly enjoy school and feel safe and very well cared for. Consequently, pupils are ready to learn and respond positively to all that is on offer.  The school provides excellent enrichment activities for pupils in Key Stages 1 and 2, and this makes a

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

significant contribution to their personal and academic development. A particular feature is the strong links with a school in Spain.  The school makes excellent use of its grounds as an effective tool for learning. The wild school area supports the development of life skills extremely well and the secret garden is particularly well used to support literacy development.  The headteacher has a very clear vision for pupils’ education. She is fully supported by middle leaders, governors and all staff in her determination to provide a good quality education through exciting learning opportunities. Together, they ensure that teaching and pupils’ achievement continue to get better.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 Planning in the early years for activities that children choose by themselves is limited and does not provide exciting opportunities for their learning.  Teachers’ feedback to pupils is not always thorough enough and does not clearly tell pupils what they need to do to improve.  Teachers do not always set work at the right level for pupils and this slows their overall progress.  Leaders are not always thorough enough in checking the school’s performance, and actions to secure improvement are not always specific enough.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspectors observed learning in 19 lessons or part lessons, of which four were jointly observed with senior staff.  Meetings were held with two groups of pupils, the Chair of the Governing Body and five other governors, the headteacher and other senior staff. A telephone conversation was held with a local authority officer.  The inspectors took account of the 113 responses to the online Parent View survey. They also spoke to several parents at the beginning of the school day. The inspectors considered responses to the 19 staff questionnaires.  The inspectors observed the school’s work and looked at a number of documents including: the school’s own information on pupils’ current progress; planning and checks on the quality of teaching; and assessment. They considered information relating to: the range of subjects taught (curriculum) and how this has been updated; the school’s self evaluation; records relating to behaviour and attendance; the

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Information about this inspection

sports premium action plan; and documents relating to safeguarding.  The inspectors listened to pupils read in Year 2 and Year 6.

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Inspection team

Janet Sinclair, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 Camelsdale is an average-sized primary school.  The proportion of disabled pupils and those with special educational needs is below average.  In most year groups, the numbers of disadvantaged pupils supported by the pupil premium are too small to make comparison to national figures. This additional government funding is for pupils who are looked after or known to be eligible for free school meals.  Children attend the early years class 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 at the end of Year 6.  There have been several changes to staffing since the previous inspection.  The school is a designated teaching school.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve teaching and pupils’ achievement to outstanding levels by ensuring that:  there is more detailed planning for independent indoor and outdoor activities that provide exciting learning opportunities for children in the early years  teachers’ feedback to pupils is more frequent, clearly tells them what they need to do to improve, and ensures they respond  work is always set at the right level for pupils to ensure they are fully challenged  senior leaders are more thorough in checking the school’s performance, and that actions for school development have clearer outcomes that can be accurately measured.

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The leadership and management are good

 The headteacher has a clear and unequivocal vision for the school. This involves providing rich learning experiences for pupils, as well as setting high expectations for their achievement. Although there have been several staff changes in the school, the headteacher has created a strong staff team who shares her vision for the school. The school has dealt successfully with weaknesses in mathematics at Key Stage 2 and ensured pupils across the school make good or better progress. This demonstrates that the school has capacity for further improvement.  Middle leaders, some of whom are fairly new, are developing their roles well. The mathematics leader, in particular, has successfully led the actions taken to improve the teaching of mathematics, for example the use of a published scheme of work, clear progression in calculation skills and a strong focus on problem solving. This year, in spite of the starting points of Year 6 being lower overall, there are several pupils

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The leadership and management are good

working at the much higher Level 6 in mathematics.  The school has a better view of itself than the inspection team found and this links to a lack of rigour in leaders’ assessment of the school’s position. The school development plan sets key actions for improvement and detailed action plans support these. However, expected outcomes of actions are not always specific enough to measure them accurately. This limits their usefulness.  Thorough on-going checks on the quality of teaching, through a range of leadership activities, support improvements in teaching very well. Detailed feedback to teachers enables them to improve their teaching, ensuring a good level of consistency.  Staff have clear targets set for their performance that are linked to the achievement of the pupils in their class, their wider role within the school and their own professional development. Staff spoken to feel expectations are high, but leaders support them well to develop professionally.

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The leadership and management are good

 Leaders and staff carefully track pupils’ progress; support is given to pupils identified as not doing well enough and extension is provided for the most able pupils. This ensures equality of opportunity, the fostering of good relationships and avoids discrimination.  The school makes effective use of additional funding to support the very small number of disadvantaged pupils and to ensure these pupils get the support they need.  The school uses the government sport funding well to promote a wide range of sporting opportunities for pupils, including involvement in sporting competitions and coaching for pupils and staff. After-school clubs include judo, fencing and netball that widen pupils’ sporting skills. Due attention is given to healthy lifestyles. These demonstrate the school’s commitment to ensuring long term benefits for pupils.  The school promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development extremely well. Pupils show

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The leadership and management are good

high levels of respect for each other and all adults. They understand the values the school promotes clearly. This reflects in the excellent quality of relationships at all levels, pupils’ respect and courtesy towards each other and all adults, and their ability to think thoughtfully about their experiences. Excellent links with a school in Spain, and visits between the two, make a strong contribution to developing pupils’ awareness of other cultures.  The school’s excellent curriculum promotes pupils’ learning and personal development extremely well. School trips, visits and visitors effectively support exciting topics. The school’s extensive grounds, such as the wild school and secret garden, widen pupils’ experiences extremely well. Pupils learn about British values through topics, such as ‘What makes Britain Britain?’, and are well prepared for life in modern Britain through their roles as prefects and school councillors.

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The leadership and management are good

 The local authority mainly provides light touch support for the school. It supported the school well to help it to improve provision in mathematics.  Parents are very happy with the school and the learning experiences it provides for their children. The school involves them extremely well and provides them with high quality reports on their children’s learning.  The school’s policies and procedures for safeguarding pupils are excellent and ensure all pupils and staff are kept safe. Staff are particularly safety conscious when taking pupils to the wild school area. For example, pupils have clear instructions for safe use of the fire pit.  The governance of the school:  Governors provide effective support and challenge to the school. They have been fully involved in ensuring improvements in mathematics. They know how good teaching is because the headteacher keeps them well informed and they check for themselves through visiting the school. They have had

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The leadership and management are good

external validation on the quality of teaching, having been chosen as a teaching school. They check the data on pupils’ achievement thoroughly, and question the school effectively so they are very clear where the strengths and weaknesses in pupils’ performance lie. Governors are fully involved in the process of setting targets for staff. They know what staff targets are and whether they have been met. The finance committee checks outcomes carefully before agreeing to rewards for good performance. They have sanctions in place for any underperformance.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is outstanding. Pupils behave exceptionally well at all times and this is linked to the school’s values and staff’s high expectations. Excellent relationships at all levels ensure pupils feel valued and that their welfare is important. Pupils spoken to reflect this. For example, pupils’ comments included, ‘The school is brilliant.’ ‘I don’t have the words to say how good the school is.’  Although sanctions are rarely needed, the school has robust systems in place, including involvement of parents, where needed. There have not been any exclusions. The headteacher is strongly opposed to such action.  Pupils are ready and eager to learn. They fully embrace the range of opportunities offered to them. They speak and reason with increasing confidence as they go through the school, so that they demonstrate a high level of maturity in their attitudes to work by the end of Year 6. This prepares them very well for

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Behaviour

secondary education.  Attendance is above average. Pupils enjoy school very much, so are keen to attend.  The school ensures pupils are clear about what constitutes bullying through, for example, anti-bullying week. Pupils say that bullying is extremely rare and that, in fact, they are a ‘bully-free school’.  Lunchtimes are calm, well-organised occasions. Pupils particularly enjoy the opportunity to eat outside when the weather is good.  Pupils take their responsibilities within the school very seriously. They are proud of their work, for example as head boy and girl, prefects and school councillors. The head boy and girl promote the school effectively in the wider community, prefects help to sort out any problems at break times and school councillors are pleased with the additions they have made to playtime equipment.

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Safety

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is outstanding.  Pupils feel extremely safe in school. They are fully confident of adult support, should they need it, and are very supportive of each other.  The school ensures pupils have very good opportunities to learn about staying safe through bicycle safety training and the ‘Footsteps’ training programme that teaches them to be safe in the community. Their involvement in assessing the risks within their activities in the wild school area demonstrates their extremely good awareness of how to keep themselves and others safe.  Pupils are fully aware of how to use the internet safely through, for example, e-safety week and the school’s clear focus on it during computer technology lessons. They know about the dangers of cyber- bullying through discussions in school and video presentations. They develop a high sense of awareness that ensures their own vigilance in trying to prevent it.

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Safety

 The school takes extremely good care of its small number of disadvantaged pupils, ensuring that they and their families receive the help and support they need.  Parents are fully confident that the school keeps their children safe and ensures they behave well.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teaching is typically good and enables pupils to achieve well across a wide range of subjects.  Teachers plan and organise interesting lessons that make pupils think and engage them fully in their learning.  Teachers question pupils effectively. They successfully extend pupils’ learning through encouraging their ability to reason and deepening their knowledge.  Good use of resources ensures that lessons stimulate interest and engagement. For example, in a science lesson in Year 2, pupils received a good range of objects, such as bulbs and seeds, to look at when finding out about things that grow.  Teachers’ good subject knowledge and effective use of specific vocabulary ensure pupils develop a good understanding of what they are learning and the tasks expected of them.  Teaching assistants make an effective contribution to the learning of pupils, particularly those with disabilities and special educational needs. They support and question pupils skilfully, particularly in English

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The quality of teaching is good

and mathematics.  Staff make good use of the school grounds, for example using the wild school and secret garden as a stimulus for writing poetry. This was seen when pupils in Year 2 observed the signs of spring prior to writing a specific style of poetry.  The teaching of reading is good. Regular well planned reading sessions and a range of good quality books ensure the development of key skills and help to foster a love of reading. Year 6 has particularly enjoyed reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare.  The teaching of writing ensures pupils make good progress in developing their creative, spelling, punctuation and grammar skills. Teachers make writing lessons interesting, for example encouraging pupils to write a poem about the tribulations of mathematics. Part of one pupil’s response was that ‘multiplication is a rat scuttling through my brain’.  Teaching in mathematics has improved significantly due to the school’s huge focus on it. Teachers

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The quality of teaching is good

encourage pupils to use their calculation skills effectively to investigate and solve problems. For example, in Year 4, the most able pupils, in particular, were able to use effective strategies to solve a problem and discover the rule that applied to the process.  Teachers ensure they plan well-structured phonics (the sounds that letter make) lessons, including a good range of activities that reinforces learning well. At Key Stage 2, pupils who need additional phonics support continue to receive it as part of their spelling sessions.  Teachers ensure they extend the most-able pupils through providing challenging work in lessons, topic work and by having high expectations of what pupils can achieve.  Although teachers mark pupils’ work regularly, they do not always set clear targets for improvement or ensure pupils respond in a way that takes their learning on in accordance with school policy. Occasionally,

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The quality of teaching is good

excellent feedback that expects a detailed response from pupils moves pupils’ learning on quickly, for example in Year 6.  Occasionally, staff do not ensure that work is set at just the right level and this slows pupils’ learning.  Teachers use homework well to enhance pupils’ learning, such as in mental mathematics and reading. They make excellent use of homework projects to enhance pupils’ engagement and learning in school. For example, in Year 4, pupils of all abilities produced high quality work on their topic of explorers that they were eager to share with others.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Pupils make good progress in reading, writing and mathematics across Key Stages 1 and 2. The school has worked very hard to improve pupils’ achievement in mathematics, which lagged behind other subjects, and has been largely successful.  Disabled pupils and those with special educational needs achieve well due to work that meets their specific needs and to support in lessons that enables them to keep up. The special educational needs leader very carefully assesses what these pupils require to help their learning, and ensures staff and resources provide this effectively.  The school ensures that there are good levels of challenge for the most-able pupils in the majority of lessons. This year, the school expects several Year 6 pupils to attain the higher Level 6 in mathematics, in part due to the effective additional tuition from a specialist teacher.  There are very few disadvantaged pupils in the school. The school supports them effectively. This ensures

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The achievement of pupils is good

that this group of pupils do well and make similar progress to other pupils in the school. There were no disadvantaged pupils in Year 6 in 2014.  Pupils achieve well in reading and writing. Effective use of topics, good support from home and well- planned lessons that provide interesting activities ensure good achievement.  In 2014, published data for mathematics at Key Stage 2 showed weaknesses in pupils’ progress. The school has worked hard to address this. Pupils now achieve well in mathematics across the school due to effective teaching, strong leadership, a good focus on key skills and additional support where needed. For example, there is an early morning mathematics club for pupils in Years 4, 5 and 6 who find mathematics difficult. This is improving their skills and confidence.  Pupils achieve well across subjects due to the huge emphasis the school places on providing a wealth of interesting and exciting learning experiences that engage and challenge them strongly in their learning.

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The early years provision is good

 Children start school with skills and abilities that are typically at or above those expected for their age. They typically make good progress across the areas of learning, so that most meet and many exceed the expected levels by the end of the year. This ensures they are well prepared for Year 1.  Good teaching of the sounds that letters make, both in specific lessons and through the teaching of reading and writing, helps children to make good progress in using these skills.  Effective, well-planned teacher-led sessions in number, phonics and shapes enable children to develop basic skills well. However, planning and provision for activities the children undertake by themselves are limited, so do not provide exciting, challenging activities either inside or out. Consequently, children do not have the same opportunities to do their best or learn as much when they play as they do in activities led

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The early years provision is good

by adults.  Teaching assistants provide good individual support to children through, for example, effective questioning that develops their reading skills and understanding well. However, they are not so successful when supporting children in the activities they choose for themselves.  Children respond extremely well to teacher instruction and to the clear focus on the development of their skills. They listen very attentively and are eager to please and very keen to learn.  Leadership ensures children achieve well, work successfully together and behave extremely well during teacher-led tasks. However, because the teacher does not plan children’s self-chosen tasks well enough across the areas of learning, they are less able to do this independently. This inhibits the development of curiosity, critical thinking and problem solving.  There are good links with parents, and staff ensure they are well informed and engaged in their children’s

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The early years provision is good

learning, for example through contributing to the records of their children’s achievement.  The school ensures the children are extremely safe in school and that particularly effective systems are in place to ensure this.  The class teacher has effective systems in place to check on and support children’s learning. She regularly checks on any children falling behind to ensure they get the support they need to catch up.

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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 125821 Local authority West Sussex Inspection number 444032

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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 4−11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 221 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Robert Uffold Headteacher Sarah Palmer Date of previous school inspection 13−14 July 2011 Telephone number 01428 642177 Fax number 01428 641481 Email address reception@camelsdale.w-sussex.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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