Setting

Mr Steve Bosley Acting Headteacher Bickleigh on Exe Church of England Primary School Bell Meadow Bickleigh Tiverton EX16 8RE

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Church of England Primary School

Following my visit to your academy on 25 March 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 academy since the most recent section 5 inspection.

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Church of England Primary School

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the academy 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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Church of England Primary School

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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Church of England Primary School

 ensure the governing body closely monitors the effectiveness of the academy’s action plan for getting to good and check that planned actions are making a difference to pupils’ achievement.

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Evidence

During the inspection, meetings were held with you, other senior leaders and the Governing Body to discuss the action taken since the last inspection. The school improvement plan was evaluated. We completed visits to each class and looked at a range of pupils’ books from across the school. Tribal Kings Orchard, One Queen Street, Bristol BS2 0HQ T 0300 123 1231 Text Phone: 0161 6188524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Direct T 0117 311 5323 Direct email :suzy.smith@tribalgroup.com

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Context

The Governing Body has voted unanimously to join a local sponsored academy chain from September 2015. The headteacher at the time of the inspection, left the school in December 2015. You took up the position of acting headteacher in January 2015.

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Main findings

You have achieved a lot in a relatively short period of time. You have worked systematically with senior leaders to ensure that staff work as a team to tackle the areas identified at the last inspection. Monitoring by you and senior leaders is clearly focused on the actions contained in the academy’s getting to good plan. Issues identified by you and your team are followed up and checked carefully to drive forward improvements. Our visits to lessons confirmed the accuracy of your monitoring but also highlighted that more could be done to evaluate the achievement of pupils in receipt of pupil premium during your lesson observations and when looking at pupils’ work in books.

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Main findings

You recently presented an informative report to the Governing Body that drew on a wide range of monitoring. As a result, governors have a much clearer understanding of the quality of teaching and learning. Your comprehensive and valuable summary of progress also clearly set out the next steps on the academy’s journey. Governors particularly appreciated receiving the information well in advance of their meeting, allowing them to raise questions and to seek further clarification. However, at recent governing body meetings a high proportion of time has been spent agreeing and securing a new academy sponsor. This has reduced the time governors have spent monitoring the academy’s getting to good plan and in helping to raise pupils’ achievement.

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Main findings

On our tour of classrooms we saw teachers working to tackle the areas identified at the last inspection. We visited a number of lessons where pupils were developing their mathematical skills well and confidently using different methods of calculation. We noticed that teachers are developing their use of questions to ensure pupils regularly explain their reasoning. In response to quick fire questions from the teacher, pupils in Years 5 and 6 clearly and confidently explained their addition of decimal numbers. However, we also came across lessons where pupils were not sure what they should be doing and where teachers were slow to react and explain the tasks more clearly.

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Main findings

Marking is helping pupils to improve the quality of their work. In a wide range of books we found pupils regularly responding to teachers’ suggestions and guidance to improve their work. We also noticed that pupils are more frequently being set different activities but these are not always accurately matched to pupils’ abilities. We encountered examples of teachers checking carefully how well pupils were doing and adapting the lesson so that activities are appropriately challenging. However, pupils’ books show that assessment is not used effectively in all classes and that too often pupils are not set work that requires them to do their best.

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Main findings

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

Support from a neighbouring academy has helped you to develop the quality of the academy’s action plan. In response to their advice, you have improved the plan by adding clear timescales and allocating specific roles and responsibilities. You also appreciate and have benefitted from opportunities to discuss the academy’s performance with an experienced leader, conversations that have supported your drive for improvement. In attending leadership meetings at a local academy, Literacy leaders are clearer about their responsibilities. Through their visits to other academies, they have identified successful practice and drawn up suitable plans to improve their subject area.

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External support

I am copying this letter to the Chair of the Governing Body, the Director of Children’s Services for Devon.

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