Setting

Mrs L Banks Redhill Primary School Wrights Avenue West Chadsmoor Cannock WS11 5JR

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No formal designation monitoring inspection of Redhill Primary School

Following my visit to your school on 23 April 2015, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to confirm the inspection findings. Thank you for the help you gave me and the time you took to discuss behaviour in your school.

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No formal designation monitoring inspection of Redhill Primary School

The inspection was a monitoring inspection carried out in accordance with the no formal designation procedures and conducted under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was carried out because Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector wanted to check if behaviour is improving quickly so that it becomes good.

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Evidence

Inspectors considered evidence including:

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Evidence

 observations of pupils’ behaviour and their attitudes to learning in lessons  observations of pupils’ behaviour throughout the day, including discussions with pupils  documentary evidence  discussions with school leaders and staff.

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Evidence

Having evaluated all the evidence I am of the opinion that at this time:

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Evidence

Leaders and managers have taken effective action to improve behaviour and secure consistently positive attitudes to learning.

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Context

The school is a smaller than average sized primary school with 181 pupils including those who attend the nursery. Nearly three quarters of pupils receive support through the pupil premium (additional funding for those pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and those looked after by the local authority), which is well 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 E: peter.willetts@serco.com above the national average. The proportion of disabled pupils and those with special educational needs is almost twice that seen nationally. Almost all pupils are from a White British heritage and very few pupils who speak English as an additional language. At its last inspection in September 2014, the school was judged to no longer require special measures and is now a school that requires improvement. At

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Context

that inspection, the behaviour and safety of pupils were judged to require improvement.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

Since the school’s last inspection, you have continued to work hard to improve behaviour in the school and to ensure a more consistent approach towards improving pupils’ attitudes to learning and the way their behaviour is managed in lessons.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

You are currently reviewing the school’s ‘behaviour and discipline’ policy to replace the one available on the school’s website, which is out of date. You have rightly recognised that this policy was overly detailed and not easily understood by parents and pupils. To improve the school’s approach to encouraging good behaviour you have held meetings with teachers and pupils to consider the most important ways of improving behaviour in the school. This work has led to one main new school rule: ‘take care’. Over the next few weeks a formal policy is to be developed. Training is planned for all staff to take place shortly after governors’ approval of the policy.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

Effective support to improve the way behaviour is managed has been provided by Rocklands School, a neighbouring special school. As a result of teachers observing each other’s practice, you have introduced a greater range of strategies to help to support teachers in working with pupils who present more challenging behaviours. Bespoke strategies are being used which are valued by individual pupils. For example, pupils talked enthusiastically about how they earn counters to be allowed to use computers and enjoy the opportunity of reading to the ‘reading dog’.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

In lessons, teachers consistently use praise to encourage desired behaviours rather than drawing pupils’ attention to poor behaviour. During my visit, pupils in Years 4, 5 and 6 engaged well with their work and demonstrated being able to concentrate on a longer task, working well on their own. Pupils in Year 4 were proud of their work and the improvements they had made in their handwriting since the start of the year. Younger pupils were too easily distracted by their peers. Teachers had to constantly repeat instructions which had not been heard the first time because they had continued to give instructions to pupils before checking that they had the full attention of the class.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

Lunchtime is very well supervised by play leaders and lunchtime supervisors who organise a wide range of activities for pupils. Pupils enjoy these activities and explained that before the play leaders started there was a lot of ‘falling out’ and arguing at lunchtime with some pupils saying unkind things to each other. The pupils I saw eating lunch chatted sensibly to their friends while eating. They received stickers for polite and considerate behaviour to others and for improving their diet by choosing salad to go with their packed lunch brought from home. Playtime was well supervised by teachers, but there was some boisterous behaviour as a result of pupils not having enough to do. Effective support for families who need it most is provided through your Child and Family Engagement Workers. This support has helped parents to manage poor behaviour outside school better, providing continuity in approaches used from school

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

to home. By accompanying parents to meetings involving outside agencies, you find that families are more likely to engage with the help that is available to them.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

You are aware that incidents of fixed-term exclusion from school remain too high. There has been little reduction in the overall rate of exclusion this academic year when compared to last. However, many of these incidents involve a small number of pupils. You are working closely with a range of external agencies and health care professionals to give these pupils the support they need and to reduce the need to use exclusion to manage their behaviour. Early signs of improvement are being seen in the behaviour of these pupils in response to this support.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

Although you record all incidents of undesirable behaviour which have resulted in the application of the school’s sanctions procedures, these are not yet collated or analysed in any detail to be able to show if the number of incidents of poor behaviour and low-level disruption are reducing over time. Governors, and other leaders, do not know enough about whether or not the school’s strategies to improve behaviour are making a difference.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

Early signs of impact of your work to improve attendance are being seen and you have largely had to develop your own strategies to do this. Little support has been received from the local authority’s Education Welfare Service. Attendance has improved slightly from 94.4% for the first two terms in 2013/14 to 94.7% for the same period in this academic year, although this is still below the national average. However, there has been a marked reduction in the proportion of pupils who are persistently absent from 8.9% last year to 5.5% this year which, although high, is closer to the national average. Last year, pupils from 14 families were persistently absent compared with six families this year. The use of part-time timetables for a very small number of pupils is affecting the overall attendance figures. It is also preventing these pupils from receiving their full entitlement to the curriculum as they miss opportunities for physical education.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

You are continuing to introduce new strategies to improve attendance further. Your ‘walking bus’ has been successful in helping pupils to improve their attendance and punctuality, which has contributed to your plans to introduce an additional route from September to encourage even more pupils to arrive on time for school, and in safety. Plans to introduce shared use of a mini-bus between a group of schools, to collect pupils who live some distance away from school, are sound.

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Priorities for further improvement

 Urgently reduce the use of exclusion.  Make sure that the very small numbers of pupils on part-time timetables have a clear plan for an urgent return to a full timetable in school, so that they receive their entitlement to a full time education.  Use the information you have on the number of incidents of low level disruption and more serious behaviours to: -check if they are reducing -present a concise summary to governors so that they can see the impact of the school’s steps taken to improve behaviour.

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Priorities for further improvement

I am copying this letter to the Director of Children’s Services for Staffordshire, the Secretary of State for Education and the Chair of the Governing Body. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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