Setting

Avril Moore Headteacher Mareham-le-Fen Church of England Primary School School Lane Mareham-le-Fen Boston PE22 7QB

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Church of England Primary School

Following my visit to your school on 10 June 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 to 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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Church of England Primary School

The visit was the second monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in February 2015. 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.

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Evidence

During the inspection, meetings were held with the headteacher and with a representative of the local authority. A telephone discussion was held with the Chair of the Governing Body. The inspector toured the school, visiting both classrooms and holding discussions with pupils. The school’s improvement plan was evaluated and the minutes of governing body meetings were scrutinised.

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Context

There have been no changes at the school since the previous monitoring visit.

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Main findings

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 The pace of development at the school has increased since the previous monitoring visit. It has been steady and sure, though not rapid.

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Main findings

You have worked well with a national leader of education from another school to implement a well-conceived programme of staff development. That programme has helped you to make important improvements in teaching. For example, teaching assistants are now involved much more productively in supporting the pupils’ learning. They are, along with the class teachers, asking better questions of the pupils. The qestions are related much more closely to what the pupils need to learn. As a result, the questions are helping the pupils to think more deeply and make more progress than was the case previously. The school’s data show that the progress of the pupils currently at the school is better than last year.

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Main findings

The teachers and teaching assistants are yet using the pupils’ responses to questions to determine what they pupils need to do next. The staff’s responses to the pupils’ answers do not always provide enough information to the pupils about what has been learned, or still needs to be learned. The work provided to the pupils is still not always providing enough challenge to help the pupils make rapid progress.

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Main findings

You have revised the school improvement plan. It is now clearer who is responsible for leading particular developments at the school. The arrangements for checking on progress in implementing the plan are also much clearer.

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Main findings

The governing body is more active in checking on what is happening at the school. Members are better informed than before about a range of things, including the data about the pupils’ progress. In part, that is because they have increased the range and number of activities through which they get information about the school at first hand. As a result, they are starting to ask more and better questions. For example, they are able to question subject leaders about their work and there is now a schedule of occasions when the subject leaders have to report directly to the governing body. That is assisting the subject leaders to be more effective in monitoring what is happening in their areas of responsibility. The work of the governing body is still not, however, prompting rapid improvement.

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External support

The local authority acted quickly after the previous monitoring visit and revised the programme of support for the school substantially. The revised support has been instrumental in speeding up the pace of development at the school.

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External support

The local authority has, rightly, kept the programme of support under review and is appropriately reducing the amount of support, as it has become evident that you are increasingly taking responsibility for and control of the school’s improvement. Nevertheless, the local authority has identified correctly that many of the developments at the school have not had sufficient time to become fully established and is maintaining appropriate oversight of its progress accordingly. I am copying this letter to the Chair of the Governing Body, the Director of Children’s Services for Lincolnshire, and the Director of Education for the Lincoln diocese.

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