Our Lady and St Teresa's Catholic Primary School

Our Lady and St Teresa’s Catholic Primary School Windmill Hill, Cubbington, Leamington Spa, CV32 7LN

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Requires improvement 3 This inspection: Good 2 Leadership and management Good 2 Behaviour and safety of pupils Good 2 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

 Determined leadership and a pursuit of excellence have brought about rapid improvement since the previous inspection. All groups of pupils are now making good progress in reading, writing and mathematics.  Governors have improved their ability to challenge leaders. They know that teaching is now good and whether pupils are doing well enough.  The headteacher, supported by the local authority, has expertly coached staff to improve their teaching, especially in mathematics.  Children get off to a good start in the Reception class, where secure routines and an effective emphasis on learning through play enable them to achieve well.  Pupils behave well in lessons and have good attitudes to learning. They are exceptionally respectful in acts of collective worship.  Pupils feel safe and secure in learning because of the school’s good safeguarding systems.  The curriculum is enhanced with a wide range of visits, trips, drama and sporting activities. It

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

supports pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development well.  The school promotes British values of respect, tolerance and acceptance well. Parents say that the school is a very respectful community where bullying does not occur.  Pupils are well prepared for their next stage of education and life in modern Britain, as they have secure learning habits and demonstrate respect for other cultures.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 Teachers do not routinely challenge pupils with extra tasks when they finish their work quickly.  In the Reception class adults do not always teach letter formation effectively or make the best use of outdoor activities to support learning.  The most able pupils in Years 1 and 2 do not have enough opportunities to solve real-life problems in mathematics.  The headteacher currently takes on too many roles, with no deputy when she is away from the school.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed pupils’ learning in 16 lessons covering all year groups. Some of these lessons were seen jointly with the headteacher.  Inspectors talked to pupils about their learning and heard several pupils read. They held meetings with groups of pupils, senior leaders, and four governors including the chair of governors. A meeting was held with a representative from the local authority.  Inspectors examined a questionnaire completed by 20 staff and examined the responses of 71 parents who completed the online questionnaire. Inspectors also held informal discussions with parents.  Inspectors scrutinised a range of documents including minutes of meetings of the governing body, the school’s self-evaluation and improvement plans, behaviour records and documentation relating to safeguarding. Documents relating to the monitoring of teaching and subsequent staff performance management were also examined.

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Information about this inspection

 The school’s child protection and safeguarding procedures were scrutinised.

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Inspection team

Bogusia Matusiak-Varley, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 The school is smaller than the average-sized primary school.  Children in the reception classes attend full time.  Most pupils come from White British backgrounds.  The proportion of pupils who are disabled or who have special educational needs is above average.  The proportion of disadvantaged pupils supported by the pupil premium is above average. The pupil premium provides additional funding for pupils who are known to be eligible for free school meals or looked after by the local authority.  There were too few pupils in Year 6 in 2014 to make the usual judgement on whether the school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Strengthen teaching and achievement by ensuring that:  the most able pupils in Years 1 and 2 have more opportunities to solve mathematical problems  teachers challenge the most able in lessons to explain their mathematical thinking in depth  extra tasks are available across the school for pupils who finish their work early in lessons.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve teaching and learning in the Reception class by:  providing more opportunities for children to develop correct letter formation  ensuring that outdoor play activities consistently support children’s learning.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Develop the role of senior leaders to take pressure off the headteacher and make sure someone can deputise for her when necessary.

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The leadership and management are good

 The headteacher has successfully raised the performance of all pupils and adults since the previous inspection. She has high expectations and has ensured that staff receive the training that they need to meet them. She has established rigorous systems of accountability to ensure that teaching is never less than good, and has created a culture in which staff morale is high and pupils are well behaved. Parents are delighted with the improvements that have been made in the school.

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The leadership and management are good

 The headteacher has introduced good systems for tracking pupils’ progress and senior staff are using them well to make detailed checks on the progress of all groups of pupils. Since the appointment of a new leader of mathematics, good progress has been made due to the restructuring of the calculations policy and a higher emphasis placed upon teaching mathematical recall of number bonds and times tables.

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The leadership and management are good

 The leaders responsible for subjects are now having a strong impact on pupils’ achievement. The school has prepared well for the changes to the National Curriculum. Pupils are now writing extensively in different subjects and are using their mathematical skills in a variety of learning situations such as investigating number patterns during ‘maths week’ through the Fibonacci sequence. However, they do not yet have enough opportunities to apply their skills in real-life situations by solving mathematical problems.

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The leadership and management are good

 Leaders have a good awareness of the school’s strengths and weaknesses. This ensures that the school improvement plan identifies the correct priorities, and it includes the steps that will be taken to achieve them. Governors monitor the plan regularly and know that the school is on track to continue to improve.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural education well. Pupils have the opportunity to learn about different faiths in multicultural Britain through focused projects and visits to places of worship. Acts of collective worship reinforce tolerance and compassion. Pupils contribute to a wide range of charities including helping to set up links with a school in Sierra Leone. They have a clear sense of right and wrong and this contributes to the harmonious relationships within the school.

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The leadership and management are good

 The good curriculum is enriched by opportunities for pupils to learn through drama. Strong links with theatres and Warwick University drama students have deepened pupils’ learning of Greek myths and have produced insightful writing of eye witness accounts of Perseus turning Phineas and his followers to stone.

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The leadership and management are good

 Pupils have a strong awareness of British values. They understand diversity and know that difference contributes to the make-up of a truly democratic society in which all people are valued. Equality of opportunity underpins all aspects of the school’s work. There is no discrimination in the school and there are no recorded incidents of racist or homophobic behaviour.

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The leadership and management are good

 The leadership of special educational needs and the Early Years Foundation Stage is good. Both leaders know what needs to be done to improve their areas of responsibility even further.

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The leadership and management are good

 The school uses pupil premium funding effectively to improve the achievement of disadvantaged pupils, who often have other complex needs. They make sure that these pupils get extra help to overcome barriers to their learning. One-on-one support, including a range of individualised help, has ensured that this year these pupils have caught up with their peers.

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The leadership and management are good

 Leaders have used sports funding wisely. As a result, more pupils are taking part in inter-school competitions and understanding the importance of a healthier lifestyle. Staff’s knowledge of a wide range of sports has improved and the participation of pupils in after-school sports activities is impressive.

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The leadership and management are good

 The senior leadership team is very new and as yet roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined. Currently, no-one can deputise for the headteacher should she be away. Governors are aware that they have not yet ensured an equitable distribution of leadership responsibilities so the headteacher does not have too much of a workload.

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The leadership and management are good

 Safeguarding procedures, including those for child protection, are secure and effective and meet current government requirements. Staff receive appropriate training and are kept fully up-to-date with new legislation.

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The leadership and management are good

 The local authority adviser knows the school well and has provided a good level of support and challenge in helping staff develop their questioning skills. This has resulted in improved teaching. The school has successfully moved forward and re-established its good standing within the community that it serves.

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The leadership and management are good

 The governance of the school:  Governance is good. The governing body knows what is working well and what needs improving.  As a result of a review of governance and the appointment of a new Chair of the Governing Body, governors are now more involved in monitoring the achievement of different groups of pupils. They are better equipped to challenge leaders because they have a secure understanding of data and are skilled in monitoring all aspects of the school’s work, including the quality of teaching. They understand performance data and as a result set clear targets for the headteacher. Governors know how well teachers are doing their job and only reward those who can demonstrate the progress that pupils have made over the year.  The Chair of the Governing Body is experienced and knowledgeable and ensures that governors are well trained and receive the necessary information needed for them to fulfil all their statutory duties,

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The leadership and management are good

especially in relation to ensuring equality of opportunity for all pupils.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is good. Pupils behave well in lessons and around the school. Their behaviour in acts of collective worship is exemplary. They show the utmost reverence in all aspects of spiritual life within the school, as demonstrated by their insightful prayers in the prayer room.

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Behaviour

 Pupils are friendly, polite and clearly enjoy coming to school. They enjoy all that the school has to offer, particularly the chance to play musical instruments and to participate in the good range of after-school activities.

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Behaviour

 Good adult support ensures that pupils who present challenging behaviour, and who have barriers to learning, learn to manage their emotions. As a result, they learn to participate fully in school life.

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Behaviour

 Pupils demonstrate good attitudes to learning. In Years 5 and 6, they persevere in their work even when it gets difficult. The use of ‘working walls’ where learning prompts are displayed contributes to pupils’ developing skills of independence in learning.

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Behaviour

 Adults and pupils get on well together and the school’s mission statement – ‘Aspire, achieve, learn and love in one family in Christ’ – is evident in the strong relationships throughout the school. Inspectors found that most pupils were totally absorbed in their work and want to do their best. The only loss of concentration occurred when they had finished their work and were not provided with activities to challenge their learning even further. By the time that they leave school most pupils have developed secure learning habits and are well prepared for secondary education.

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Behaviour

 Children in the Reception class gain good social skills because staff place great importance on developing these skills right from the start.

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Behaviour

 Attendance has improved and is now in line with the national average.

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Safety

 The school’s work to keep pupils safe and secure is good. Parents are confident that the school keeps children safe and that they are well looked after. This is demonstrated by the number of pupils who have recently joined the school, having started their education elsewhere.

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Safety

 The school site is safe. Since its last inspection governors have attended safer recruitment training. As a result, staff are rigorously checked for suitability in working with children prior to appointment.

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Safety

 Pupils say that a trusted adult is always at hand and that they are listened to. Pupils know the dangers of cyber bullying, risks that can present themselves on the internet and the dangers of belonging to any groups with extremist views. Visits by the police and fire officers teach pupils about safety on the street and what to do if they encounter any potential hazards.

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Safety

 Risk assessments and policies about keeping pupils safe are of a high standard. Staff make sure that they are kept up to date and reviewed regularly.

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Safety

 The care given to potentially vulnerable pupils, and their families when they need support, is deeply rooted in the school’s values of trust and compassion. These pupils grow in confidence because they know that they are valued members of the school community.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers have embraced the help from the local authority and the headteacher because they want to improve their practice. The school is a vibrant learning community buzzing with teachers talking about what has worked well in their classrooms and finding strategies to engage learners who find some aspects of learning difficult.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers teach reading, writing and mathematics well. In lessons they craft the skill of writing with their pupils by helping them to make their sentences more interesting to the reader. Pupils use a range of descriptive vocabulary in order to capture the audience’s interest. Staff are skilled at teaching phonics (sounds that letters make) as demonstrated by the good progress pupils make in attempting to read unknown words.

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The quality of teaching is good

 The school promotes reading strongly and the good teaching of phonics has had a strong impact on the progress of all pupils. In Years 1 and 2, pupils are able to use a range of strategies in reading unfamiliar words. They read with intonation and have good skills of comprehension. By the end of Year 6, pupils read fluently and voraciously and can talk about the way that famous authors, such as Roald Dahl, capture the interest levels of readers.

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The quality of teaching is good

 The teaching of mathematics is now good overall due to the coaching that teachers have received and the consistent implementation of the new mathematics policy, to improve pupils’ calculation skills. Nevertheless, in Key Stage 1, teachers do not always make sure the most able pupils deepen their understanding further so that they can explain the strategies that they use for solving problems. Furthermore, teachers do not provide sufficient opportunities for this group of pupils to apply their learning to a broader range of real-life problem solving activities.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers’ questioning skills have improved since the last inspection. They now ask questions that compel pupils to make connections in their learning, such as identifying angles outdoors. The teaching of English grammar, punctuation and spelling has improved from last year as teachers are taking every opportunity to teach it through a range of different subjects. This is having a positive impact on pupils’ learning.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers mark pupils’ work thoroughly. Pupils respond well to the comments made and know what they need to do in order to improve their learning.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Pupils who need extra support, especially disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, are generally helped well to make good progress. This is because the leader responsible has ensured that staff who help these pupils know what skills pupils need to learn to improve.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers assess pupils’ work accurately. Occasionally, across the school, pupils finish their work early and staff do not provide extra, more challenging work to deepen their learning.

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is good

 The achievement of all groups of pupils has improved since the last inspection due to the high focus placed on the accountability of staff to improve learning. Staff are adamant that their skills have improved significantly because of well focused training and this is having a positive impact on the achievement of all groups of pupils.

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is good

 The school’s data show that this year the proportion of pupils exceeding nationally expected progress has increased in reading, writing and mathematics in both key stages and will be above last year’s average because of the high targets that have been set. Current achievement is much better than in previous years.

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is good

 In 2014, standards at the end of Year 2 were broadly average. Pupils did better in reading and writing than in mathematics. The school responded by taking action to accelerate pupils’ progress, and this year achievement in mathematics has improved considerably and is now good.

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is good

 In Year 6, standards were below those expected nationally in mathematics and English grammar, punctuation and spelling. However, this is somewhat misleading because nearly half of the group that took the tests were new arrivals at the school and had joined with complex learning needs. This year standards in reading, writing, mathematics and English grammar, punctuation and spelling are much higher and all groups are achieving well due to improved teaching, better support and rigorous target setting.

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is good

 Pupils achieve well in reading and writing. They are confident writers who write at length both in English and in other subjects, as demonstrated by their insightful poetry about the eclipse where one pupil described the moon as ‘a white dress twirling through the sky’.

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is good

 Children enter the Reception class with skills that are broadly typical for their age. They make good progress in the early years and the proportion attaining a good level of development is in line with the national average.

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is good

 Disadvantaged pupils make good progress. In 2014, there were too few disadvantaged pupils in Year 6 to comment on their attainment without risk of identifying individuals. These pupils are catered for well and their progress is regularly tracked to ensure it is as good as that of their classmates.

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is good

 Disabled pupils are well supported by a range of approaches that help them make good progress. Good individual and small group support from well-trained staff meets their needs well and contributes to their good progress.

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is good

 The most able pupils achieve well overall, particularly when work is demanding. However, in Key Stage 1, not all teachers provide that that extra level of challenge to raise their achievement even further in mathematics. This is due to inconsistencies in the way staff ask questions to deepen pupils’ learning and provide opportunities for them to link problem solving to real-life experiences.

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is good

 Good leadership and close teamwork have created a stimulating indoor and outdoor learning environment where children develop a love of learning. They achieve well in all areas of learning and consequently, are ready to start work in Year1. The classroom has a buzz of activity as children hunt pirate treasure and describe what they have found. They make good progress because they enjoy learning and know how to share and take turns.

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is good

 Teaching is good. Adults have high expectations of behaviour resulting in children being well behaved. Children respond well and develop positive attitudes to learning, which they carry through to the rest of the school.  Adults ensure that children follow routines and that safeguarding requirements are fully met. This helps children to feel safe and secure.

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is good

 Children develop good speaking and listening skills because adults constantly talk with them and encourage them to speak in full sentences. However, adults do not consistently encourage pupils enough to form their letters correctly. Learning slows down when children choose their own activities because adults have not always made the purpose of learning clear.

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is good

 Tasks are typically interesting and purposeful. However, when children choose their activities in the outdoor area adults are sometimes unsure as to what children need to learn. On these occasions, children’s learning is not as good as it should be.

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is good

 Staff keep accurate assessments of children’s progress. The good quality ‘learning journals’, shared with parents, reflect children’s achievement well. Parents are full of praise of the high level of support given to their children, especially those in most need.

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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 125718 Local authority Warwickshire Inspection number 462597

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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 156 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Claire Walsh Headteacher Joanne Howell Date of previous school inspection 19–20 September 2013 Telephone number 01926 424420 Fax number 01926 424420 Email address Head3546@welearn365.com guidance ‘raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted . 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.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted

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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.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted

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