Setting

Deborah May Acting Headteacher Hugglescote Community Primary School Ashburton Road Hugglescote Coalville LE67 2HA

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Community Primary School

Following my visit to your school on 29 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 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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Community Primary School

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in March 2015. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. At its previous inspection, the school was also judged to require improvement.

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Community 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 acting headteacher and the deputy headteacher, teachers with leadership responsibilities for literacy, numeracy, and special educational needs, the Chair of the Governing Body, a representative of the local authority, and a representative of the teaching schools alliance of which the school is a member and which is providing support to the school. I toured the school, visiting almost all classrooms and held discussions with pupils. I evaluated the school’s action plan and looked at a sample of the pupils’ work. 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 9165 Direct email : victoria.mortimore2@serco.com

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Context

There have been no changes in the context of the school since the section 5 inspection.

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Main findings

You and the governing body have set out a clear strategy for improving the quality of teaching. You have together a sound and collective sense of the key priorities for the school. You have made changes to the ways in which the work of the school is managed that have laid good foundations for further developments.

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Main findings

You have dealt with some significant staffing matters. You have clarified the responsibilities of teachers with leadership roles. The governing body has set up mechanisms that will enable it to hold leaders and managers from the school more closely to account for their work and for the improvement of the school. The work you have undertaken has been essential, but the pace of improvement in the quality of teaching has not so far been rapid.

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Main findings

The temporary nature of some of the current leadership arrangements and the transitionary phase through which the school is going mean that some of the developments you have initiated are tentative. You have been leading the school temporarily as acting headteacher since September 2014, whilst the governors have worked to make a substantive appointment. A new headteacher will take up post in September 2015. Several key leaders are new to their posts; others have yet to take up post and will do so in the autumn.

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Main findings

You revised the school’s action plan after the section 5 inspection. Now, it reflects the areas for improvement from the inspection well. It sets out a good range of appropriate activities to bring about the necessary improvements at the school. The activities focus on professional development for the staff, to improve the quality of teaching, increased checks on the quality of teaching, the outcomes of which are then used to work with the teachers to improve the teaching, and greater involvement by teachers with leadership responsibilities in both holding the staff to account for the progress of the pupils and in working with them to improve their teaching. The plan is not clear, or precise enough about the timings of different activities, or the ways in which the school will work out how well it is doing, for the school to make the rapid progress that is needed now.

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Main findings

You have completed the external review of the school’s use of the pupil premium (additional funding from the government). You have used some of the early findings from the review to make changes to the way that the teachers work with those pupils.

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Main findings

The pupils are starting to make better progress than previously. You have made sure that the teachers have better information about the different groups of pupils in their classes, including disabled pupils and those with special educational needs and the pupils eligible for the pupil premium (additional funding from the government). You have revised your approach to providing pupils who need it with additional support. As a result, your data show better progress by the pupils, albeit recently. The pupils’ attendance has increased also. Nevertheless, the evidence from my visit shows that the quality of teaching, including the marking of the pupils’ work, continues to vary.

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Main findings

Ofsted may carry out further monitoring inspections and, where necessary, provide further support and challenge to the school until its next section 5 inspection. I recommend that I stay in contact with the school and that a further visit takes place to monitor the progress of the school, with particular reference to improvements in leadership and management and the pace of developments.

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External support

You have benefitted from some effective support from both the local authority and the teaching school alliance of which the school has been a member. The support has been particularly useful in helping the teachers with leadership responsibilities to understand their roles better, so that they are beginning to carry them out to greater effect. The support has assisted also with improvements to the provision for disabled pupils and those with special educational needs

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External support

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

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