Setting

Brian Huxley Headteacher Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School Marjorie Street Rhodesia Worksop S80 3HP

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Short inspection of Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School

Following my visit to the school on 1 October 2015, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. The visit was the first short inspection carried out since the school was judged to be good in September 2011.

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Short inspection of Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School

The leadership team has maintained a good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You, the governing body and the senior leaders have built the confidence, self-esteem and capability of the staff and the staff have, in turn, done likewise for the pupils. You are meeting these three ‘core beliefs’, which you have set out for the school.

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Short inspection of Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School

You have responded well to the areas for improvement that were noted at the last inspection and made good progress. You have improved all aspects of the Early Years Foundation Stage significantly. The governing body is now fully and appropriately involved in monitoring the work of the school. You have increased the range of opportunities for the pupils to learn about local, national and global issues, and for them to experience different religions and cultural traditions.

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Short inspection of Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School

You have identified accurately key things that need to be improved now, to continue the development of the school. In particular, the pupils’ attendance is not good enough. Also, you need to have a more precise understanding of how particular things that you do to give certain pupils extra help actually affect those pupils’ learning.

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Short inspection of Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School

The pupils show good manners and are friendly and welcoming. They know that everyone at the school does not behave well all of the time and that, sometimes, people fall out. They are keen, however, to do as much as they can to keep the school friendly and welcoming and to sort out problems, when they occur. For example, they take on the responsibilities you ask of them as anti-bullying Ofsted

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Short inspection of Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk ambassadors and corridor cadets and are very active and successful in trying to sort out disputes quickly and in getting people to stick to the school rules.

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Short inspection of Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School

The quality of the teaching is good. As a result, the pupils find the lessons interesting and they develop increasingly positive attitudes to learning as they go through the school. The teachers choose topics for learning thoughtfully. They teach them in ways that develop a good sense of curiosity in the pupils and a desire to learn more.

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Short inspection of Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School

The pupils’ speaking, listening and writing skills are developed well throughout the school. The pupils make good progress, from some notably low levels of such skills when they start at the school, to being able increasingly and progressively to express themselves clearly and coherently.

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Short inspection of Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School

The pupils show interest in their lessons and curiosity about the world beyond school, as a result of their experiences. They enjoy conversations on a wide range of topics and were keen to discuss things with me.

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Short inspection of Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School

Your work to sustain the things that were good about the school at the time of the last inspection and to improve what needed to be improved has paid off. The pupils make good progress, including the significant number who are at the school for quite short periods of time. Nevertheless, you, the governing body and the staff told me, rightly, that the pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding need to be higher still to give them the best possible chance during the next stage of their education.

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Short inspection of Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School

Safeguarding is effective. You have made sure that your work to safeguard pupils is up to date and in accordance with the latest government guidance. The staff have received training very recently. You have made sure that they are aware of the full range of possible concerns that are mentioned in the guidance. The governing body makes sure that its members also have appropriate training and, as a result, it oversees the school’s work in this area actively. The pupils feel safe at the school.

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Short inspection of Haggonfields Primary and Nursery School

The policies and practices that you have put in place are fit for purpose. You work closely with other agencies to help pupils when necessary and keep detailed and up- to-date records.

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Inspection findings

 The Early Years Foundation Stage is now a vibrant, well-organised, well- staffed and well-managed environment. The teachers ensure now that the children have purposeful activities to do in all the relevant areas of learning.  The teachers know that many children begin the Early Years Foundation Stage with particularly low levels of skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing. Consequently and appropriately, they put a lot of effort into improving those skills.  The very tangible improvements in the Early Years Foundation Stage have not yet resulted in higher proportions of the children reaching a good level of development. Your success is very evident, however, in the year-on-year improvement in the pupils’ use of phonics (the sounds that letters make).  The full benefit of this is apparent at Key Stage 1. The teachers in Key Stage 1 are now teaching the pupils from a higher starting point. As a result, they

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Inspection findings

are focusing on teaching the pupils to the highest levels in phonics, instead of having to concentrate on helping most of them to catch up to where they need to be.  A further benefit can be seen in turn in a very significant improvement in the pupils’ test results at the end of Key Stage 1 in 2015.  All of the very small number of pupils in Year 6 in 2015 made good progress, including those from disadvantaged groups.  At all key stages, the lessons are carefully thought out to help the pupils learn step by step. The teachers use various interesting topics and activities, which motivate the pupils well and help them to learn.  The teachers give the pupils clear pointers about what they have done well, what they need to improve, and how they can do so. They give the pupils good opportunities to correct mistakes, which makes the pupils’ learning more secure and helps them to make good progress.  The teachers use a broad range of approaches, ‘interventions’, to support

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Inspection findings

pupils who need extra help with particular things. Sometimes, however, that means that those pupils miss out on other important things that their classmates are doing. Also, you do not have a clear understanding of which of these interventions are most helpful to the pupils.  The pupils are keen to talk about things that they have learned. For example, they talked effusively about a topic on volcanoes. In one classroom, a map of the world was covered in small notes written by the pupils about recent events that had caught their attention, ranging from international conflicts to natural disasters, including volcanic eruptions! This is one way which shows how the teaching develops the pupils’ curiosity successfully about the world in which they live.  Other activities, such as a visit to a mosque and a visit to the school by an author from the Traveller community, similarly, spark their interest, get them

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Inspection findings

thinking, and increase their awareness of cultures and communities other than their own.  The pupils are justifiably proud of the contribution they make to the school by taking on important roles. One pupil spoke with evident pride about how she was helping to organise and would be helping to provide training for others on first aid.  The anti-bullying ambassadors and corridor cadets have a very strong sense of their responsibilities; these roles help them to develop very mature attitudes. Importantly, you make sure that pupils from the full range of backgrounds represented at the school, such as those for whom English is an additional language, are able to take on these roles.  The pupils learn effective techniques to help keep themselves safe. They spoke to me about the SMART rules (Safe, Meeting, Accepting, Reliable, Tell), knew what they meant and could explain how they help them to use the internet safely. They spoke also about things they had learned through the

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Inspection findings

DARE programme (Drug Abuse Resistance Education).  You can point to various ways in which you try to involve parents in supporting their children’s education. Successful examples included working with parents from the Traveller community. Other examples were less successful, however, particularly with parents who may find it more difficult than others to work with the school, such as those for whom English is an additional language.  You have, rightly, identified that the pupils’ attendance is not high enough. This is another area in which the work you have done to involve parents has not been effective enough.

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Next steps for the school

 Improve the ways in which you work with parents, so that they are able to support their children’s learning more easily and so that they help their children to attend school regularly.  Work out which ways of providing extra support to pupils who need it work best and make sure that the extra support does not stop the pupils from learning other things.

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, I held meetings with senior leaders, representatives of the governing body, the Early Years Foundation Stage coordinator, and with members of the staff. I made a series of visits to lessons jointly with the headteacher, spending time in every classroom at different times of the day. I examined examples of the pupils’ work. I held a range of discussions with a wide variety of pupils, informally when observing breaktimes and during lessons, and formally with a group of pupils. I observed the pupils’ behaviour around the school, at breaktimes, and during lessons. I met with parents at the beginning of the school day, looked at the views of parents posted on Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View, although there was only one, and written returns submitted by parents in response to the school’s survey. I examined a range of documents, including safeguarding records and policies, the latest achievement and attendance information held by the school, records relating

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Information about the inspection

to the pupils’ behaviour, and minutes of governing body meetings.

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