Setting

Mrs Judith Holland Headteacher Eastergate Primary School Church Lane Chichester West Sussex PO20 3UT

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School

Following my visit to your school on 15 March 2016, 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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School

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

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School

Senior leaders and governors are not taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the last section 5 inspection in order to become a good school.

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Evidence

During the inspection, I met with you, the assistant headteacher and five governors, including the chair of the governing body, and I held a telephone discussion with a representative of the local authority to discuss the actions taken since the last inspection. I visited classrooms with you, spoke to pupils, looked at work in pupils’ books and evaluated the school improvement plan. I also evaluated leaders’ checks on the quality of teaching and learning, and current performance information. The single central record was checked. Ofsted

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Evidence

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Context

Two members of staff are currently absent from school. The leader with responsibility for mathematics will be leaving the school at Easter. Three governors are new to the governing body.

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Main findings

You have not taken effective action to ensure that the areas identified in your last inspection are addressed. The school’s action plan does not have the required urgency to address weaknesses in pupils’ achievement, teaching and leadership. You have not ensured that the actions contained within the plan, or leaders’ checks on the impact of these, have focused closely enough on whether pupils’ skills, knowledge and understanding are strengthening, particularly in writing. You know that pupils are not currently as well prepared as they should be for the next stage in their education, both at the end of Year 2 and Year 6. However, targets within the action plan do not show sufficient ambition, given how much pupils’ achievement needs to improve. Equally, teaching has not improved quickly enough in key stage 1.

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Main findings

The governance review has taken too long to action and there is not yet a plan for improvement. Although governors are carrying out checks that are more closely linked to the school’s improvement priorities, there is not a sharp enough challenge to leaders about the impact of their work to improve teaching and learning and pupils’ progress. While governors recognise and accept that the decline in standards over time is not good enough, they have not ensured that tools, such as performance management, are used effectively to support improvement.

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Main findings

Leaders have set clearer expectations for the presentation and quality of pupils’ work across the school. Consequently, work is increasingly neat, accurate and fully complete. Teachers provide feedback to pupils about their work more regularly. Reading records capture pupils’ achievement across a range of reading strategies and skills more closely than in the past. As a result, pupils’ achievement in reading is strengthening in key stage 2. The collection, presentation and checking of information about pupils’ progress has been developed. New systems allow leaders, including governors, to discuss pupils’ achievement more regularly. Since the last inspection, the range and frequency of leaders’ checks on the quality of teaching have increased because leaders allocate more time to carry these out.

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Main findings

Teachers are making changes to improve pupils’ accuracy. For example, in key stage 2, pupils now benefit from opportunities to edit and refine their writing over a series of sessions. Pupils use their ongoing dialogue with their teacher to correct spelling and grammatical errors. However, pupils’ progress in writing is slow because expectations of the quality of pupils’ overall compositions are not high enough. In mathematics, expectations are much higher and work is of better quality. Teachers’ stronger subject knowledge enables them to pose challenging questions, secure accuracy in pupils’ calculations, and provide opportunities more frequently for pupils to apply and explain their mathematical thinking. Expectations in key stage 1 are much too low. Pupils have not made the progress that they should have, particularly in writing, given their higher starting points at the end of early years. Strategies to

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Main findings

improve the quality of teaching in this key stage have not been successful.

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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.

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External support

Local authority support has been aligned to areas for improvement. This support has ensured that systems and procedures for subject leader monitoring have been strengthened. However, the local authority has not provided sufficient challenge to leaders about the impact of their actions to ensure that pupils’ achievement strengthens quickly.

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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 West Sussex. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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