Frogmore Junior School

Frogmore Junior School Green Lane, Camberley, Surrey GU17 0NY

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Overall effectiveness Requires improvement

Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

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Overall effectiveness Requires improvement

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

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Overall effectiveness Requires improvement

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

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Overall effectiveness Requires improvement

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

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Overall effectiveness Requires improvement

Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Not previously inspected

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This is a school that requires improvement

 The legacy of inadequate teaching over time means that many pupils still have gaps in their knowledge, skills and understanding.  Most-able pupils infrequently receive work that challenges them to do their best and attain very high standards.  Pupils’ reading, writing and mathematics have improved recently but standards in writing are still below those expected of all pupils in all year groups.  Historically, pupils did not make the progress expected of them from Year 3 to Year 6 in reading, writing and mathematics.  Leadership has stabilised. The new team is fully aware of the scale of the challenge it faces.  Leaders have developed a straightforward system for monitoring pupils’ progress, but it has not been in place long enough for it to show sustained improvements over time.  The school’s processes for evaluating its own performance and planning essential action lack precision.  Improvements to teaching, led by the school’s

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This is a school that requires improvement

emerging leadership team, have not yet had enough time to raise pupils’ achievement fully.  Teachers have had opportunities to compare their work with strong teachers in other schools only recently.  General support for learning in lessons is not as effective as that provided for pupils with specific needs or those who have a funded support plan.  Despite considerable efforts from senior leaders, a small minority of pupils fail to attend school regularly.  Governors in the predecessor school did not have accurate information against which to judge the school’s performance.

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The school has the following strengths

 A new leadership team from April 2016 which is focused on essential improvements.  Strong, effective support from the University of Chichester multi-academy trust (MAT). MAT leaders ensure that the school benefits from high- quality professional advice and support.  Polite, cooperative pupils who behave well in school and show increasingly keen attitudes to learning.  Compassionate and skilful support for pupils who have acute special educational needs or disability.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Ensure that the increasingly strong teaching continues to develop so that: all pupils’ progress in writing quickens and matches the standards attained by other pupils nationally most-able pupils are challenged further to achieve the excellent standards of which they are undoubtedly capable parents understand fully how well their children are doing within the new framework for assessment.  Ensure that the newly formed leadership team strengthens its effectiveness by: reviewing processes for evaluating the school’s performance and recording its improvement journey focusing on priority areas for improvement and greatest need setting and publishing clear success criteria for every essential action.  Work collaboratively with advisers in the MAT, and those whose expertise the MAT can broker, to: share more widely the improving practice within the school learn from excellent practice in other schools critically evaluate and then strengthen the contribution to teaching and learning made by learning

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Effectiveness of leadership and management requires improvement

 The school has been through an extended period of instability. There were several changes to the leadership while the school was subject to special measures. This was made worse by some appointments to the teaching staff that did not work out, causing several classes to experience frequent and unsettling change.  The leadership of the multi-academy trust (MAT) that oversees the school also changed shortly after the school became an academy. However, this change has brought stability to the proprietorship of the school. Senior staff within the MAT are taking decisive action to support staff members in their valiant attempts to improve the school.  Currently, the headteacher of the school is appointed on an interim basis as is the deputy headteacher. Senior leaders within the MAT have confidence in this new team. Inspectors found much evidence to support this confidence. For example, work with pupils who have acute special educational needs is

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Effectiveness of leadership and management requires improvement

thorough and effective. Also, the acting headteacher’s creation of an easy-to-use system for assessing pupils’ progress against the new curriculum is already showing signs of impact. This system was established when the acting headteacher was the deputy headteacher.  Responsibility for pupils with special educational needs or disability is being transferred to an experienced member of staff who will become the school’s special educational needs coordinator (SENCo). Senior leaders are ensuring that the effective practice that exists in this aspect of the school’s work will be maintained under this new leadership. Senior leaders have ensured that the new SENCo is properly qualified to undertake the role and receives effective support.  Subject leadership is being strengthened and improved with responsibilities moving to established team members. These leaders of English and science are increasingly providing better examples of how the

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Effectiveness of leadership and management requires improvement

subjects can be taught than was previously the case. Practice is catching up with that found in other schools. The impact of such work is not yet seen in the standards in writing presented in pupils’ books. Mathematics has been better led over time but still does not stretch the most able.  Sensibly, leaders have recognised the need to strengthen other aspects of line management. Senior leaders have delegated further responsibility for leading the upper- and lower-school phases. Teachers are working more effectively in teams consisting of just two year groups.  Leaders at all levels are ambitious for the school. They know that pupils were not served well in the past. Leaders are using changes to the curriculum nationally as a way of boosting the school’s performance all round. The curriculum is explained on the website with clear information about the content of each subject and how it is taught. In practice, however, teachers actually deliver the curriculum through a

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Effectiveness of leadership and management requires improvement

topic-based approach, which helps pupils make connections between different aspects of life in modern Britain and the skills they are developing. As such, the school contributes well to the development of pupils’ appropriate multicultural and inclusive attitudes. They learn how to live and cooperate in a diverse society.  Leaders are diligent in trying to recruit suitably qualified staff. They understand clearly the particular challenges they face but rightly seek only to appoint staff who are committed to making Frogmore Junior School the best it can be. Over time, this has resulted in a group of teachers and teaching assistants who are changing the quality of teaching, learning and assessment activity for the better. As the teaching staff stabilise, there are marked signs of improvement in the classrooms. There remains much still to be done.  The MAT’s central team has provided considerable support for improvements to teaching. A wide range of

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Effectiveness of leadership and management requires improvement

consultants have assessed the school’s work, helped train teachers and challenged leaders to account for their own work more fully. The appointment of an experienced and effective improvement partner has also made a difference as the acting headteacher now receives very regular support, advice and guidance.  Over the last 18 months, considerable effort has been put into improving the school. Inspectors saw several documents which attempt to show how far along the ‘journey to excellence’ the school has travelled. Not all the plans focus on the most urgent priorities or indicate precisely enough what actions will be needed to ensure that improvement is sustained. The plans do not always clearly set out the criteria by which leaders will know they have been successful.  The governance of the school Governors understand the nature of the school and its context. As an interim local governing board (ILGB), they provide a secure structure for information to flow between the MAT and the school’s

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Effectiveness of leadership and management requires improvement

leaders. This is helping to provide accurate and reliable management information. Both the governors and the MAT have a realistic view of the schools’ growing strengths but also those areas which still require improvement. Governors have a full awareness of the school’s finances and plan carefully to ensure that the staff have the resources they need to keep teaching effectively. Both the MAT and the governors are keen to ensure that only good performance is rewarded, and oversee carefully the school’s performance management arrangements. All staff are held to account for the quality of their work. Governors keep a sharp focus on the standards attained by pupils. They are particularly focused on how well pupils who have special educational needs or disability are doing. They are keen that all children are safe and free from bullying.  The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. The checks the school makes on adults working with

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Effectiveness of leadership and management requires improvement

children are maintained appropriately and all visitors are challenged robustly at the school’s reception. Information about the appropriateness of other adults invited to work in the school is not always transferred to the school in a timely manner. Some aspects of the statutory information schools must provide on their websites were also not available in time for the inspection. Leaders and governors provided reliable evidence that, despite this, all pupils are safeguarded on site at all times.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment requires improvement

 Since January 2015, teachers have been working to address many of the shortcomings that had been holding back pupils’ progress for too long. Teachers generally now plan learning that is intended to fill gaps in pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding.  Leaders wisely have put in place a rigorous system for assessing each pupil’s starting point when they join the school. All teachers regularly now assess how well each pupil is doing and share the results with senior leaders.  Teachers use the information about pupils’ recent performance to plan the next steps in learning. However, in all classes teachers plan the same work for all pupils so that some find it too easy and some find it too hard. In mathematics, all pupils follow the same scheme but are able to choose the tasks they will work on from three different levels of difficulty. Not all pupils select the most challenging work and teachers do not always prompt the most able to do so.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment requires improvement

 Teachers are generally well supported by learning support assistants. Those supporting pupils with acute special educational needs or disability one to one make a difference to such pupils. Sometimes, however, they do the work for them. Also, learning support assistants do not always look to see who else they might help, even if they are assigned to a particular pupil. Some pupils struggle to keep up in lessons when there are staff present who could help them move forward with relatively straightforward guidance or advice.  Teachers use other resources such as textbooks and interactive whiteboards well. This reduces the time they have to spend preparing work. However, they are increasingly sharing ideas and materials to reduce the burden of preparation further. They have been working collaboratively for some time on lesson planning as a way of ensuring that weak teaching is eradicated. This has been effective.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment requires improvement

 Teachers have also worked well together with consultants and with strong teachers in other schools to check pupils’ work. This means that they have gained confidence over the last 18 months that their assessment of pupils’ work is accurate. They have also gained confidence and developed skills in giving pupils feedback on their work. In the best examples, pupils receive feedback which prompts them to make improvements. There are still too many occasions when feedback is of little value and has no effect.  Teachers are becoming increasingly adept at providing reliable information to parents about pupils’ progress. This has been made easier by the development of the school’s new assessment system. Parents are learning to understand what this means about their own children. Parents receive information about other aspects of school life through newsletters, emails and text messages. They say that communication

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment requires improvement

with teachers has improved considerably in recent months.  The school is committed to improving pupils’ literacy and numeracy. Teachers support this by using the correct technical, grammatical or mathematical terms whenever possible.  Teachers are benefiting from seeing close-up effective models of practice from colleagues on the staff. Many have been adopted. It is too early to see the full impact of these improvements in much better outcomes for pupils.  Teachers use a wide range of strategies including scientific investigations which enthuse and inspire pupils. The school also employs highly effective sports coaches who deliver physical education to a good standard. Progress over time in pupils’ ball-handling skills, for example, is very clear.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good. This is a strength of the school. Pupils are very polite and treat visitors with respect. For the most part, they also treat each other with respect. There are occasional breakdowns in friendship groups, but pupils have learned how to get over these quickly.  Pupils integrate well with each other. They respond warmly to those with evident physical disabilities and try to include them whenever possible.  Pupils are supported by teachers to be independent and mature. Teachers present awards for a range of things which help to build pupils’ self-esteem. Pupils like to be rewarded for good effort and academic success.  Care is provided by a wide range of adults working in the school. Pupils say they feel safe and would know whom to go to if they needed help. Well-established routines for play and lunchtime mean that pupils take their turns for eating and relaxing without fuss.

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Personal development and welfare

 Pupils told inspectors that they are taught how to keep themselves safe, especially when working with computers. They also indicated that they had been given opportunities to discuss world events or other issues occurring in the news. These provide them with a safe space in which to discuss issues of a safeguarding nature in ways appropriate to their age and stage of development.  A few parents consider that bullying persists in the school, despite leaders’ work to tackle it. Pupils were confident that if bullying was to occur, if teachers knew about it, it would be dealt with quickly, firmly and fairly.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is good. Lesson time is calm and orderly. Play and mealtimes are also pleasant and well supervised. Pupils benefit from extensive grounds where there is plenty of space to play. Ball games are rightly allowed only on the field.  In class, many pupils show keenness to learn when teaching captures their imagination or sparks their interest. In one lesson, pupils were fascinated by the shadows that were cast by materials with different properties. They moved in and out of the classroom into the sunshine in an appropriately self-disciplined manner.  Inspectors observed no low-level disruption, unruly behaviour or poor relationships between pupils and their teachers. Teachers have good routines for maintaining control in each classroom.  A few pupils present challenging behaviour from time to time. Leaders very rarely exclude them, preferring to manage their behaviour on site and keep them in school. The new leadership team is

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Behaviour

currently organising advanced behaviour management training so that this practice can be maintained and enhanced.  A small group of pupils continue to miss too much school. Leaders, working with outside agencies, have tried several ways to reduce absence. Some have been successful. The vast majority of pupils attend school well. The overall attendance rate for the school is above the national average and is rising from year to year.

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Outcomes for pupils require improvement

 Pupils routinely join the school with attainment above national averages in all subjects.  Too few pupils go on to convert these results consistently into attainment at the end of Key Stage 2 which shows that they have made good progress. In 2015, for example, the proportions of pupils making expected progress in reading, writing and mathematics were well below the national average.  Historical data shows clearly that too few pupils added value to their learning from Years 3 to 6. In 2015, these ‘value-added’ scores showed signs of improvement but were still below the national averages.  In 2015, a large majority of Year 6 pupils attained the expected level in reading, writing and mathematics combined. However, it was only in mathematics that pupils went on to attain the highest levels of which they were undoubtedly capable. Few made more than expected progress despite strong starting points.

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Outcomes for pupils require improvement

 Most-able pupils, over an extended period of time, fail to reach their potential. However, the school has now put in place a simple system for checking how well each pupil is doing. The system shows that in 2014 and 2015, as in the current academic year, many more pupils met the standards expected for their age.  Pupils in Years 5 and 6 have some way to go to catch up with their peers nationally. These pupils also need to fill gaps in their knowledge, skills and understanding caused by poor teaching earlier in their school life.  Pupils who have special educational needs or disability make progress at similar rates to their classmates. Gaps between them in knowledge, skills and understanding are closing, as tailored and sharply focused support helps them to catch up or fall no further behind.  There are too few disadvantaged pupils to report on patterns or trends in their performance historically.

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Outcomes for pupils require improvement

Currently, in all year groups, disadvantaged pupils make progress at more or less the same rate as their counterparts but remain about half a term to a term behind other pupils nationally. This is because the overall performance of the school is below national averages. Rates of progress are increasing as teachers know the curriculum better and are able to assess more accurately pupils’ progress against it.  Work in pupils’ books shows variable progress. Work in mathematics is set out well and pupils show that they are making gains in learning that build on skills developed earlier.  Standards of writing, however, do not improve fast enough to support good progress overall. For example, not all pupils in Year 6 use a pen regularly and are therefore ready for this common practice in secondary schools. Some pupils have good handwriting even in Year 3 but do not continue to improve it rapidly as they move through the year. The content of pupils’ writing also does not move forward at great

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Outcomes for pupils require improvement

pace across each year. Many pupils benefit from teaching which extends their vocabulary but few routinely apply new words learned in their own writing.  Pupils read well and most practise their reading at home. They have access to good resources in the library and many borrow both fiction and non-fiction books.

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School details

Unique reference number 139944 Local authority Hampshire Inspection number 10011715

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School details

This inspection was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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School details

Type of school Junior School category Academy sponsor-led Age range of pupils 7–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 189 Appropriate authority The proprietor Chair Niki Baier Headteacher Gill Richardson (acting) Telephone number 01252 873054 Website www.frogmore-jun.hants.sch.uk Email address adminoffice@frogmore-jun.hants.sch.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

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Information about this school

 Frogmore Junior School is a smaller than average junior school serving the community of Frogmore within Bracknell, Surrey.  Frogmore Junior School is part of the University of Chichester MAT. It joined the trust in September 2013. Its predecessor school, Frogmore Junior School, closed in July 2013. When the predecessor school was last inspected, it was judged to require special measures.  There is a smaller number of girls than boys at the school.  The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals is below the national average.  The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic households is approximately one third of the national average.  A below average proportion of pupils have English as an additional language.  There is a higher than average proportion of pupils who have support for their special educational needs and there are twice the average number of pupils with statements of special educational needs or an

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Information about this school

education, health and care plan.  The school benefits from a stable population which experiences below average levels of deprivation.  Frogmore Junior School shares an extensive and attractive campus with an infant school and a local children’s centre.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed learning in all classes at least once. Senior leaders jointly observed learning on six occasions. The acting headteacher also conducted a joint analysis of pupils’ work with one of the inspectors.  The lead inspector held meetings with the acting headteacher and the acting deputy headteacher. He also met with the SENCO and two of the school’s middle leaders. The team took into account the views of 16 members of staff who completed Ofsted’s online staff survey.  Inspectors met with parents informally at the school gate, met with seven parents of children currently at the school and considered 61 responses to Parent View, Ofsted’s confidential online survey for parents.  Inspectors spoke regularly to pupils throughout the inspection in lessons and at play and breaktimes, met with a group of Year 6 pupils and heard four pupils read. Inspectors took into account five responses to Ofsted’s new confidential online pupil survey.

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Information about this inspection

 The lead inspector met with representatives of the MAT and the academy’s improvement partner, and held a separate meeting with the chief executive officer of the MAT. He also met with the chair of the (ILGB and another governor.

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Inspection team

Dr Simon Hughes, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Mo Galway Ofsted Inspector guidance 'Raising concerns and making a complaint about Ofsted', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.gov.uk/government/publications/complaints-about-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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Inspection team

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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Inspection team

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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Inspection team

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, further education and skills, 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. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team,

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Inspection team

The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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