Heage Primary School

Heage Primary School School Lane, Heage, Derbyshire DE56 2AL

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Overall effectiveness Good

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

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Overall effectiveness Good

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

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Overall effectiveness Good

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

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Overall effectiveness Good

Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Requires improvement

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This is a good school

 Effective action by senior and middle leaders has ensured that teaching has improved and pupils’ progress has accelerated. Leadership roles are distributed among the staff well and a team approach ensures that all staff and governors now work together to make improvements.  Children in the early years get off to a good start in their learning. They make good progress and are prepared well for key stage 1.  Pupils from all groups, including those who have special educational needs or disability and those who are disadvantaged, achieve well. This is because of good-quality teaching and carefully planned additional support.  Teaching and learning are now good, ensuring that pupils develop good skills in reading, writing and mathematics. Teachers have good subject knowledge and most know how to use questioning effectively in their teaching. Pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education.  The curriculum engages pupils’ interests. The new

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This is a good school

systems for assessing and tracking pupils’ progress are becoming increasingly well established.  Pupils are polite and well mannered and they relish responsibility. This is a key part of the school’s values and ethos, with the points pupils earn for showing these recorded on their ‘SMART passport’, enabling them to apply for ‘jobs’ and responsibilities in school.  Pupils feel safe at school because the school places a high priority on pupils’ welfare. The school is highly inclusive, with one of the pupils reporting, ‘I knew when I first came, that this was the place for me’.  The recently reconstituted governing body has put new committees and procedures in place to ensure that it is able to challenge and support the school more effectively.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 Leaders and managers need to be sharper when evaluating the quality of teaching, learning and assessment in order to improve teaching still further.  Some teachers do not always take account of pupils’ understanding as the lesson progresses, so they do not adapt their teaching during lessons, especially for the least able.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the quality of teaching to outstanding by ensuring that teachers consistently and carefully assess pupils’ work and learning during lessons and adapt their teaching appropriately, particularly for the least able.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve leadership and management by: continuing to strengthen the governing body so that it supports and challenges leaders even more rigorously sharpening the evaluation of teaching and learning and using this information to pinpoint exactly which aspects of teaching still need improvement.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

 Staff morale is high and all staff and governors are ambitious for pupils. Responses to the staff questionnaire showed that all staff feel they are led well and that the school is much better than at the previous inspection. Staff feel that they have received good training to help them to do their job well and the evidence from the inspection mostly supported this view.  Senior and middle leaders have made significant improvements to the quality of teaching and learning. For example, marking and feedback are now much more consistent and in line with the school’s policy. Teachers write developmental actions and outline activities that help pupils to improve. Very specific expectations have also been written for each year group in writing and mathematics. These have helped teachers and pupils to know exactly what they are working towards.  Actions taken to improve the school are clear and precise. However, leaders and managers do not always

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

pinpoint those specific aspects of teaching and learning that are preventing teaching from improving still further.  The curriculum is broad and balanced, allowing pupils to have good opportunities for extra-curricular sport, computing and music. In lessons, there are opportunities for investigative learning in science, and activities to learn about the different faiths represented in Britain today. Effective provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is well embedded into this curriculum, which meets pupils’ needs well. This is a caring school, which nurtures pupils and fully promotes equality.  The school has worked to improve relationships with parents. All parents who completed the online Parent View survey believe that their child is happy, safe and taught well in the school. Nearly all parents spoken to during the inspection said that they are pleased with the improvements in recent years and

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

believe it to be a good school.  The school has had support from the local authority and has also taken a proactive approach to seek out good and outstanding practice in other schools upon which to model improvement. This has helped the school to improve the quality of teaching and the need to evidence good progress in books to help leaders to know how well the pupils are achieving.  Staff performance is managed well. Objectives set are those relevant to whole-school improvement and are, therefore, linked to the school’s training programme to improve teaching. Teachers are mindful of the mixed-aged classes and the school’s new assessment system ensures that leaders and teachers can monitor each pupil’s progress to ensure that almost all achieve well.  Disadvantaged pupils have benefited from the good use of the pupil premium funding. This has been used to provide a range of good initiatives, including a breakfast club, a teaching assistant to teach well-

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

chosen catch-up activities and extra-curricular activities. Pupils’ social, emotional and academic needs have been addressed effectively.  The good use of the primary school sports funding has improved the physical education and sports coaching skills of teachers and pupils. This has improved the quality and range of sports taught in lessons, those offered at lunchtime by pupils and those available through extra-curricular sports clubs and competitions.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

 The governance of the school Governors have significantly increased their own knowledge of the school and the effectiveness of governance in the last year. They have undertaken a skills audit and recruited new governors with the skills required to complement those of existing governors. The governing body has reorganised its subcommittees and agreed clear expectations with senior leaders. This is regarding the information that the governing body receives and in turn, how the governing body will check on the impact of senior leaders. This has helped the governors to begin to challenge and support more effectively in the right areas. Governors have recently monitored the effectiveness of safeguarding procedures and the improvements in pupils’ behaviour. However, their effectiveness in checking the impact of the school’s plans for improvement is currently more limited.  The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. The school’s records are robust, detailed and

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

informative, ensuring that good systems are in place to ensure all training is regularly updated and all pupils’ welfare and safeguarding needs are met. The school is particularly effective in meeting the requirements of pupils with specific learning and medical needs. Leaders and staff are vigilant in protecting pupils from the dangers posed by radicalisation and extremism because they have had appropriate training.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is good

 The quality of teaching is now good and the weak teaching previously identified has been eliminated.  There are positive working relationships between the pupils and adults. Most teachers use stimulating and creative resources in their lessons, which capture pupils’ curiosity. They make adjustments to their topic plans to meet pupils’ interests. Teachers’ confident and enthusiastic manner ensures that pupils enjoy their lessons.  The teaching of phonics (the sounds that letters represent) is good and pupils apply what they learn in these lessons to help them to sound out new words in their reading and to spell words accurately in their writing.  Teachers use questioning particularly well to check pupils’ understanding and to help pupils to give more clarity to their answers. For example, in a key stage 2 English lesson, pupils were able to explain how the critics writing film reviews were able to inform, describe, analyse and advise their audiences about the

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is good

film. The teacher used questioning cleverly to ensure that pupils were able to quote the most relevant examples from the reviews to back up their suggestions.  Pupils’ prior knowledge and skills are usually used well by teachers when they plan lessons. Pupils are given good opportunities to practise new learning in grammar and punctuation in a range of subjects. The work set is usually at the right level for pupils. As most teachers are very clear about what is expected of pupils during lessons, pupils usually know what to try and include in their writing or what aspect of their problem solving in mathematics the teacher wants them to demonstrate.  Teachers’ assessments of pupils’ skills are usually accurate and they are very aware of the standards pupils are expected to achieve in their class. The school has worked effectively with other schools to ensure that these assessments are accurate. For example in writing, teachers have compiled samples of

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is good

pupils’ work to show the standards expected within the school for the different age groups.  Teachers do not always check pupils’ learning and understanding fully during lessons. This is usually when pupils are working independently or in a small group, when time can be lost due to pupils making mistakes or working slowly due to a lack of confidence. At other times, the teacher or teaching assistant does not react to the fact that some of the less able pupils may be struggling, by employing a different approach to help these pupils understand more clearly what they have to do.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.  Pupils are polite, courteous and caring around the school. They enjoy many aspects of school life, including learning, clubs, musical opportunities and playtimes, and in particular are very proud of the school parliament. This parliament has been instrumental in the decisions taken by pupils when spending a large sum of money on equipment to promote positive behaviour in the playground. In an assembly during the inspection, pupils were proud to showcase the banners they had designed and selected, which were to be put up near the zigzag lines outside the school to combat the illegal parking. These activities show the school’s strong commitment to the promotion of inclusion and democracy and to pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.  Pupils interact well with each other and they show respect for the ideas and views of others. The school

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Personal development and welfare

works successfully to promote pupils’ emotional and physical well-being. It liaises with a range of external agencies to ensure that the needs of all pupils are met.  A named teaching assistant, together with a breakfast club (which includes support for pupils who are eligible for pupil premium funding) have improved some pupils’ social and emotional well-being.  Pupils say that they feel safe and that staff listen to them when they talk to them about any concerns. They show a good awareness of how to keep safe, for example when online. Bullying is an issue that the school has to deal with infrequently, according to the vast majority of pupils. Nearly all pupils and parents have confidence in the way in which staff deal with any problems they raise.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is good.  Playtimes and lunchtimes are calm and harmonious. Pupils particularly enjoy playing in the outdoor key stage 1 mud kitchen or with the wide range of sports equipment. There is a high level of engagement in activities and games during pupils’ free time and this means that any poor behaviour and disagreements between pupils are minimised.  Pupils have good attitudes to their learning and like the school’s marking system, which identifies where they have achieved well and where they need to improve.  Attendance has risen to above average. There is no persistent absence so far this year and there was none last year. In particular, the school has worked to improve the attendance of disadvantaged pupils; the attendance of this group has improved by 6.5% in four years, impacting well on their achievement. There are a number of initiatives to reward good attendance.  Occasionally in lessons, some pupils’ weaker attitudes to learning result in them chatting or being off task

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Behaviour

for short periods of time. This usually happens when their work is less interesting to them.

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Outcomes for pupils are good

 Pupils make good progress from their starting points. Achievement in all subjects is good, but writing and mathematics are generally stronger than reading and English grammar, punctuation and spelling. The vast majority of pupils have now caught up from previous underachievement, which some historic weaker teaching had caused.  Pupils enjoy reading, with all enjoying both fiction and non-fiction books. Pupils regularly choose books from the school library, but many older pupils have more than one book they are reading at any one time, often reading a different one at home. Older pupils talked to an inspector about the range of strategies they use to help them tackle the meaning of new words, including using a dictionary.  The dip in performance in the Year 1 phonics check in 2015 has been addressed this year through improvements in the teaching of phonics and the better tracking of pupils’ progress through the phonics

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Outcomes for pupils are good

stages.  Pupils’ basic mathematical skills are now typically good, with most pupils having good recall of mathematical facts, including multiplication tables, relevant to their ages. Teachers use problem-solving activities well to challenge pupils of all abilities, but pupils’ reasoning skills are less well developed.  The progress of disadvantaged pupils is accelerating. Focused additional learning groups are helping to close the gaps between the achievement of disadvantaged pupils and that of other pupils.  The attainment and progress of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities are monitored closely. This helps teachers to identify additional support and other interventions to ensure that these pupils usually make good progress. Whilst these pupils are given good support in special interventions, they can sometimes fall unnecessarily behind in some lessons because teachers do not always adapt work

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Outcomes for pupils are good

well for them.  Across the school, the most-able pupils are largely challenged well in lessons. The school’s tracking information confirms that most make increasingly good progress across year groups and attain higher than average standards.  Pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education.

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Early years provision is good

 Most children start at the school with skills that are typical for their age in mathematics. However, about half of the intake each year has weaker skills in language and communication and limited personal, social and emotional development. Many of these children are not well prepared to start school. The school is working with a number of its Nursery providers, early years carers and the local authority to improve ‘school readiness’. By the time they leave the Reception Year, an average proportion of children typically achieve the standards expected for their age, with nearly all children typically making good or better progress.  Early years staff give children’s welfare and safety a high priority. As a result, children are happy, safe and increasingly confident. Good use of established routines settles children quickly to learning and helps to refocus any for whom their attention wavers, ensuring children’s overall good behaviour.

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Early years provision is good

 Children in the Reception Year clearly enjoy learning and are just as caring as older pupils in the school. For example, the most-able children are happy and keen to spontaneously help those who are finding a task or their learning difficult. In a phonics lesson, all the children chose a phoneme card (a card showing a letter or group of letters that represent a sound), the task being to find the same one hidden around the room. A few children could not find theirs after looking, and one child said to another, ‘I think I’ve seen that one’. She took the other child by the hand and they went off happily to find it together.  Good teaching, including good subject knowledge, enables staff to introduce new concepts successfully to children. They take account of children’s learning to decide on appropriate next steps. All children, including those demonstrating higher ability, are usually well challenged and guided.

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Early years provision is good

 Children learn through a range of good-quality practical experiences, with appropriate links made between the different areas of learning. Adults use questioning well to move children’s learning on.  Evidence of children’s progress is very well documented in their learning journals, with careful links to the progress statements that the school uses. Good leadership and management ensure that any children who are not making good progress are quickly identified to receive additional support. The progress of disadvantaged children is also carefully monitored so they make similar good progress to others.  Teaching is good and all safeguarding procedures are met. Staff have good relationships with parents, who feel that the staff are very approachable and keen to discuss any concerns that may arise. Parents are well informed about their child’s progress.  Sometimes adults miss opportunities to guide children, including those who are less able, by adapting the

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Early years provision is good

activity or by offering focused, individual feedback.

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School details

Unique reference number 112773 Local authority Derbyshire Inspection number 10011737

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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 Primary School category Community Age range of pupils 4–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 163 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Chris Dickinson Headteacher James Yellop Telephone number 01773 852188 Website www.heage.derbyshire.sch.uk Email address info@heage.derbyshire.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 30 April–1 May 2014

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Information about this school

 The school is smaller than the average-sized primary school. All pupils except in the Reception Year and Year 6 are taught in mixed-age classes.  Almost all pupils are of White British heritage.  The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs or disability is below average, but a higher than average proportion of pupils is supported with an education, health and care plan.  The proportion of disadvantaged pupils (those supported through the pupil premium) is below average.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in Year 6.  The school offers a daily breakfast club for some pupils. This is managed by the governing body and was reviewed as part of this inspection.  There is also a breakfast club, after-school club and holiday club on site. These are managed privately and inspected separately.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed pupils’ learning in each class a number of times. They visited a range of lessons, or parts of lessons. Inspectors also observed pupils’ behaviour at different times throughout the school day, including when they were at play and during lunchtime.  Discussions were held with the headteacher and other senior and middle leaders. Inspectors also met with several teachers and members of the governing body. An additional meeting was held with two representatives from the local authority.  Inspectors met with groups of pupils and spoke to many others informally throughout the inspection, as well as listening to a number of pupils read across the school.  Inspectors met with a number of parents at the start of the school day. The 47 parental responses expressed through the online questionnaire, Parent View, were also considered, as were 10 questionnaire responses from staff and 21 from pupils.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspection team scrutinised a range of school documentation. This included the school’s self- evaluation, its improvement plan, assessment information for tracking pupils’ attainment and progress, and records relating to behaviour and attendance. Documents used by leaders, including governors and the local authority, to monitor and evaluate the school’s work were also considered.  A review of safeguarding records and procedures was carried out.

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Inspection team

Angela Kirk, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector Kim Bower 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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