Wakefield Greenhill Primary School

Wakefield Greenhill Primary School Greenhill Road, Eastmoor WF1 4LU

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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 Outstanding

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Overall effectiveness Good

Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Good

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This is a good school

 The headteacher sets high expectations. He and senior leaders are determined to provide the best education possible through a wide range of unique experiences beyond the classroom for every pupil.  The attainment and progress of most pupils by the end of the Year 6 tests is at least good and often better on most measures.  Children make good progress in the early years as a result of good leadership and teaching.  Pupils receive exemplary care and support. Their behaviour is outstanding, showing respect for each other and adults. Pupils know that the school expects them to be keen learners and work hard.  The school is highly inclusive. Leaders actively demolish any barriers to learning, whether through disadvantage, ethnicity or any other cause. This contributes to pupils’ good outcomes.  Adults secure a safe environment for learning and play at the school. Pupils know how to keep themselves safe.  Teaching is typically good and helps pupils to

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This is a good school

enjoy their learning in reading, writing and mathematics. This leads to outcomes which are at least good by the time they leave Year 6.  Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural education is promoted effectively. Pupils have a strong sense of right and wrong and enjoy supporting their local community with choral events and charity fund-raising. They have many opportunities to reflect, for example upon the arts, and to learn about democracy.  Leaders have succeeded in improving pupils’ rates of attendance since the previous inspection.  Governors have worked hard to improve their effectiveness since the previous inspection. They work diligently to challenge leaders and support them.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 Teaching is not outstanding, because the impact of teaching assistants is variable across the school.  Teachers do not move pupils on to harder work quickly enough and this slows their progress.  Some teachers do not comply with the school’s marking policy to check that pupils have corrected their mistakes and finished their work.  The progress of different year groups is variable across the school.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

 The headteacher and closely knit senior leadership team share an ambitious vision for the school. This is firmly connected to the provision of a caring and supportive environment in which pupils develop the confidence, determination and resilience to reach the highest levels in their learning.  Together, leaders have enabled the school to bring about the improvements recommended at the previous inspection, notably hard-won increases in rates of attendance, which, from a low base, are now just above average. There have also been significant improvements to governance during this time.  The school’s self-evaluation and development plans are honest and appropriate and identify key priorities to improve pupils’ achievement. Thorough and consistently applied systems support the management of pupils’ behaviour and the checking of pupils’ attendance. Leaders systematically check the quality of teaching and learning through regular observations, book checks and meetings to discuss pupils’

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

progress. Despite these strengths, they have not prevented variations in the progress of some pupils currently in the school, notably in Year 3 and Year 4.  Teachers are provided with a good balance of challenge and support, and receive appropriate training and development. As a result, the quality of teaching is typically good.  Teachers in charge of subjects or other aspects of the school’s work are determined to ensure that all pupils benefit from the best teaching. Relationships between leaders and their teams are positive and professional. Leaders are therefore not afraid to challenge as well as support each other in securing necessary improvements.  Teachers’ performance is managed thoroughly and based on whole-school priorities, including pupils’ progress. Leaders review the responsibilities of teachers and other adults regularly. Effective monitoring ensures that feedback to teachers is consistent and identifies their strengths and weaknesses honestly

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

and clearly.  Occasionally, targets for improvement would benefit from being more sharply focused on subject-specific issues as well as on more general practice in teaching. Leaders and governors have used performance management effectively to support weaker teachers to become good ones or to challenge them robustly when they fail to improve.  The curriculum is a strength of the school, being broad and balanced and well matched to pupils’ needs. The school has responded thoughtfully to new national curriculum changes and subject coordinators are cooperating effectively to ensure that the curriculum is well adjusted to new assessment processes.  Unusual and exciting outdoor enrichment activities are a unique and distinctive feature of the curriculum. From bee-keeping, archaeology and forestry to the construction of a traditional Asian yurt (a kind of wood-framed tent), pupils apply their literacy, numeracy and other skills they have learned in the

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

classroom to solving absorbing practical problems.  These opportunities add immense value to pupils’ all-round development, including their confidence and resilience to tackle both physically and intellectually demanding tasks.  Carefully calculated elements of risk-taking in a safe environment, supported by a range of other expert adults, prepare pupils extremely well for the skills and attributes they will need in their future personal and working lives.  The school promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development well. They have good opportunities to reflect on spiritual and cultural matters, for example through the study of artists from other cultural traditions. Pupils have a strong sense of right and wrong and democracy, evident in letters that Year 6 pupils were preparing for the Prime Minister about their views on child labour laws.  Pupils of different backgrounds work and play happily together and know that, as one pupil said, ‘It’s

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

good to be different’. The school promotes British values through the study of ‘influential British figures’, for example famous engineers. Leaders are aware of the need to include more non-White British role models in these aspirational stories, to reflect the diversity of the school and its community.  Pupils are clear that prejudice-based language and bullying are wrong and that teachers will react strongly towards all forms of discrimination if they occur.  The governance of the school  The governing body shares the ambition of the headteacher. Governors are more knowledgeable about the strengths and weaknesses of the school since the previous inspection because they have become much more involved with the school’s work. For example, they have learned much about how well pupils are learning in different year groups, through participating in the scrutiny of pupils’ work.  Governors bring a wide range of professional skills to their roles and are keen to update their skills

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is good

regularly. This enhances the increasingly effective support and challenge they now provide to leaders.  Governors also have a good knowledge of how pupil premium funding is spent and the impact it has on the achievement of disadvantaged pupils. They are also well aware of the contribution of the physical education (PE) and sport funding in widening the range of sports activities, including competitive sports, available after the school day.  The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. The school meets its statutory requirements for safeguarding pupils. Leaders and governors take their responsibilities for safeguarding very seriously. Senior leaders and all staff are appropriately trained and updated and robust systems are in place to keep pupils safe in school and on visits.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is good

 Inspection evidence, strongly supported by the school’s own detailed monitoring records, confirms that teaching is consistently good. Consequently, pupils enjoy their learning and the great majority make at least good progress in reading, writing and mathematics during their time in the school.  Teachers take pride in their well-organised classrooms. They are enthusiastic and establish very positive relationships with their pupils. Teachers use their good subject knowledge to plan activities that interest and enthuse their pupils in turn, and promote their good learning and sustained progress.  Teachers have increasingly high expectations of what pupils can achieve as they move up through the school, the most effective teaching being found in in Year 5 and Year 6. This leads to the good outcomes for Year 6 pupils in national tests. Teaching is not yet outstanding because the attainment and progress

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is good

of current pupils, while never less than good, varies across year groups.  This is partly because some teachers do not yet comply with the school’s policy on marking. As a result, some pupils do not have enough time to respond to their teachers’ guidance and complete corrections and other work, so that errors and misconceptions are not repeated.  Pupils’ learning also slows when teachers do not move pupils on quickly enough to more complex tasks, or encourage pupils to start tasks at a more challenging level.  The teaching of reading is very effective. Pupils learn to read fluently and accurately and were keen to show their prowess to inspectors. Most pupils are well able to use strategies they have learned to pronounce unfamiliar words and to correct themselves if they stumble. The school’s new, well-stocked library is a strong motivation to encourage pupils’ personal reading.  Teachers place an appropriate emphasis on the teaching of number in mathematics and this contributes

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is good

to pupils’ secure understanding of basic skills.  Most teachers work effectively with other adults, for example to support disadvantaged pupils and those who have special educational needs or disability. This generally contributes well to the good progress these groups of pupils make. Occasionally extra adults are not so well managed by class teachers, so that their impact on pupils’ learning is not as strong as it could be.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is outstanding.  Senior leaders take their responsibilities very seriously and work well with a wide range of external agencies to ensure that all pupils are well cared for at the school. Through this hard work by staff, pupils show confidence and awareness about how to be successful learners.  Pupils say that they feel safe and that bullying is rare. They understand where to turn to for help should they need it.  Pupils greatly appreciate the support and care given to them by all adults. Some of the most vulnerable pupils spoke movingly to inspectors of the sense of belonging and success that they have found at the school during some of their most challenging circumstances. As well as care and sympathy, these pupils have drawn strength from their friends and from the school’s core emphasis on building pupils’ confidence and resilience to cope when things go wrong. As a result, pupils have a good understanding of how

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Personal development and welfare

education can prepare them for the next stage of their lives.  Pupils are active supporters of the school and local communities. They help their classmates to play a part in decision making, as members of the school council. They also raise funds for local charities related to Alzheimer’s disease and childhood leukaemia. The school choir sings for the community in local supermarkets and entertains and befriends elderly residents.  Pupils are well aware of the need to be careful when using modern communication technology. They are alert to cyber bullying, for example, and understand how the school’s systems work to protect them.  In discussions, and in their responses to a recent school survey, parents were overwhelmingly positive about the way the school ensures their child’s safety.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is outstanding.  Pupils are confident, courteous and friendly learners. They bring with them excellent attitudes to all aspects of school life and conduct themselves extremely well in lessons and around the school. Pupils are eager to learn and show great respect for one another and their teachers at all times. Very good relationships between staff and pupils underpin these very positive attitudes.  Pupils appreciate the school’s happy and calm atmosphere. Their enjoyment of school is reflected in reduced rates of absence across the school.

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Outcomes for pupils are good

 Pupils’ standards by the end of Year 6 in 2015 were significantly above average overall and in mathematics and in the English grammar, punctuation and spelling test. In reading and writing pupils’ attainment was broadly in line with the national average.  The attainment of the relatively small proportion of most able pupils was in line with that of their peers nationally. Disadvantaged pupils outperformed others nationally in all subjects except writing, where their outcome was close to others nationally. This good attainment reflects the high quality of the school’s care and support for these pupils and the school’s wise use of the pupil premium funding.  Overall in 2015, pupils made progress in mathematics, reading and writing that was a little above average. In addition, the school had more pupils than nationally who made more than the progress expected of them. The proportion of pupils who made more than the progress expected of them was well above

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Outcomes for pupils are good

average in all three subjects. Disadvantaged pupils outperformed others nationally on both measures.  From their starting points, pupils who have special educational needs or disability made similar progress to that of their peers nationally in reading, writing and mathematics in 2015.  National changes to assessment and the smallness of pupil numbers makes it difficult to compare with real certainty progress from 2015 to that of current pupils in the school. Overall, inspectors saw good rather than outstanding progress in classrooms and over time in pupils’ work.  In the current Year 5 and Year 6, where teaching is strongest, pupils’ rates of progress are the most rapid. They are well prepared and therefore confident to tackle national tests successfully. In Year 3 and Year 4, progress remains good but more variable, in line with the quality of teaching.  The school’s current information suggests that pupils in Year 1 are set to improve their outcomes in the

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Outcomes for pupils are good

phonics screening check in summer 2016. Outcomes for the vast majority of pupils currently in Year 2 and Year 6 are on track to meet the appropriate level for their age group in summer 2016.

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Early years provision is good

 The early years leader and her team are enthusiastic and ambitious to improve the provision further.  Children make good progress across all areas of learning because of the seamless teamwork of adults and their skills in asking appropriate questions to move children’s learning forward. Scrutiny of the children’s work shows their good progress towards further improvements in their achievement of a good level of development and other areas of learning.  Most children enter Reception with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Those who have not fully developed these skills and knowledge catch up quickly. The proportion of children set to achieve a good level of development is set to increase in summer 2016. Girls did not do as well as boys in 2015 but the school’s assessment information points to better outcomes for girls in summer 2016.  The school’s effective use of the early years pupil premium is seen in the fact that disadvantaged children

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Early years provision is good

make more rapid progress than their peers nationally. (The early years pupil premium is additional government funding for early years settings to improve the education they provide for disadvantaged three- and four-year-olds.)  Staff are knowledgeable about the needs of young children. This, together with the early forging of close links with parents before the children join the Nursery, secures a smooth transition for children from their early years settings into Reception. Parents greatly appreciate their involvement in their children’s learning journals.  Staff are well supported by a strong tracking system. This ensures that any problems the children may have are quickly identified and acted on. Children therefore settle quickly into Reception. They make the most of their time there and are well prepared for Year 1.  Children gain the skills to be successful learners because the provision in Reception captures their interest

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Early years provision is good

and staff pay good attention to the development of their basic skills, especially in writing and other language and communication skills. Children are happy and curious about their learning in tasks and activities.  Children quickly develop positive social, emotional and self-care skills. They show confidence in forming positive relationships with each other and with adults. They are kind and patient with each other and work harmoniously together, sharing resources and listening to the views of others. Children follow instructions from all the adults carefully and behave well.  The high-quality outside space and resources promote the children’s learning in a stimulating and nurturing environment where they feel safe to learn and play. Children have frequent access to both inside and outside spaces but they tend to move as a whole group. This limits the children’s opportunities and confidence to learn to make their own decisions about what they want to play and learn.

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Early years provision is good

 The safeguarding of the children is the highest priority for the early years staff. The early years provision is housed in a particularly safe and secure area of the school and all procedures are extremely rigorous.

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School details

Unique reference number 108219 Local authority Wakefield Inspection number 10003679

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School details

This inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was also deemed a section 5 inspection under the same Act.

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School details

Type of school Primary School category Community Age range of pupils 3–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 257 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Mrs Jean Ashford Headteacher Mr Martin Fenton Telephone number 01924 303 650 Website www.greenhillprimary.com Email address headteacher@greenhill.wakefield.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 14–15 February 2011

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Information about this school

 The school is smaller than the average primary school.  Just over half the pupils are of White British heritage.  The proportions of pupils who are from minority ethnic groups or who speak English as an additional language are above the national average. The largest minority ethnic group is primarily of Pakistani origin.  The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is above average.  The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs or disability is below average, according to the school’s own records.  The school does not use any alternative provision.  The school was recently awarded the Inclusion Quality Mark Centre of Excellence status.  The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors gathered a wide range of evidence during the inspection, including through observations of teaching, some of which were undertaken jointly with the headteacher.  Inspectors looked at pupils’ written work during their observations, and also considered separately a further sample of pupils’ written work from a range of classes and subjects.  The number of responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, was too small to be published. It was not possible to access Ofsted’s pupil or staff questionnaires. Inspectors spoke instead with pupils in formal interviews and lessons and informally at lunchtime and breaktimes. They also considered the school’s own surveys of pupils’ views.  The lead inspector met a small group of parents and took account of a recent survey of parents’ views carried out by the school. Inspectors also heard the views of staff during meetings and around the school.

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Information about this inspection

 Other meetings were held with the headteacher and other senior and middle leaders, as well as with the chair of governors. Inspectors also met members of the governing body. The lead inspector also spoke with a representative of the local authority.

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Inspection team

Susan Wareing, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector David Fann Ofsted Inspector Lisa Morgan Ofsted Inspector Susan Twaits 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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