Jesse Gray Primary School

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 4234 www.gov.uk/ofsted

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Sarah Law Headteacher Jesse Gray Primary School Musters Road West Bridgford Nottingham Nottinghamshire NG2 7DD

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Short inspection of Jesse Gray Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 20 September 2016, 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 Jesse Gray Primary School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have sustained the significant strengths noted at that inspection, notably in the care, guidance and support for the pupils and in the provision for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities.

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Short inspection of Jesse Gray Primary School

You have tackled the areas for improvement effectively, utilising performance management of the staff and professional development opportunities skilfully. You have focused sharply in your work to monitor the quality of teaching on looking at how well the pupils are making progress. Your work has resulted in a consistent and coherent approach to the ways in which the teachers assess the pupils’ progress. As a result, the pupils are given clear guidance that helps them to make good progress in reading, writing and mathematics; your approach is not as effective in other subjects.

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Short inspection of Jesse Gray Primary School

The culture, ethos and values of the school are strong and permeate your daily work. The impact of that work is apparent in the pupils’ positive attitudes to the school, to learning and to life in general. The pupils imbibe the Jesse Gray values through formal teaching and assemblies that teach them about things such as respect. They gain from the consistently respectful manner in which the staff treat them and the high level of care that you and the staff demonstrate for them. They learn to hold mature conversations about values, such as respect for others. They develop and are able to express cogent views about the importance of democracy, as a result, for example, of their experience of elections to roles such as house captain.

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Short inspection of Jesse Gray Primary School

The curriculum is broad and balanced. Displays of good-quality work by the pupils throughout the school create a rich and vibrant environment that supports the pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development well. I was struck particularly by lovely examples of art work in the style of van Gogh, a selection of prose and poetry by the pupils about things that symbolised spirituality to them (a truly fascinating array of individually chosen things). I also enjoyed hearing pupils learning to play musical instruments.

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Short inspection of Jesse Gray Primary School

You and your colleagues stress consistently your concern for the progress of every pupil. You demonstrate that commitment particularly in the very detailed accounts that you are able to provide about things that affect the pupils’ learning and the ways in which you have supported each of them.

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Short inspection of Jesse Gray Primary School

Generally, the pupils make good progress. Nevertheless, you pay close attention to what your information tells you about how well different groups of pupils are doing. The differences between the groups are not major. You have, however, been astute in noting that not enough pupils make sufficient progress to exceed the expected standard in the end-of-key-stage assessments; that is so particularly for pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds and the most able disadvantaged pupils.

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Short inspection of Jesse Gray Primary School

You have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. The staff understand and use properly the school’s systems for reporting any concerns. You make sure that people working at the school who are not employed by the school also know what to do.

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Short inspection of Jesse Gray Primary School

The staff are alert to potential early warning signs that might indicate that a pupil needs additional help. Any such concerns are followed up quickly. You work well with external agencies to make sure that pupils receive any additional support that they need. In individual cases, you have shown that the school is prepared to go above and beyond what might be expected in order to help a pupil. You showed me examples where such efforts had led to important improvements in pupils’ attitudes, self-confidence, attendance and progress, as a result of considerable efforts to assist the pupils’ families, as well as the pupils themselves.

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Short inspection of Jesse Gray Primary School

The governing body has ensured that the staff are trained and kept up to date with safeguarding matters. You have been prompt in ensuring that the very latest government guidance has been passed on to the staff. The pupils take on the messages from lessons and assemblies about how to keep themselves safe. Those with whom I spoke talked responsibly about using the internet and text messages and other ways of staying safe outside school.

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Short inspection of Jesse Gray Primary School

The pupils raised few concerns about bullying, the use of racist or homophobic language, or misbehaviour generally. They made it clear that they thought such things were dealt with effectively on the rare occasions that they happened.

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Short inspection of Jesse Gray Primary School

As a result of your work, the pupils feel safe at the school. They enjoy being there, which is apparent not only from what those with whom I spoke said, but also from the ways in which they conduct themselves around the school and in lessons, from their responses to the inspection survey, and from the views of the parents who completed the Parent View survey.

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Inspection findings

 You lead the school with an infectious enthusiasm. You demonstrate an unequivocal commitment to the progress of and care for every pupil, not least through your very detailed knowledge of them as individuals.  At the same time, your approach to improving the school is calculated, systematic and determined.  The staff respond well to your leadership. As a result, planned improvements are put into practice assiduously, leading, for example, to very consistent approaches to assessing the pupils’ progress.  You have placed considerable emphasis on developing the staff’s skills in assessment, including through professional development opportunities. You use well-conceived and thorough approaches to checking that the assessments are accurate.  Assessment has become the foundation of almost everything that the school does.  The resulting information is used well by the teachers when planning lessons. They use assessment techniques effectively to support their work

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Inspection findings

during lessons. The assessments help them to provide clear guidance to the pupils about how to improve their literacy and numeracy skills.  I saw practical examples of how the teachers enable the pupils to deepen their knowledge and understanding during lessons.  The pupils act upon the guidance routinely, using techniques applied consistently throughout the school. The guidance provides them with a structured way of making improvements to their work, which leads to solid gains in their learning.  You have, appropriately, identified that the pupils are not being given enough specific guidance about their learning in subjects other than literacy and numeracy. You have, accordingly, made this matter a priority in your school development plan.  Beginning in the early years, your approach to assessment means that the school picks up quickly on individual pupils who may be experiencing difficulties with learning.

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Inspection findings

 Once they have been identified, you put in place a range of approaches to meet the particular needs of individual pupils; you describe it, with justification, as a ‘bespoke’ approach.  That approach is to be seen in your work to support pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. Here also, you make astute decisions based upon information from the assessments of the pupils’ progress.  As a result, anything that you do and that you identify as not having enough benefit for the pupils is replaced quickly, so that the pupil concerned can make good progress.  You have provided the staff with training and development opportunities that have helped them to improve the effectiveness of the support in lessons for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities.  I saw examples of skilful questioning by teachers that ensured that those pupils were included fully within lessons. I looked at examples of the pupils’

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Inspection findings

work that showed good gains in the pupils’ writing skills. I found other evidence of the pupils making good progress socially and emotionally, as well as academically.  You take a similar approach to meeting the needs of disadvantaged pupils and others who may be at risk of underachieving, including some who are among the most able pupils at the school.  The pupils are given a range of support, including, for example, assistance with residential experiences and music tuition. This ensures that the pupils are able to benefit from the full range of the school’s curriculum, and contributes to their good progress.  The pupils who speak English as an additional language are also supported well in lessons. Those among them who need additional help with reading, for example, get what they need and make steady improvement; those who are already quite fluent readers are given reading materials of appropriate

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Inspection findings

complexity, so that their reading skills are also developed well.  The governing body has challenged you and the senior leaders well about the achievement of different groups of pupils. It has, for example, been influential in bringing to the fore the fact that some groups of pupils, including those from minority ethnic backgrounds and the most able disadvantaged pupils, while they make reasonable progress, do not make enough progress to get to the highest standards of which they are capable.  The school does not meet fully the latest requirements for information on its website about the use of the pupil premium.

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Next steps for the school

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that:

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Next steps for the school

 the improvements in assessment evident in literacy and numeracy are extended to other subjects  the pupils who are capable of doing so make progress sufficient to reach a higher standard than the expected standard in the end-of-key-stage 2 assessments.

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Next steps for the school

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body and the director of children’s services for Nottinghamshire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, I looked particularly at: the extent of improvements in the quality of teaching since the previous inspection of the school, including the quality of guidance given to the pupils; how well the school has sustained the strengths in the provision for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities that were noted at the previous inspection; and how effectively the school supports disadvantaged pupils and pupils who speak English as an additional language. I held meetings with the headteacher and deputy headteacher, the school’s assessment coordinator, the chair of the governing body, the governor overseeing safeguarding and another governor, the designated persons responsible for safeguarding, and with the special educational needs coordinator. I spoke by telephone with an external consultant who is supporting the school. I visited lessons jointly with the headteacher. I examined examples of the pupils’ work and looked at the

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Information about the inspection

teachers’ assessments of that 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 receiving additional support. I looked at the results of a survey of the pupils carried out for the inspection. I listened to some pupils reading. I observed the pupils’ behaviour around the school, at breaktimes and during lessons. I looked at the views of parents posted on Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View. I examined a range of documents, including safeguarding records and policies, the latest achievement information for the school, the school’s improvement plan and its self-evaluation summary. I looked at the results of a survey of the staff’s views carried out for the inspection.

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