Bedmond Village Primary and Nursery School

Bedmond Village Primary and Nursery School Meadow Way, Bedmond, Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire WD5 0RD

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare Requires improvement

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Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

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Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Requires improvement

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Over the last four years, leaders at all levels, including the governing body, have not made sufficient improvement to secure good outcomes for pupils.  Leaders have an overgenerous view of school effectiveness. Their systems for checking provision are not rigorous enough. They do not identify sufficiently which initiatives are working well and which still need improving.  The headteacher has to take on too much. The levels of support and challenge from other school leaders are not consistently strong.  As at the time of the previous inspection, staff turnover has a negative effect on the quality of teaching and pupils’ progress over time.  There is too little support for disadvantaged pupils, especially the most able, in key stage 2.  The quality of teaching varies too much and does not consistently enable pupils to make good progress. Work is sometimes too hard or too easy for pupils.  There is a high number of teaching assistants

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

but they do not have a strong effect on pupils’ learning, especially those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities.  Some pupils are inattentive in lessons.  Pupils’ rates of attendance are lower than the national average.  Pupils’ work in subjects such as science, history and geography is not consistently good.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Good teaching in the early years means that the children make good progress.  Pupils’ personal development and welfare are good. They enjoy school, keenly take responsibility, and feel safe.  The headteacher and her staff care well for pupils from a diverse range of backgrounds. They ensure that there is a happy atmosphere in school.

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Full report

In accordance with section 44(1) of the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

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Full report

The school should not appoint newly qualified teachers.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve leadership by the headteacher, other school leaders and the governing body and build the school’s capacity to improve by: – establishing rigorous systems for checking provision so that leaders have an accurate picture of the current position – ensuring that leaders, including the governing body, provide the right level of support and challenge to the headteacher in securing improvement – monitoring the effectiveness of initiatives sharply to identify which ones, especially those to support disadvantaged pupils and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, are working well and are being sustained and built on – working with other agencies to overcome staff retention and recruitment issues – ensuring that disadvantaged pupils, especially the most able, are supported to fulfil their potential.  Improve pupils’ progress and the quality of teaching in key stages 1 and 2, by:

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

– ensuring that teachers’ expectations of pupils are consistently high and that they give pupils work that is not too hard or too easy – using teaching assistants more effectively to support pupils’ learning, especially for those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities – ensuring that teachers across the school demand enough of pupils in science, history and geography so that work is of a consistently high quality.  Improve pupils’ behaviour in lessons by ensuring that they understand the importance of being attentive and listening when the teacher or their classmates are talking.  Improve pupils’ attendance by developing the work with parents and pupils to ensure that they understand the importance of attending school every day.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

External reviews of governance and the school’s use of the pupil premium should be undertaken in order to assess how these aspects of leadership and management may be improved.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

 Leaders have not secured sufficient improvements in the quality of teaching and outcomes for pupils since the school was first found to require improvement in 2012.  The headteacher and middle leaders regularly monitor teaching and analyse information on pupils’ progress, but they have an overgenerous view of overall effectiveness. Some of the most important areas for improvement found at the time of the previous two inspections remain pertinent.  There is a lack of urgency to improve because issues such as staff turnover are too readily accepted as the main reasons for the slow pace of change. While staff turnover is having a negative effect on pupils’ progress, it is not the only reason why they do not do well enough.  Leaders have not been successful in ensuring that pupils receive consistently good teaching. While teachers who have been at the school longest have improved their skills, the impact of support is limited by the high turnover of staff. Initiatives are not

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

sustained and policies, such as the school’s marking policy, are not applied equally well by all staff.  Leaders do not monitor the additional support given to pupils closely enough to identify what is going well and what needs improving. They do not check closely the effectiveness of teaching assistants to ensure that they are having the desired effect on learning in all classes.  Funding for disadvantaged pupils has too little effect in key stage 2. School information on pupils’ progress shows that over the last year, disadvantaged pupils made slower progress than others in some classes. In particular, the most able disadvantaged pupils get too little additional support to help them fulfil their potential. Disadvantaged pupils generally make better progress in key stage 1 because the pupil premium has been used successfully to change the organisation of classes for younger pupils.  The headteacher ensures that the school is responsive to the needs of the local

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

community, including those from Traveller families who are well integrated into school life. Her passion for providing strong pastoral care for pupils shines through. However, she has to take on too much. Over time, not all senior and middle leaders have provided sufficient support to the headteacher to ensure that responsibility for securing improvement is shared widely enough.  Support from the local authority has been extensive but has not secured all of the needed improvements to enable pupils to make good progress over time. The local authority identified at the end of the last term that teaching was not consistently good and recognises the effect this is having on pupils’ progress.  Parents are supportive of the school and most would recommend it to others. Some raise concerns about the high turnover of staff and the effect this has on their child’s learning, but most are pleased with the work of the school, especially the care shown

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

to their children. Typical comments from parents included, ‘The teaching staff make you feel welcome’ and ‘The staff know all the children individually and this creates a caring and supportive environment.’  The school’s curriculum is broad and balanced and meets statutory requirements. It has a clear focus on pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and provides them with opportunities to understand key responsibilities of life in modern Britain. Pupils learn about important British values such as citizenship, for example by taking part in elections for the school council. Pupils have a good sense of right and wrong and they happily take part in acts of worship. They are kind and caring and get on well together. They like looking after the school pets, which include guinea pigs and chickens.  The sports premium grant is being used effectively to improve teachers’ skills and to provide new opportunities for pupils to try new sports, such as fencing, and to

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

purchase equipment for the playground. Pupils especially enjoy swimming lessons and most can swim 25 metres by the end of Year 6. Reporting on the use of the sports premium is very detailed and helps leaders to build on good practice.  The school offers a good range of clubs and visits that are greatly enjoyed by pupils. Leaders make good use of the pupil premium to ensure that disadvantaged pupils have full access to these activities. This has a good effect on their personal development and welfare.

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Governance of the school

 The governing body has not secured sufficient improvement in pupils’ outcomes.  Governors know that pupils’ attainment at the end of Year 6 in 2016 was not good enough. They too readily accept that staff turnover is the main reason for pupils’ inconsistent progress.  Governors do not do enough to ensure that all disadvantaged pupils benefit equally from pupil premium funding. They have rightly identified that more needs to be done to support the most able. While they publish a pupil premium strategy on the school’s website, it lacks sufficient detail about the rationale behind spending decisions.  There have been some improvements in the quality of governance in the last year. Training in areas such as ‘how to understand school data’ has proved beneficial. Governors are beginning to provide more challenge to other leaders by asking probing questions at meetings. They meet with subject leaders and get regular reports on

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Governance of the school

pupils’ progress. This means that they now have a realistic picture of the current position.  Governors ensure that the performance management for staff is suitably administered so that only good teaching is rewarded financially. They update key policies annually and make sure that they have regular training in important areas such as safeguarding.

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Safeguarding

 The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.  Leaders ensure that there is regular staff training on safeguarding. There are robust procedures to respond to and resolve any concerns about pupils’ welfare. Staff have a good understanding of the need to be watchful for issues such as the potential radicalisation of pupils.  The school works well with external agencies, parents and members of the local community to ensure that pupils are kept safe. Parents like the way that the headteacher makes herself available each morning at the school gate so that any minor problems can be resolved quickly.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

 The quality of teaching has not been good enough over time to enable pupils to fulfil their potential. As at the time of the previous inspection, the very large number of staffing changes and the appointment of temporary teachers have led to variable rates of pupils’ progress across the school.  Teachers do not expect enough of pupils. They sometimes provide work that is too hard for the less able or too easy for the most able. Teachers do not respond quickly enough to adapt work, slowing progress.  Teachers generally manage pupils’ behaviour well, but on occasions they do not ensure that all pupils are listening when they or others are talking. This means that pupils sometimes miss important information.  There is a high number of teaching assistants but they are not always used efficiently so that they can have a good impact on learning, especially for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. On occasions, these pupils become over-reliant

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

on teaching assistants’ support to complete work.  Where there have been improvements in teaching, it is where members of staff have been in school longest and have been able to benefit from training and support. In these cases, teachers have a better understanding of pupils’ starting points. This means that they are more adept at providing the right level of challenge to pupils. For example, in Year 4, pupils made good progress in investigating number patterns. The work was well resourced and the quality of questioning from adults helped them to think like mathematicians and to explore more complex ideas as they completed tasks.  Teachers regularly give feedback to pupils and many follow the school’s policies in this area closely, with the best practice seen in Years 2 and 6. However, the use of feedback is not consistently strong across the school and pupils sometimes repeat mistakes.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.  Pupils are supported well. An ethos of care and consideration for others means that most pupils learn well together, sharing resources and ideas. Pupils from different backgrounds play and work together happily.  Pupils are proud of their school and take care to present their work neatly. They take responsibility keenly by being play leaders or by being members of the school or eco council. Most pupils help each other sensibly when they are working. They happily celebrate each other’s successes in ‘sharing assemblies’ on Friday.  Pupils are aware of how to keep themselves safe in a range of situations, both within and outside school. Pupils say that the school provides them with good information on how they can remain safe, for example they recognise the potential dangers that the internet could pose to them. Most parents are positive about how safe their children

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Personal development and welfare

are at school.  The pupil premium is used well to provide support such as counselling to help pupils who may be facing difficult issues at home or at school.  Pupils have a clear understanding of different types of bullying, including homophobic bullying, and why all types of bullying are unacceptable. They say that bullying or racist name calling happens only occasionally, and this is confirmed by the detailed records that the school keeps. Most parents expressed their confidence in leaders to resolve swiftly any concerns they have.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils requires improvement.  Pupils do not always pay enough attention in lessons. There are too many occasions when they do not listen carefully when the teacher or other pupils are talking. They sometimes waste time when moving between tasks or when not closely supervised by the teacher.  Overall attendance rates have risen since the previous inspection but they remain below average. Leaders ensure that pupils’ attendance is checked regularly. Although leaders are working hard to improve attendance through awards to pupils, the use of penalty notices and by working with families, the proportion that are persistently absent remains higher than that found nationally. Low attendance is an important factor in the slow progress made by some pupils. This does not affect any specific groups of pupils.  The school is a calm and happy place. Pupils are polite, friendly and courteous. They

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Behaviour

conduct themselves well outside the classroom. They talk happily to visitors about their work and most express positive views about school life.  Pupils play cooperatively outside and follow the instructions of supervising staff. They know what happens when you misbehave and feel the yellow or red card system is used fairly by staff.

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Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

 Pupils’ progress is not consistently strong across the school. While there were improvements in pupils’ attainment at the end of Year 6 in 2015, in 2016 the unvalidated test results show that only one in four pupils reached the expected standard for their age in all of reading, writing and mathematics. Too many Year 6 pupils left school in 2016 lacking the literacy and numeracy skills required to help them in the next stage in their education.  Pupils in the current Year 6 are working at similar levels to those in the previous Year 6, with a majority assessed by the school as working below age-related expectations at the end of Year 5, reflecting their slow progress over time.  The progress of different groups of pupils is uneven. While the most able are challenged well some of the time, this is not always the case. Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities also make patchy progress. They sometimes have

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Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

work that is too hard for them, slowing progress. There is no significant difference between the progress of Traveller children and others, or between boys and girls.  School data shows that disadvantaged pupils sometimes make slower progress than others, especially in key stage 2. Their progress is better in key stage 1 where the pupil premium has been used to change the way that teaching is organised.  Across the school, pupils’ work in subjects such as science, history and geography varies in quality. Pupils produce good-quality work in some classes, for example, Year 3 last year, demonstrating good skills, knowledge and understanding. However, some work in these subjects lacks challenge, especially for the most able, and does not allow skills to improve quickly enough.  Some aspects of outcomes for pupils are good and there is an improving picture in some parts of the school. Generally, pupils make the best progress when they are

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Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

taught by teachers who have been in school longest. Pupils’ progress has picked up significantly in key stage 1 since the previous inspection. Attainment at the end of Year 2 has been rising and was broadly average in 2015. Similarly, the proportion reaching the expected level in the national phonics screening at the end of Year 1 was close to the national average in 2016.

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Early years provision Good

 Early years provision has improved since the previous inspection. From their sometimes low starting points, children are now making good progress. For the last three years, the proportion of children reaching a good level of development has risen rapidly from a very low base. It was close to the national average in 2016.  The school has successfully closed the gap between boys’ and girls’ attainment seen in previous years. Consequently, children are now being prepared well for life in Year 1.  The quality of teaching is typically good and takes good account of the differing needs of Nursery and Reception age children in the class. Adults plan interesting work that encourages children to develop their creativity and physical skills and to be self- sufficient.  Adults often use questioning effectively to find out what children already know so that they can move learning on quickly. For example, the teacher encouraged a child to

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Early years provision Good

extend her early number skills by asking her to look at different ways to sort objects. However, just occasionally, there are missed opportunities to extend the learning of the most able more quickly by adapting their work once they have grasped a concept or finished a task.  The outdoor area has good-quality resources and is used effectively to support learning. For example, children developed a range of skills while working outside as they explored the effects of gravity with a teaching assistant, learning how a car would go faster, the steeper the slope it ran down.  Teamwork is strong. Teachers and support staff know the children very well and they take very good care of the children’s safety and well-being. Consequently, children feel safe and enjoy their learning. Although some children had only been in school a few days at the time of the inspection, they had settled very quickly.  Children behave sensibly, listen carefully and follow instructions. Most children

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Early years provision Good

concentrate well when working.  Staff work hard to foster good relationships with parents. They make good use of modern technology to keep parents informed about their children’s learning. Parents are pleased with early years provision, typically making comments such as ‘The staff in the Reception class are absolutely amazing’ and ‘My child has settled superbly in her new school.’  The leadership of the early years is good. The leader has received good-quality support from the local authority. This has resulted in improvements in teaching and the learning environment that are enabling almost all children to make good progress from their individual starting points. There is a good understanding of what needs to improve next, especially the need to increase the proportion of children working at the higher levels by the end of each year.  Leaders have developed good systems for checking children’s progress. Disadvantaged

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Early years provision Good

children receive additional support where needed to help them learn more quickly. In 2016, they attained at least as well as others nationally.

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School details

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

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Date of previous inspection 15–16 July 2014

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Information about this school

 The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.  This is a smaller-than-average sized primary school with seven classes. Children in the early years are taught in a Reception class. Nursery-age children attend for mornings only.  Most pupils are from White British backgrounds. A few pupils are from Traveller families.  The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is above average.  The proportion of disadvantaged pupils supported by the pupil premium is above average.  The school met the government’s current floor standards in 2015, which are the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 6.  Since the previous inspection there have been several changes in teaching staff.

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Information about this inspection

 Discussions were held with pupils, staff, representatives from the local authority and members of the governing body.  The inspectors took account of the views of 49 parents and carers who responded to the Ofsted online questionnaire, Parent View. Inspectors also talked with parents at the start of the school day.  The inspectors observed teaching and learning in lessons, listened to pupils read and looked at their work and school documents. Inspectors scrutinised: the school’s own information about pupils’ learning and progress; planning and monitoring documents; the school development plan; records relating to behaviour and attendance; the arrangements to safeguard pupils; and health and safety documentation.  The inspectors analysed responses to an inspection questionnaire from 19 members of staff.

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Inspection team

Mike Capper, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector

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Inspection team

Jo Coton 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

In the report, ‘disadvantaged pupils’ refers to those pupils who attract government pupil premium funding: pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years and pupils in care or who left care through adoption or another formal route. www.gov.uk/pupil-premium-information-for-schools-and- alternative-provision-settings .

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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 children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspection team

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 .

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Inspection team

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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.gov.uk/ofsted

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