Setting

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

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Jo Goman Greatham Primary School Petersfield Road Greatham Liss Hampshire GU33 6HA

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School

Following my visit to your school on 9 November 2016, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. Thank you for the help you gave me and for the time you made available to discuss the actions you are taking to improve the school since the most recent section 5 inspection.

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School

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in October 2015. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

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School

At its section 5 inspection before the one that took place in October 2015, the school was also judged to require improvement.

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School

Senior leaders and governors are taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the recent section 5 inspection in order to become a good school.

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School

The school should take further action to:

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School

 refine assessment and monitoring systems to bring a sharper focus on the progress pupils make from their different starting points  ensure that teachers more flexibly respond to meet all pupils’ needs during lessons in order to offer greater challenge, particularly for the most able  ensure that pupils have regular opportunities to apply their literacy and numeracy skills across the wider curriculum, promoting more detailed and higher-quality work.

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Evidence

During the inspection, meetings were held with you and the deputy headteacher, two governors, middle leaders and a representative of the local authority to discuss the actions taken since the last inspection. I also met with several parents at the start of the school day and with a small group of pupils. I visited several classrooms with you, where I talked to pupils and looked at their work. I evaluated a range of documents, including the school’s improvement plans and reports of school improvement visits from the local authority.

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Context

Three members of staff have left the school and three new members of staff have joined since the previous inspection in October 2015.

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Main findings

You and your senior team have shown great determination and drive to improve the school. Leaders have drawn up appropriate action plans which clearly address the areas for improvement identified in the last inspection and are carrying these out fastidiously. These plans have clear milestones by which you can measure progress and have helped middle leaders and teachers to engage with addressing the whole- school priorities.

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Main findings

You have ensured that senior leaders have worked well with the local authority to respond to the areas for improvement identified at the last inspection. Together you have refined the quality of self-evaluation and improvement planning and implemented a new assessment system. This has led to an improvement in the quality of teaching, learning and assessment and more sharply focused targeting of resources. Leaders are aware that the assessment system needs to be further improved so that more attention can be paid to progress that pupils make from their starting points.

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Main findings

Teachers are now more consistently marking pupils’ work in line with the school policy and teachers are focused on identifying what pupils are doing well and what they need to do to improve. However, pupils are not always given sufficient opportunities to act on teachers’ advice to improve their work.

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Main findings

Leaders and governors have responded well to the external review of pupil premium spending. As a result of improved teaching, disadvantaged pupils made progress in line with other pupils nationally in both key stages 1 and 2 last year, and these pupils continue to make strong progress. In addition, leaders and managers have responded well to the areas for improvement identified at the last report to improve the teaching of phonics and broaden the curriculum in early years. Provisional published progress information identifies that the proportion of Year 1 pupils who met the expected standard in the phonics check and the proportion of children in the Reception class who reached a good level of development in 2016 were both higher than the national average. The indoor and outdoor areas in early years have been improved and now provide a wider range of rich and stimulating learning experiences for the children.

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Main findings

Working together with the local authority and in partnership with local schools, you ensure that middle leaders receive regular and appropriate training and support. Consequently, the leaders of English and mathematics are clear on their roles and the further improvements to teaching and learning that are still required in their subject areas. Leaders continue rightly focus on improving day-to-day teaching and are using a programme of lesson observations and reviews of pupils’ work to monitor this across the school. Where weaknesses in teaching have been identified, leaders devise and offer suitable support. In addition, you have rightly prioritised a sequence of further training and support for teaching assistants into the school improvement plan.

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Main findings

When planning lessons, teachers are beginning to make better use of performance information to check what the children can already do and to challenge them more. However, the lessons we visited, and the pupils’ books seen, demonstrate the need for some teachers to raise their expectations of what children can achieve. Examples were seen where time was wasted by some pupils completing tasks that were too easy for them before moving on to more thought-provoking activities. Leaders rightly recognise that teachers and teaching assistants need to be more flexible during lessons to respond to the needs of all pupils in order to increase the level of challenge for middle-attaining and the most able pupils.

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Main findings

Good relationships underpin calm orderly classrooms and the atmosphere is composed and productive; pupils are confident to explain their work. Parents and pupils report that behaviour has improved this year and that disruptions to learning are rare. Pupils told me that they are proud of their school and value the friendships that they make here. Pupils and parents were keen to share how much they value the Year 6 pupils’ mentoring and support for Reception children when they join the school.

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Main findings

Governors know the strengths and weaknesses of the school well. They are determined to improve the quality of teaching and learning and outcomes for all pupils. Working well with leaders, governors ensure the effective spending of the pupil premium and sports premium funding. The governing body has completed a skills audit and used this to focus their recruitment of new members and participation in local authority training to address any identified weaknesses. Governors now bring a wealth of skills and experiences which enable them to ask much more challenging questions of senior and middle leaders than was the case in the past. Governors and leaders are aware that there is more to be done to ensure that leaders’ assessment and tracking systems provide governors with clearer information about the progress that pupils make from their starting points. Having this information to underpin the school’s self-evaluation and improvement planning

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Main findings

will enable governors to judge more accurately how successfully and rapidly leaders are improving teaching and raising standards.

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External support

Leaders and governors draw wisely on a range of support and training available from the local authority and through partnerships with other schools. In particular, the local authority’s support to improve assessment has started to have an impact on focusing leaders’ work upon improving specific aspects of teaching and learning. There is still more work to be done to support teachers to learn from best practice both within the school and elsewhere. English and mathematics leaders recognise and value the quality of the training and support that they have received and they understand the key role that they have in improving standards in their subjects. Senior leaders recognise that further work is required to ensure that improvements being made in English and mathematics are spread across the wider curriculum.

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External support

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

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