Setting

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

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Mrs Tamara Hazlehurst Academy Director Wainwright Primary Academy Harrop White Road Mansfield Nottinghamshire NG19 6TF

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Academy

Following my visit to your school on 18 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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Academy

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in April 2016. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

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Academy

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

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Academy

The school should take further action to:

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Academy

 fully embed across the whole curriculum those strategies leaders have put into place to secure pupils’ communication and numeracy skills.

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Evidence

During the inspection, I met with the executive principal, the academy director, the vice-principal, key phase leaders, including the leader of the early years provision, and the deputy chief executive officer of the multi-academy trust. I met with the chair and vice-chair of the local academy board, the school’s governing body. I observed six lessons, including in the early years provision, during which time I observed teaching, looked at pupils’ books and spoke with pupils. I conducted these lesson observations jointly with you, the school director, and your vice-principal. I met with pupils, both formally and informally, and I observed pupils’ behaviour at breaktime. I evaluated the school’s improvement plan and checked the school’s single central record.

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Context

The school has left the multi-academy trust of which it was a member at the time of the last inspection. It has now joined another multi-academy trust, the Diverse Academies Learning Partnership. As a result, there is a now a new executive principal, while the senior leadership team has been restructured.

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Main findings

You, your senior leaders and governors have taken swift action to resolve those areas for improvement that inspectors identified at the previous inspection. You have drawn up a comprehensive action plan that contains wide-ranging strategies to secure improvements across the whole of the school’s provision. With the close support of the executive principal, you undertake regular reviews of this action plan. These reviews ensure that you have a sharp overview of the impact your action plan is having on improving the school’s provision, particularly in the quality of teaching.

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Main findings

You have undertaken effective action to raise the expectations of all staff, particularly in relation to the quality of teaching. You have provided a clear focus, for example on ensuring that teachers set pupils activities that are suitably challenging, particularly for the most able. To this end, you have provided wide- ranging opportunities for staff to receive training to improve their classroom practice, including through the sharing of best practice. You work closely with leaders of each key phase to check on the quality of teaching, through visits to lessons and looking at pupils’ work. These checks provide you with a precise understanding of the quality of teaching. They enable you to provide appropriate support where you see classroom practice that does not meet your expectations.

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Main findings

A direct consequence of your work to improve the quality of teaching is that teachers are now more confident in their classroom practice, and provide work that is appropriate to pupils’ needs. Those pupils I met during the inspection were emphatic that they now receive work that challenges them, and that teachers provide them with appropriate support. In those lessons we jointly observed, pupils completed work that was suitably challenging. Teachers and teaching assistants were quick to clarify misconceptions, and offered close support. They also acted quickly to provide pupils, particularly the most able, with more challenging tasks to deepen their understanding. Pupils engaged well with their learning. You and your leaders’ rigorous checks on pupils’ achievement enable you to identify quickly where pupils are falling behind. Because of this, you are able to put into place timely support to enable these pupils, including disadvantaged pupils, to catch

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Main findings

up. The school’s performance information indicates that the proportion of pupils, including disadvantaged pupils, who are making the progress they should is now improving across all years. To build on this, you have identified where pupils’ communication and numeracy skills are not secure enough. You have been swift to implement strategies to resolve this. For example, you have increased the opportunities for pupils to develop their reasoning and problem-solving skills in their mathematics lessons. You rightly recognise, however, that you now need to embed these strategies across the whole curriculum, to secure pupils’ communication and numeracy skills across all areas of learning.

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Main findings

The leader of the early years provision has undertaken effective action to ensure that adults provide appropriate support to the children to secure their learning. For example, she has provided training to ensure that adults are able to ask effective questions of children. In the early years lessons I visited, adults engaged well with children, asking questions to check their understanding. Where children were undertaking activities that were not working as they expected, adults provided appropriate support to ensure that the children understood how they could learn from the experience. Children happily, and successfully, had another go.

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Main findings

You and your leaders’ close monitoring of the attendance of disadvantaged pupils has resulted in a marked improvement in their attendance this academic year. You have ensured that there is close communication with parents or carers where disadvantaged pupils are absent. You have also provided enrichment activities to encourage these pupils to attend school more regularly. This improved attendance is now providing these pupils with a greater chance of making the progress they should in their learning.

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Main findings

Members of the local academy board have a comprehensive understanding of the quality of the school’s provision. They understand the school’s strengths, and recognise where improvements are necessary. They provide effective support and challenge, to ensure that leaders’ actions are having the necessary positive impact. Governors have undertaken a check of their own individual skills. Where they have identified gaps in their collective skills as a body, they have sought appropriate training from the multi-academy trust.

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External support

The multi-academy trust has provided effective challenge and support in a very short period of time. The executive principal has worked closely with you and your vice-principal to ensure that your evaluation of the quality of the school’s provision is accurate. The multi-academy trust has provided your leaders with training opportunities to develop their leadership skills. It has also provided you with opportunities to work closely with other schools, both within the multi-academy trust and outside it. These opportunities have enabled leaders at all levels to be secure in their evaluation of the quality of teaching and pupils’ outcomes. Furthermore, these opportunities have enabled all staff to learn from the best practice at other schools.

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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 Nottinghamshire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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