Setting

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

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Mrs Ceri Cook Headteacher Lumbertubs Primary School Tonmead Road Northampton Northamptonshire NN3 8HZ

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Primary School

Following my visit to your school on 23 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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Primary School

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

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Primary 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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Primary School

The school should take further action to:

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Primary School

 include specific dates in the school improvement plan indicating when actions are due to be completed, and name specific leaders or governors who are responsible for ensuring that the actions have been completed.

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Evidence

During the inspection, I met with a selection of parents before school and held meetings with you and your deputy headteacher, subject leaders for English and mathematics, other subject leaders, a selection of pupils, the CEO of the trust, and members of the governing body, including the chair. I also toured the school, visiting every classroom, and examined a wide range of pupils’ books. I scrutinised the single central record of staff suitability checks, and the staff file of the newest staff member, to ensure that guidelines around the safer recruitment of staff were being followed.

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Main findings

You and the deputy headteacher share a clear vision for what the school is required to do next in order to improve. Your passion and drive for this improvement are matched by careful and well thought out plans that leave stakeholders in no doubt as to the direction in which the school is travelling. However, the plans do not include specific, dated timescales, or name a leader or governor who is responsible for checking each priority. This means that strategies to check the impact and implementation of the plan are unclear.

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Main findings

Leaders observe teachers’ work in a frequent and systematic way, and provide teachers with clear feedback to help them to improve their work. The impact of this can be seen in the improving quality of teaching and also the school’s current assessment data, which indicates that different groups of pupils are beginning to make accelerated progress, particularly in mathematics. Teachers are involved in working alongside each other and with colleagues from other schools in order to develop and sharpen their practice. This is helping teachers to ensure that pupils are well challenged in lessons. Pupils regularly told me that the level of challenge in their work was ‘just about right’.

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Main findings

You have empowered staff to implement a wide range of approaches to reduce the difference between the standards achieved by pupils at the school and other pupils nationally. These include schemes and projects to improve pupils’ phonics, reading and mathematical skills. Evidence seen in pupils’ books would suggest that the gap is narrowing.

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Main findings

Subject leaders are passionate and knowledgeable about their areas of expertise and are extremely willing to train colleagues, and to allow them to observe their good practice. They examine assessment data carefully to ensure that no groups of pupils are falling behind and regularly talk to teachers about any groups that may require extra support.

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Main findings

Pupils’ topic books, in all year groups, show that a wider range of subjects are now being taught, including history and geography. This is enabling pupils to benefit from a broader and more balanced curriculum than was previously the case. The curriculum also encompasses more frequent opportunities for drama, music, art, design and technology and dance.

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Main findings

The mathematics subject leader has good subject knowledge and is keen to share this knowledge with colleagues across the school. Pupils have been given more frequent opportunities to apply their knowledge to mathematical concepts than at the time of the last inspection. Work in pupils’ books indicates that they are beginning to develop their understanding of mathematical concepts at a deeper level than previously – for example through drawing pictures to explain mathematical concepts .

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External support

The school is benefiting from a wide range of effective support from the Collaborative Academies Trust. This includes the setting up of school systems for monitoring teaching, subject leader development and pupil assessment. The trust also facilitates ‘team around the school’ meetings three times a year to examine in depth the quality of teaching and the progress that the pupils are making in different subjects.

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

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