Warfield Church of England Primary School

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

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Mrs Anna Kennedy and Mrs Paula Jenkins Co-headteachers Warfield Church of England Primary School All Saints Rise Warfield Bracknell Berkshire RG42 3SS

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 8 December 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 July 2012.

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection.

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

As co-headteachers you have led with determination and rigor. There has been considerable change to leadership, staffing and governance since the previous inspection.

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

You both have a clear vision for the school which is shared by your deputy headteacher and other leaders. This, coupled with a strong drive for improvement, has ensured that the school has improved rapidly following a dip in performance after the previous inspection. Your work in this respect has been successful and teaching, learning and assessment and pupils’ progress is now good.

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

From September 2016, the school has two sites a few miles apart. Pupil numbers are rising quickly. Your leadership structure has also grown and now includes a deputy head and assistant head teacher.

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

As co-headteachers your time is now shared across two school sites. You are aware that this is new for pupils, families and staff. Consequently, in this time of rapid expansion, you identify strengthening communication with parents across both sites as a high priority. Both of you, the governing body and staff are fully committed to getting this right and acknowledge that this is ‘work in progress’. At the previous inspection you were asked to improve pupils’ progress in mathematics and ensure that activities planned meet the needs of all pupils and develop their mathematical skills. Your work in this regard is now effective. Consequently, pupils make good progress in mathematics, with some pupils more recently making rapid progress. Current pupils have wide-ranging opportunities to use and apply their mathematical understanding to a range of contexts. Consequently, current pupils are motivated, keen to develop new skills and achieve

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

As co-headteachers you have worked successfully to ensure parity in expectations and quality of teaching across both sites. You have also increased the impact of the wider leadership team. There is a strong collective responsibility to check teaching and pupils’ progress across the school. The deputy headteacher provides a comprehensive package of coaching and support for teachers. As a result, teaching is now good. Subject leaders have an accurate understanding of strengths and weaknesses in their subjects and have a strong impact in increasing pupils’ achievement in their subjects.

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

You have a firm and accurate understanding of the school’s performance, its strengths and areas that require further work. Consequently, leaders in the school are working on the right aspects for improvement.

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

However, you are not complacent and know that more needs to be done to challenge middle- and high-attaining pupils so that a greater proportion of pupils meet and exceed the academic standards expected nationally, particularly in writing.

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

There is a strong and effective culture of safeguarding in the school. You have ensured that both sites operate equally stringent safeguarding procedures. Induction of new staff is thorough and, as a result, as soon as they arrive staff are confident to apply the school’s policies and guidance to keep pupils safe. They talk confidently about how they use school systems to report, log and follow up concerns. Staff value the robust and regular training they receive.

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

Extending the role of the family support advisor to support families who join the school enables new families and pupils to settle into school life quickly and signpost ‘early help’ and additional support as required.

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

The designated safeguarding leaders are effective in providing timely support for pupils. Regular multi-agency support, along with leaders’ persistence to follow up referrals, ensures that risk is reduced. Staff have been trained to protect pupils from radicalisation and extremism through the government’s ‘Prevent’ duty and are clear how to refer any concerns.

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Short inspection of Warfield Church of England Primary School

The vast majority of parents who responded to the Ofsted online Parent View survey considered that the school kept their children safe. The ‘stay safe’ curriculum within personal, social and health education is developing well. As a result pupils feel safe in school and know what to do if they have concerns.

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Inspection findings

 Governors are thorough in their work. They raise pertinent questions about school performance and increasingly hold the school to account. For example, they analyse performance information about all year groups, and specific groups of pupils. They visit the school regularly to meet subject leaders and also undertake ‘book looks’ in mathematics to check pupils’ progress over time and that school policy is adhered to closely. Therefore, governors demonstrate through this work that they have good capacity to hold the school to account for making further improvement.  Leaders and governors have been steadfast in their checks to ensure the consistency of planning and work in books across the split site so that there is equality of opportunity.  Children get off to a good start in early years. Teaching is effective because it motivates children and builds on their prior learning and well-established routines. In Reception, a high level of independence is encouraged. For example,

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Inspection findings

the inspector saw children writing Christmas cards with excitement and pride. Others explored the long ‘ai’ sound and wrote independently on the writing wall outside or explored simple mathematics problems with objects, talking about their findings as they went and thus developing speech and language skills. The outside area on one site is well developed and used actively every day for all areas of learning. You know that the outside area on the new site is underdeveloped. Improving this is a priority.  The teaching of phonics is regular and systematic. Most recently, the application of phonics strategies to writing is helping pupils to spell accurately at key stage 1. As a result, pupils are making swifter progress than previously in their writing and gaining greater control and fluency.  Good teaching at key stage 2 is resulting in more pupils writing successfully and meeting expected standards, particularly in the word and sentence choices they

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Inspection findings

make. Raised teaching expectations in upper key stage 2 ensure that the most able are motivated to learn and tackle challenging work with confidence. Some of these pupils did not receive work that was hard enough in previous years; however, this has now been rectified and these pupils are making good and often rapid progress.  Pupils read widely and often. Teaching of reading is appropriately focused on developing higher-order reading skills across the school. Pupils benefit from lessons that help them unlock their understanding of themes in text and analyse the texts they read. Consequently, current pupils, including the most able, are being well prepared for the higher standards of reading now expected by the Department for Education.  A firm and effective focus on improving the teaching of mathematics is securing pupils’ understanding of problem-solving and reasoning well. Pupils use apparatus regularly to explore mathematical concepts before recording their

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Inspection findings

understanding. This results in pupils being able to tackle abstract mathematical ideas with greater confidence and to deepen their understanding. Consequently, pupils’ progress in mathematics is good and a greater proportion of pupils are exposed to work at the highest level.  Assessment is mostly accurate and used productively to plan work that builds on what pupils can do, know and understand. For example, teachers make good use of assessment within lessons so that pupils get the right work in mathematics. They enjoy selecting bronze, silver and gold challenges, and this enables individual pupils to access different levels of challenge within the same lessons. You acknowledge that challenge is less immediate in some English lessons. You accurately identify a need to monitor teacher’s expectations for most-able pupils across the school with greater rigour. Therefore, you are insisting that teachers

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Inspection findings

consistently provide challenging work both in writing and across the curriculum so that a greater proportion of middle- and high-attaining pupils meet the highest standards in writing.  Disadvantaged pupils in the school receive targeted support. Leaders, including governors, track the funding and its impact effectively. For pupils joining the school, timely assessments of what pupils can do on entry ensure that these pupils’ needs are catered for quickly and their progress over time is swift. Overall, disadvantaged pupils’ progress is most strong in key stage 2, where pupils are catching up to meet expected standards in reading.  Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive additional support through class work and additional intervention. As a result, pupils’ progress is often rapid in reading. You are accurate in your evaluation that greater focus is required to ensure that these pupils become more accomplished writers through

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Inspection findings

more precise teacher feedback that helps them to know how to improve their work.  The local authority has provided substantial external support to strengthen leadership, teaching and raise pupils’ achievement. This work has been effective. Hence, internal leadership capacity and teaching is strongly improved and consequently external support for the school is considerably reduced.  The views of parents are generally very positive. However, some concerns were raised that homework is not consistent or matched well enough to the age or specific needs of pupils.

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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

 activities planned provide sufficient challenge, for all groups of pupils, so that pupils make consistently high rates of progress in writing and that a greater proportion of pupils are targeted to reach the highest levels  systems for effective communication to parents are embedded.

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Next steps for the school

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

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, I observed learning in classrooms across both sites with the co-headteachers. I scrutinised work books across a range of subjects. I examined a wide range of documentation, including the school’s own self-evaluation, current development plans, safeguarding and child protection records as well as the school’s assessment information. I talked to pupils in lessons to gather their views and heard pupils read.

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Information about the inspection

Meetings were held with the co-headteachers, deputy headteacher and a group of governors. I also met with the special needs coordinator, and English and mathematics leaders.

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Information about the inspection

I met with a representative of the local authority.

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Information about the inspection

I also took into account the views of 113 parents who responded to Parent View and the 20 staff questionnaires. I also talked to parents first hand at the end of the school day.

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Information about the inspection

 the school’s work to ensure that the teaching and learning in mathematics is consistently good across the school, including in the early years  the impact of leaders’ actions to improve the attainment and progress of the most able pupils across the school  the impact of governors in holding leaders to account for improvement.

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