The Quinta Primary School

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

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Miss Tracey Walklate Headteacher The Quinta Primary School Ullswater Road Congleton Cheshire CW12 4LX

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Short inspection of The Quinta Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 18 January 2017, 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 your predecessor school was judged to be good in December 2009.

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Short inspection of The Quinta 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 The Quinta Primary School

The Quinta Primary School converted to an academy in January 2014. Since that time, you and your school leaders have continued to develop the strengths that were identified in the inspection report of your predecessor school. You have maintained the safe and welcoming atmosphere, which is appreciated by pupils and parents alike. Pupils continue to show positive attitudes to their learning and their good behaviour in class contributes well to their good progress.

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Short inspection of The Quinta Primary School

You and your school leaders, including governors, are clearly ambitious that your pupils receive the best education you can provide. After you analysed the most recently published assessment information, you were quick to identify the small number of areas that needed improvement and wrote action plans to achieve this. While the actions you have taken are having a positive effect, you acknowledged that they could be even more effective if the plans were more precise and leaders evaluated the success of their actions in terms of their impact on pupils’ achievement.

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Short inspection of The Quinta Primary School

The majority of parents who responded to the online survey were very positive about the work of the school. They felt that you and your staff were approachable and addressed any concerns that they raised appropriately. They appreciated the variety of extra-curricular activities on offer and talked about the school in glowing terms, with one parent saying it was a place of ‘outstanding warmth’. You work effectively to encourage pupils to be well rounded and considerate citizens and you provide good opportunities for them to develop the spiritual, moral, social and cultural aspects of their learning. Pupils benefit from a wide range of extra-curricular clubs. These include sports, such as basketball, hockey and gymnastics, and other clubs, such as drama, chess and the choir.

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Short inspection of The Quinta Primary School

Pupils enjoy reading and they show a good degree of fluency for their various stages of development. Most-able pupils can read with expression and they show good comprehension through this. Less confident readers use their knowledge of phonics well to help them to read unfamiliar words.

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Short inspection of The Quinta Primary School

At your predecessor school’s last inspection, the areas for improvement were concerned with providing challenging lessons across the ability range, using assessment information when planning lessons and developing pupils’ cultural awareness. Teaching is certainly effective in most year groups and subjects, and you have developed well pupils’ understanding of different cultures and backgrounds. You realise, however, that in some classes there is a lack of challenge for the most able pupils.

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Short inspection of The Quinta Primary School

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are detailed and of high quality. You, your staff and governors are well trained and, while safeguarding incidents are few, you have a firm understanding of how to recognise signs of abuse and how to report concerns about pupils. Staff understand the risks presented by issues such as child sexual exploitation and radicalisation.

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Short inspection of The Quinta Primary School

You and your staff have created a strong culture of safeguarding in school, where pupils feel safe and know how to stay safe. This comes from a combination of the robust procedures that are in place and the warm and trusting relationships that can be witnessed in pupils’ attitudes and behaviour with adults and each other. Pupils talked articulately about the risks posed by the internet and knew strategies to deal with online safety. You also support their mental and emotional health well with the well-being mentors that you have established in school.

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Inspection findings

 I focused on a number of key lines of enquiry during the inspection. The first of these concerned the achievement of the most able pupils in key stage 2 in English and mathematics. You and your leaders had also identified this as an area for your attention. You have put strategies in place to improve the achievement of the most able pupils, which include providing extra lessons to deepen their knowledge, together with regular visits to the local high school to experience more challenging learning. These strategies are effective, as evidence from writing and mathematics books for this group of pupils showed good progress for most of them, with evidence of, for example, advanced sentence structures and vocabulary that were appropriate to their age. However, some work to develop reading comprehension skills was not challenging enough for the most able pupils in Year 4, as it did not enable them to demonstrate a deeper

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Inspection findings

understanding of the text by exploring, for example, reasons why characters behave as they do.  Two other key lines of enquiry concerned aspects of achievement in writing and mathematics in key stage 1, which emerged from the most recently published assessment information. To address these issues, you have made increased use of resources and expertise from a local mathematics hub. You have also sharpened up the monitoring of progress for these pupils, through more focused progress meetings with staff and targets to manage teachers’ performance. As a result, teachers are more aware of how well their pupils are achieving and intervene promptly when needed. Consequently, most of these pupils are making good progress. Writing books show sophisticated use of language and style, especially in Year 2, and most mathematics books show good progress from starting points with strong levels of challenge for the most able. In Year 1,

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Inspection findings

however, there is less challenge in mathematics for the most able, which prevents them from developing deeper thinking skills.  In the next key line of enquiry, it was clear that you had addressed most of the areas for improvement from the previous inspection report for the predecessor school. Teachers are providing appropriately challenging work for most of their pupils and they use assessment well to inform their planning, although you acknowledge that there is a lack of challenge for the most able pupils in some classes. There is also a planned programme of lessons, assemblies and activity days that develops pupils’ cultural awareness well. You use lessons in religious education and personal, social and health education to ensure that pupils have a good understanding of important issues, such as mutual respect or tolerance of other people’s beliefs and customs.  The final key line of enquiry related to the effectiveness of safeguarding and the

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Inspection findings

attendance of disadvantaged pupils. You make sure that safeguarding is at the heart of the school’s work and you have effective systems in place. You have also recognised that the attendance of disadvantaged pupils has been low compared to national averages in recent years. You have taken action to tackle this, including involving the local educational welfare officer. I concluded from analysing a range of evidence that there was a small number of specific factors that had a bearing on the overall attendance for this group of children and that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, attendance for this group was now improving.

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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

 teachers consistently provide work that challenges the most able pupils  action plans for school improvement precisely evaluate the intended impact of current actions on pupils’ achievement. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Cheshire East. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

I carried out short visits to all year groups except Year 5, including the early years, which were joint activities with you. I scrutinised a range of documentation, including the school’s self-evaluation summary, action plans for school improvement, records of the monitoring and evaluation of teaching and learning, minutes of meetings of the governing body and records connected with the safeguarding of children. I held discussions and conversations with members of staff, governors and pupils. I had a telephone discussion with a representative from the local authority. I listened to pupils read and analysed pupils’ work. I evaluated 80 responses received through ‘Parent View’, Ofsted’s online survey. There were no other survey responses.

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