Kingsway Primary School

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

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Mrs Samantha Bradbury Headteacher Kingsway Primary School Kingsway Kirkby-in-Ashfield Nottingham Nottinghamshire NG17 7FH

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Short inspection of Kingsway Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 31 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 the school was judged to be good in April 2012.

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Short inspection of Kingsway 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 Kingsway Primary School

Although you are relatively new in post as headteacher, you have already established a strong senior and middle leadership team who clearly share your enthusiastic vision for the school. The less experienced middle leaders will benefit from further training and continued opportunities to carry out a range of monitoring activities. You work closely with the experienced and knowledgeable chair of governors to monitor standards and oversee statutory duties such as safeguarding.

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Short inspection of Kingsway Primary School

Your self-evaluation summary is concise and gives an accurate picture of the school. You have rightly identified the key strengths and areas for improvement. These key strands run very coherently through all of the school’s development and monitoring plans and staff speak confidently about the school’s shared priorities. As a result of these concerted efforts, the school remains good and there is a strong capacity for continued improvement.

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Short inspection of Kingsway Primary School

Although the school has a generally strong record of prior achievement, you have rightly identified that boys in the early years and in key stage 1 have tended to lag behind girls in reading and writing. However, by the end of key stage 2, the gap between boys and girls typically closes. You have analysed the reasons for this discrepancy and have put a clear strategy in place to accelerate boys’ progress. Evidence seen in lessons, from talking to pupils and by looking at their work, shows that the strategies are having a positive impact. The school’s summary of its latest assessment figures shows that pupils are currently on track to achieve their challenging targets by the end of key stage 1 and key stage 2.

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Short inspection of Kingsway Primary School

During our tour of the school, we saw many examples of pupils working with confidence and enthusiasm to complete challenging work. For example, older pupils were choosing ambitious alliteration, such as ‘the swamp of sacrifice’ and ‘repelling rocks’, to describe an imaginary island adventure. Likewise, examples of boys’ writing in the early years revealed their confidence in attempting simple phrases and sentences about Peter Pan’s battle.

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Short inspection of Kingsway Primary School

Your vision, ‘Making a World of Difference’, can be seen in action in all parts of the school. Pupils speak about their school with warmth and pride; they say the education they receive is ‘amazing’ and they have confidence that they will receive all the help they need because the staff know them so well. Pupils have responded extremely well to the many opportunities provided for them to take on responsibilities, such as the school council, play leaders and, in particular, the playtime ‘school shop’ which sells small toys and items of stationery. Pupils run this enterprise as a profit-making venture and they handle the responsibility you have given them exceptionally well.

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Short inspection of Kingsway Primary School

During discussions with pupils, they showed an impressive maturity in their opinions and a sense of care and empathy for others. For example, they understand why some pupils may need care and support because ‘they have trouble at home and come in feeling stressed’. They say they appreciate the class rules and the system of behaviour charts and warnings, because these help them to ‘stay on track’. They see no stigma in needing extra help with their work and are happy to both ask for and offer support.

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Short inspection of Kingsway Primary School

You have created an attractive, orderly and well-resourced school environment. The quality of pupils’ art work displayed around all areas of the school is impressive, inspired by a wide range of subjects and topics. Other displays encourage positive attitudes and social awareness, for example promoting anti-bullying, and valuing and celebrating cultural diversity and other differences.

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Short inspection of Kingsway Primary School

Your strategies for improving boys’ reading and writing in the early years and in key stage 1 are having a positive impact. However, you have rightly identified in your development plan that there is further work to do to improve provision for outdoor learning in the early years, so that the area is accessible in all weathers. This will be especially important in view of the rapidly increasing number of pupils on roll.

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Short inspection of Kingsway Primary School

The pupil premium grant is used effectively to raise standards for disadvantaged pupils. You are aware that a detailed pupil premium strategy needs to be published on the school website as a matter of urgency, reflecting the school’s existing good practice. Safeguarding is effective.

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Short inspection of Kingsway Primary School

All policies and procedures are fully compliant with regulations. You have made sure that staff checks are scrupulous; training for staff and governors is up to date and carefully documented. You keep well-organised child protection records and all concerns are followed through.

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Short inspection of Kingsway Primary School

A strong culture of watchful care runs through all of the school’s safeguarding work. The school site is secure and pupils emphasise that they feel safe from harm. They are very clear about how to keep themselves safe from bullying in all its forms and describe how staff handle any issues that do arise quickly and fairly.

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Short inspection of Kingsway Primary School

During our tour of the school, I observed a number of examples of situations where staff were providing care and support for pupils in an easy and natural manner, including those who are more vulnerable on account of their special educational needs and/or disabilities.

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Inspection findings

 In 2016, pupil outcomes showed weaknesses for boys in key stage 1 in regard to reading and writing. There has also been a trend over time of girls outperforming boys in the early years. You have worked with other leaders to analyse this issue and have responded decisively by introducing a number of changes. You have reorganised class structures in key stage 1 to provide smaller teaching groups and opened up the early years area to provide more space for a wider range of activities. Different, ‘boy-friendly’ topics have been introduced across the younger classes, such as ‘Peter Pan’, ‘Superheroes’ and ‘Transport’. The positive impact of these measures is already clear to see in pupils’ written work and in the standard of their reading.  Although the pupil premium information on the school website does not currently meet requirements, strong evidence was seen to indicate that disadvantaged pupils’ individual barriers to learning are indeed precisely identified and that the

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Inspection findings

pupil premium grant is being spent wisely to raise standards as intended. A rigorous procedure is in place for selecting the appropriate intervention programme for each pupil. Teachers share the process with teaching assistants, and together they regularly analyse the impact on pupils’ learning and progress. Any strategy which does not yield sufficient impact is discontinued; however, evidence was seen of some highly effective strategies which have led to pupils making very rapid progress, for example six months’ spelling and eight months’ reading progress over a ten-week programme.  You are aware that the pupil premium information on the school website must be updated as a matter of urgency, so that it complies with requirements and reflects the current good practice seen in the school.  You have put in place a comprehensive plan to address the school’s issues with attendance. Poor attendance and high levels of persistent absence relate to a

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Inspection findings

relatively small number of pupils with additional needs whose frequent absences have an adverse effect on overall figures. Nevertheless, you take many opportunities to celebrate positive attendance by giving incentives and rewards to all pupils. At the same time, you work closely with families to overcome specific issues, involving other agencies where needed. This approach is given a high profile across the whole school and is readily available to parents via the school website, written in a clear and succinct way.  The leadership team has undergone sweeping changes since the time of the last inspection. The headteacher, deputy headteacher and key stage leaders have all been appointed to their posts within the past twelve months. All members of the new team have fully embraced their roles and there is a strong sense of shared vision, enthusiasm and commitment to school improvement.  Governors provide effective support for the school. The experienced chair of

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Inspection findings

governors has a clear and accurate view of the school’s strengths and areas for improvement. Governors take their responsibilities seriously and have undergone all of the appropriate training; each governor has a curriculum and class link, in order to gain an overview of the work of the school.

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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

 Provision for outdoor learning in the early years is improved so that pupils can access the area more frequently, in all weathers.  The less experienced middle leaders are developed in their role by being offered further training and continued experiences in monitoring the quality of teaching and learning.  The pupil premium strategy on the website is brought in line with current requirements as a matter of urgency.

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Next steps for the school

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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Information about the inspection

I met with you and the wider leadership team. I met with groups of pupils, the chair of governors and one other governor. I listened to pupils read and looked at samples of pupils’ written work. We conducted a tour of the school together and visited many lessons and activities. I observed pupils’ behaviour around school, in lessons and in an assembly. I met a number of parents informally at the beginning of the school day and considered the views of parents expressed in 24 responses posted on Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View. I evaluated a wide range of documents, including minutes of governors’ meetings and safeguarding documentation.

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