Derby St Chad's CofE (VC) Nursery and Infant School

Derby St Chad’s CofE (VC) Nursery and Infant School Gordon Road, Derby, Derbyshire DE23 6WR

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Overall effectiveness Requires improvement

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare Requires improvement

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Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

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Early years provision Requires improvement

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Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Good

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a school that requires improvement

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 The pace of improvement until recently has been too slow. Pupils do not yet make consistently good progress from their different starting points.   The progress made by disadvantaged pupils is improving but these are not yet in line with other pupils nationally.  Recent changes are improving the quality of teaching but some teachers do not have high enough expectations of what pupils can achieve.  Pupils do not readily demonstrate what they can do and they do not have enough opportunities to develop their problem-solving and reasoning skills in mathematics.  Middle leaders are taking action to improve their areas of responsibility. This, as yet, does not link well enough to pupils’ progress.  Pupils’ rates of attendance are below national figures. Recent actions taken by leaders are beginning to improve this.  Teaching assistants provide valuable support for small groups of pupils but their contribution

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

is less effective when pupils are taking part in whole-class learning.  The progress made by children in the early years is improving. However, lower-attaining children are making insufficient progress in the development of their literacy skills.  Leaders’ use of the new behaviour-tracking system is improving behaviour. However, leaders are unable to identify specific patterns of behaviour and address them appropriately.  Governors have developed the role they play but do not yet hold leaders to account well enough for the amount of progress different groups of pupils make.  Leaders and governors are not ensuring that the information published on the school’s website is up to date or that the school’s physical education and sports funding is used effectively.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 New senior leaders are highly committed to improving the school. Clearly defined action plans are in place to improve the school further.  Pupils’ personal development and welfare are good. Their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is strong.  The most able pupils make good progress.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management by: – continuing to strengthen the role of the governing body so that it holds leaders to account, especially for the progress of pupils from their different starting points – continuing to develop the role of the subject leaders so that they support senior leaders in driving forward whole-school improvement – embedding the new behaviour policy and ensuring that it is refined to further improve pupils’ behaviour – ensuring that the school’s physical education and sports premium funding is used effectively – ensuring that the school’s website meets the requirements for the publication of statutory information.  Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment and pupils’ outcomes by: – raising teachers’ expectations of what pupils can achieve and challenging pupils more consistently – providing opportunities for pupils to demonstrate their skills and understanding so

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

that they can make more rapid progress – developing the role of the teaching assistants, so that they contribute effectively to increasing pupils’ understanding and securing basic skill development during teacher-led learning sessions – increasing opportunities for pupils to solve problems and apply their reasoning skills in mathematics – increasing the rate of progress of disadvantaged pupils.  Improve the behaviour of pupils by: – improving pupils’ rates of attendance and reducing the number of pupils who are persistently absent.  Improve the provision in the early years by: – ensuring that the lower-attaining children increase their literacy skills at a faster rate.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

An external review of the school’s governance should be undertaken to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

 Leaders and governors have not secured sufficient improvement since the last inspection. The governing body has taken decisive action to strengthen the leadership of the school. New leaders are now in place and there is a strong commitment to improving the work of the school.  The determined and realistic executive headteacher and acting head of school are ambitious for the pupils who attend St Chad’s Nursery and Infant School. Their self- evaluation is candid in its interpretation of how well the school is doing. It provides leaders and governors with an accurate view of the school’s strengths and areas for improvement. Action plans are sharply focused on moving the school forward.  Subject leaders are becoming more confident in making improvements in the areas they hold responsibility for. They are well supported by senior leaders and have access to other networking opportunities to aid their personal development. The recent

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

actions they have taken are improving outcomes for pupils. However, they are not yet experienced enough to help senior leaders drive whole-school improvement forward.  Procedures to check the quality of teaching are rigorous. Leaders are able to provide staff with high-quality feedback and guidance on how to improve. Teachers are provided with appropriate training to help them enhance their practice. This is delivered through school-to-school support, a teaching alliance partnership and through external consultants. However, procedures to check and support the quality of teaching have only recently been introduced and it is too early to say if the improvements seen so far will be maintained. Newly qualified teachers are well supported in their development towards becoming effective practitioners.  Leaders have introduced a new system to track pupils’ achievement. This system is providing them with accurate information on how well pupils are doing. From this,

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

leaders are able to identify instances where pupils fall behind and can provide additional support to help them catch up. Higher targets, set by leaders, are encouraging both staff and pupils to aim for higher standards. The impact of leaders’ actions to secure better outcomes for pupils can be seen in the improved phonics results. The school’s own tracking records indicate further improvements for many of the pupils currently in the school. However, improvements in the quality of teaching are not yet widespread enough to remove the inconsistencies in outcomes which remain for some pupils. Equally, there is still some work to be done in tracking pupils from their different starting points.  The school’s curriculum provides a range of subjects but the emphasis is on literacy and mathematics. Leaders recognise that other subjects need to be strengthened. Pupils benefit from a range of extra-curricular opportunities, such as music and singing

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

clubs, art clubs and a variety of sporting activities.  Pupils’ social, moral, spiritual and cultural development is strong. The school prepares pupils well for life in modern Britain. Pupils learn about other cultures and religions. In an assembly, the pupils were displaying high levels of respect as they learned about one another’s achievements.  The leadership of special educational needs and/or disabilities is improving. Leaders have an accurate view of what needs to be done and have put systems in place to ensure that pupils receive appropriate support. Funding is used effectively to provide additional small-group and one-to-one teaching.  The pupil premium funding has brought about some improvements for disadvantaged pupils. This is especially the case in the early years and in phonics. A sharper focus on disadvantaged pupils and targeted support are ensuring that their needs are being met

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Requires improvement

more effectively than in the past. However, improvement has not been as rapid as it needs to be if disadvantaged pupils are to catch up to other pupils with the same staring points.  Leaders do not, as yet, make effective use of the school’s physical education and sports premium funding. Their action plan requires a sharper focus to ensure a greater impact on helping pupils to stay fit and healthy.  Senior leaders are working hard to improve communication with parents. The impact of their work can be clearly seen in the increased levels of satisfaction indicated in the responses made to the school’s own parental surveys.  Arrangements to support the school using another local provider, together with constructive input from the local authority, are securing improved outcomes for pupils.

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Governance of the school

 Governors have not challenged leaders robustly or quickly enough following the school’s last inspection. It has taken time for the governing body to secure new leadership for the school. The governors display great confidence in the new executive headteacher’s ability to drive the school forward. Governors now have an accurate understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and there is a shared ambition among leaders and governors and a clear direction for the school.  Governors’ minutes have become more detailed. They reflect a sharper focus on the use of meaningful and accurate information. However, this information does not link well enough to the quality of teaching, learning and pupils’ progress. There is more to do in evaluating how pupils with different abilities are progressing from their various starting points.  The governors evaluate how well the schools’ pupil premium funding is used to help

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Governance of the school

disadvantaged pupils catch up. While there is some improvement in outcomes for these pupils, the funding has not yet ensured that the differences between disadvantaged pupils in the school and other pupils nationally have been sufficiently reduced.

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Safeguarding

 The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. Leaders have ensured that safeguarding is given the highest priority and practices have been sharpened to reflect this. All the appropriate vetting checks are undertaken when staff join the school to ensure that they are suitable to work with children.  Staff are kept up to date about safeguarding issues through a regular programme of updates and briefings. They are attentive in their daily practice and know who to speak to should they have a concern about the well-being of pupils, including those aspects associated with radicalisation, extremism and child sexual exploitation.  The designated teachers for child protection and safeguarding ensure that referrals are acted on in a timely manner and with rigour. Procedures are robust and leaders maintain meticulous records. The school has effective relationships with the local authority and a wide range of other agencies which provide any additional help that

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Safeguarding

may be required.  Pupils who spoke with inspectors, and those who completed Ofsted’s pupil questionnaire, all said that they feel safe in the school. They indicated that they knew there was always someone they could talk to. A very large majority of parents and carers who responded to the schools’ own survey agreed that their children are safe and well cared for.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

 Over time, the quality of teaching has not been good enough. Teaching is improving, but is not yet consistently good. Some teachers have yet to raise their expectations of what pupils can achieve. Where teachers use accurate pupil assessment to match work to pupils’ needs, pupils move forward at a rapid pace. At other times, however, pupils wait too long to get an opportunity to practise and develop their own skills. For example, pupils spend time recapping prior learning, which they have already grasped, and do not move on to the next stages of their learning quickly enough.  Pupils do not experience enough opportunities to explain their thinking or to solve problems in mathematics. Pupils do not have sufficient access to harder and more challenging work.  Teachers have good subject knowledge. This is used to great effect in pupils’ punctuation and grammar development. For example, in a split key stage 1 class, the

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

teacher effectively questioned pupils’ knowledge and understanding of sentence structure.  The effective teaching of phonics has led to better phonics skills over time. Pupils who read to the inspectors did so with enthusiasm. They applied their phonics skills effectively to read difficult words and had a good understanding of what they were reading about.  Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities are well supported. Teaching assistants support small-group and one-to-one learning well. For example, in a Year 2 class, lower-ability pupils were given more structured tasks that helped them improve their handwriting. However, the impact of other adults’ work is less effective when pupils are engaged in teacher-led class learning. For example, in a Year 1 mathematics lesson, pupils were making less progress because they were not provided with appropriate support to help them understand the task they were completing.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

 Pupils benefit from completing homework which is relevant and appropriate.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good. There is a strong culture of respect and tolerance throughout the school. Pupils are welcoming and polite to each other and to adults.  Pupils are developing a good understanding of how to keep themselves safe. They are taught how to be healthy and keep fit. Pupils have access to a range of opportunities to take physical exercise through the school’s physical education programme and a selection of sporting clubs. However, pupils’ understanding of e-safety is not as well developed.  The school’s records show that bullying and racist incidents are rare. However, pupils told inspectors that sometimes bullying does take place and that adults deal with it effectively.  Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, supported by a personal, social and health education programme, is strong. Pupils experience a range of different

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Personal development and welfare

cultures due to the diverse backgrounds of the pupils who attend the school. Pupils from different backgrounds work and play well together.  Pupils experience opportunities to develop their understanding of British values. For example, they are encouraged to take on a variety of responsibilities, such as eco- volunteer or student councillor, and they understand why we wear a poppy for Remembrance Day.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils requires improvement. Pupils’ conduct in lessons is positive. However, sometimes they are not fully engaged in their learning and become distracted.  Pupils told inspectors that behaviour in school is not always good, especially during social times. Leaders have recently introduced a system to record behaviour incidents. Although it is still early days, a reduction in the number of behaviour incidents has been recorded. However, the recording of behaviour incidents is not sufficiently precise enough for leaders to identify and address specific behavioural patterns.  Pupils’ rates of attendance are below the national average. The number of pupils who are persistently absent is high. Leaders are taking action to rectify this and their hard work is being rewarded by small increases in the rates of attendance. However, while they are improving rates of absence, and in particular persistent absence, they

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Behaviour

continue to be below national figures.  Pupils are well mannered and friendly to each other, other adults and visitors to their school. There is a welcoming atmosphere around the school and pupils respond quickly to staff requests. Pupils cooperate and play well together.

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Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

 In 2016, attainment in key stage 1 was below national averages in reading, writing and mathematics, especially for the lower-attaining pupils. Leaders are working hard to reverse the effects on standards that have resulted from poor teaching in the past. Leaders’ actions have yet to fully impact on pupils’ outcomes and increase the number of pupils working at age-related expectations.  The progress made by pupils is not consistently good. Some pupils are making accelerated progress and catching up to where they should be. Current information shows that more pupils are working towards age-related expectations in reading and mathematics in both Year 1 and Year 2. In writing, more Year 2 pupils are working towards age-related expectations but Year 1 pupils have not yet made sufficient progress. This improved, but inconsistent progress is confirmed in the quality of work in pupils’ exercise books.  Phonics teaching in key stage 1 is strong. Attainment in the phonics screening checks

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Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

has been rising towards the national average for the past two years. This trend is set to continue for current Year 1 pupils.  Leaders and governors have reviewed the use of the pupil premium funding for disadvantaged pupils, and have taken action to bring about better outcomes for these pupils. This has been particularly successful for pupils’ phonics skills, where disadvantaged pupils are currently attaining higher than other pupils nationally.  The number of pupils in the school who are most able is very low. These pupils make good progress.  Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported well. They make good progress from their different starting points.  A very large majority of pupils who attend the school speak English as an additional language. They are provided with support to develop the language skills they need to access their learning.

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Early years provision Requires improvement

 Children join the school with abilities that are well below those typical for their age. This is especially true in communication and language, literacy and mathematics. Children are now making better progress in the early years but this has not been rapid enough for them to be fully prepared for transition to key stage 1.  Leadership of the early years provision has not been fully effective, as it has been slow to bring about improvements in children’s achievement. New leaders have a good understanding of the areas in need of development. Children’s rates of progress are increasing. The school’s tracking system indicates that more children in the current Reception Year will achieve a good level of development this year.  At times, children make good progress when they are engaged in their learning for sustained periods of time. For example, a small group of children remained focused and interested when making and talking about dinosaurs.

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Early years provision Requires improvement

 The quality of teaching in the early years is variable. Children do not routinely have a clear understanding of the focus of the lesson. Sometimes adults miss opportunities to check what children understand. In some adult-led sessions, work is too hard for the children to access and they struggle to make the progress they should. For example, in the Nursery class, the teaching of complex speed sounds failed to ensure that literacy skills, of the lower-attaining children, were being developed well enough.  Leaders have worked hard to make the learning environment bright and stimulating. They have incorporated the outdoor learning area fully to support the curriculum and extend writing and mathematics learning. The curriculum takes account of children’s current development. It is planned to promote enjoyment and participation in learning. Well-structured learning areas allow children to make informed choices. However,

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Early years provision Requires improvement

opportunities to promote investigation and problem solving are still at a developmental stage.  The children have positive attitudes to learning and take advantage of the variety of activities on offer. They cooperate in their work and play and respond well to adults’ requests. However, restless behaviour occurs because some children are not sufficiently guided by adults to focus on the task at hand.   Leaders have increased the level of pupil tracking. This has raised awareness of the progress different groups of children are making. Pupil premium funding is spent appropriately in the early years. Disadvantaged children are making better progress than other children in the school.  High-level support from some teaching assistants is effective. For example, a group of boys were being well supported to hold extended conversations and tell a story. At times, however, the provision of additional support to children who have special

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Early years provision Requires improvement

educational needs and/or disabilities does not increase the progress the children make.  Children’s welfare is a high priority for all staff. Leaders and other adults take care to ensure that the children are kept safe. The children are happy and confident in their learning environment and relationships with adults are good. Statutory requirements in the early years are met and safeguarding is effective.  Leaders are engaging parents in contributing to their children’s learning. This is particularly effective in the Nursery, where parents may stay and join in initial activities to help settle their children into their learning. However, when the children arrive, there are insufficient activities available to engage all children in purposeful learning.

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School details

This inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was also deemed a section 5 inspection under the same Act.

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Executive Headteacher Jonathan Gallimore

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School details

Email address admin@stchads.derby.sch.uk

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School details

Date of previous inspection 18–19 October 2012

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Information about this school

 The school does not meet the requirements on the publication of information on its website about its curriculum content or the current spending of the pupil premium funding and the physical education and sports premium funding.  St Chad’s is a smaller-than-average-sized nursery and infant school. Most classes in key stage 1 contain two different age groups.  The vast majority of pupils are from minority ethnic groups and speak English as an additional language. The proportion of disadvantaged pupils, supported by the pupil premium, is above average. The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is average.  New leadership, from another local school, has been in post since September 2016 to provide additional support for the school.  The school has its own breakfast club.  The school is a member of the Derby Teaching School Alliance.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed a range of pupils’ learning in all classes. Some of these were observed together with senior leaders.  Discussions took place with school staff, the governing body and a representative of the local authority.  The inspectors met with a group of pupils, talked to pupils informally, attended an assembly and listened to Year 1 and Year 2 pupils reading.  The 12 questionnaires completed by staff, and the school’s own parental surveys, were taken into account. There were insufficient responses by parents to Ofsted’s online questionnaire (Parent View) to comment on.  Inspectors observed the work of the school and looked at a broad range of evidence, including: the school’s analysis of its strengths and weaknesses; planning and monitoring documentation; the work in pupils’ books; records relating to attendance and behaviour; and the school’s own information on pupils’ current attainment and

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Information about this inspection

progress in reading, writing and mathematics.  The school’s child protection and safeguarding procedures were scrutinised. A review of the school’s website was made to check whether it met the requirements on the publication of statutory information.

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Inspection team

Vondra Mays, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector

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Inspection team

Heidi Malliff Ofsted Inspector guidance ‘Raising concerns and making a complaint about Ofsted’, which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.gov.uk/government/publications/complaints-about-ofsted . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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Inspection team

In the report, ‘disadvantaged pupils’ refers to those pupils who attract government pupil premium funding: pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years and pupils in care or who left care through adoption or another formal route. www.gov.uk/pupil-premium-information-for-schools-and- alternative-provision-settings .

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Inspection team

You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when and as part of the inspection.

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Inspection team

You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk , or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted .

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Inspection team

achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

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