Sunnyhill Primary School

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

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John Parr Headteacher Sunnyhill Primary School Sunnyhill Road Streatham London SW16 2UW

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Short inspection of Sunnyhill Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 28 February 2017 with Brian Simber, Ofsted Inspector, 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 September 2011.

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Short inspection of Sunnyhill 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 Sunnyhill Primary School

You have continued to ensure the effectiveness of the senior leadership team. You routinely work in school three days a week and keep in touch with the deputy headteachers on the remaining days. Your expectations for consistency and efficient communication in order to maintain high standards in your absence are exemplified in your ‘team around the head’ approach. As a result, you have sustained strong leadership.

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Short inspection of Sunnyhill Primary School

Your collaborative approach to leadership extends to your work with pupils when making decisions about the school. You value your pupils’ views highly, and give them ample opportunities to suggest ways in which they would like to develop key aspects of school life. For example, pupils have appreciated the improvements you made to playtime arrangements after hearing their opinions shared through a ‘Staying Safe’ whole- school project last year. You also made adaptations to the curriculum topic of ‘Journeys’ in response to pupils’ requests to learn more about refugees.

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Short inspection of Sunnyhill Primary School

Similarly, you are keen to seek the views of parents regularly. You thoughtfully reflect on and refine the different ways in which you communicate with parents so that you inform and involve them in their children’s education effectively. You are mindful of the ways in which the school can support families who speak English as an additional language. You run a family skills programme, focusing on literacy as well as providing a helpful introduction to education systems in the United Kingdom. Increasing numbers of parents take part in curriculum events and value attending family learning workshops, where they receive helpful resources and ideas for supporting their child’s learning at home.

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Short inspection of Sunnyhill Primary School

The school has a higher-than-average rate of pupils joining and leaving the school throughout the year. You are working closely with the local authority to ensure the best use of resources to support the needs of individual pupils. You have agreed with the local authority to temporarily reduce the intake of pupils from three to two Reception classes for the school year 2018/19 in order to stabilize the numbers of pupils attending the school.

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Short inspection of Sunnyhill Primary School

The governors have a full understanding of the work of the school because of the comprehensive termly evaluation documents you produce for them. This enables them to ask the right questions about the impact of school leaders and follow this up with focused visits to the school. Governors rightly recognise the importance of making the best use of their training to ensure that they are able to independently evaluate the work of leaders.

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Short inspection of Sunnyhill Primary School

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are detailed and of high quality.

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Short inspection of Sunnyhill Primary School

Staff training is up to date, and the single central record indicates that required checks are made of staff. The school works closely with families to support pupils who need to improve their attendance, working with outside agencies effectively and persistently when needed.

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Short inspection of Sunnyhill Primary School

Pupils feel safe and secure in school because there is always someone to talk to if they have any worries. Through regular events, reminders and support, the school helps pupils and their families to keep safe from risks in the local community.

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Short inspection of Sunnyhill Primary School

Governors are clear on their responsibilities for safeguarding and know the latest statutory requirements.

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Inspection findings

 Developing the skills of leaders at all levels was an area for improvement in the last inspection report. You have extended your leadership team, and leaders are more involved in the monitoring and evaluation of the school’s effectiveness.  Subject leaders have a good understanding of the systems for monitoring. Their judgements are accurate because of their close work with senior leaders. Subject leaders are increasingly involved in reviews of pupils’ progress and in driving school improvement. You ensure that leaders receive the training and guidance they need, so that they have a clear understanding of areas of strength and those to improve and can support their colleagues accordingly.  Leaders’ careful analysis of the results of assessments in 2016 indicated that pupils needed to boost their skills in arithmetic. The mathematics leader has delivered appropriate training and support to teachers, focusing on questioning

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Inspection findings

skills to deepen pupils’ understanding and their application of arithmetic when problem solving. Pupils’ work in their books and in lessons demonstrates that they have increasing opportunities to practise and boost their arithmetical skills.  Leaders have raised expectations that teachers routinely challenge pupils in lessons in order to ensure that more pupils achieve a greater depth of learning in mathematics. However, occasionally pupils are ready to move on to more complex tasks sooner, or find the challenge they have been set too easy.  While the quality of pupils’ writing is a strength of the school, leaders recognise that pupils find their use of spelling out of context more of a challenge. Leaders, including the subject coordinators, have therefore launched several initiatives that are successfully improving the accuracy of pupils’ spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPAG).  Leaders have raised expectations of teachers’ promotion and assessment of SPAG

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Inspection findings

across the curriculum by including daily practise sessions. There is a routine focus on developing these skills across different subjects. Pupils are able to talk about how their SPAG toolkit and regular spelling tests introduced this year have helped them to improve. English leaders have delivered training to teachers and teaching assistants to boost their confidence in the use of SPAG so they are better placed to ensure good-quality teaching in this area.  Subject leaders work collaboratively to support each other’s work and ensure that their high standards are met. For example, the English lead supports teachers in developing pupils’ use of technical terms in mathematics and pupils’ comprehension of word-based problems.  Leaders acknowledge that improving attendance, especially of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, continues to be a key priority area for the school. The development and extension this year of the attendance team,

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Inspection findings

and the role of classroom teachers in overseeing and following up absences, is beginning to have impact on reducing absence and persistent absence so that pupils’ attendance overall is currently in line with the national average. Initiatives such as awards and ‘broken week’ letters sent to parents when their child has not completed three full weeks in school, have contributed to these improvements.

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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

 their analysis of the attendance of groups of pupils is used to drive further improvements so that attendance of groups is at least in line with national levels  all pupils routinely receive the level of challenge they need to attain the standards of which they are capable in mathematics. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Lambeth. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

During this inspection, my colleague and I held meetings with school leaders, groups of pupils, members of the governing body and a representative of the local authority.

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Information about the inspection

We toured the school, visiting most classes, accompanied by school leaders.

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Information about the inspection

We held informal conversations with pupils and staff and also met formally with groups of pupils from key stage 2.

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Information about the inspection

We looked at a range of school documents, including the senior leaders’ evaluation report to governors, assessment information, attendance information, and documents relating to the safeguarding of children. They took into account the views of parents in their responses to Parent View, the online survey, and the responses to surveys completed by staff and pupils.

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