Wombridge Primary School

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

p.1

Mr Neil Satoor Headteacher Wombridge Primary School Hartshill Oakengates Telford Shropshire TF2 6AN

p.1

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 3 May 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 May 2013.

p.1

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

You and your leadership team have maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You lead the school well and, together with your senior leadership team and governing body, you have created a culture of high expectations. Each child, irrespective of their starting points, is encouraged to do his or her very best in order to succeed. This is achieved by staff giving pupils clear guidance on what they need to do in order to improve their work.

p.1

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

You and your staff form a cohesive and effective team, which utilises each person’s skills to the full. You have capitalised on the strengths of your assistant headteachers and have used their expertise to develop the quality of teaching throughout the school. As a result, many new systems have been introduced to help staff match tasks to the learning needs of pupils. For example, the use of the ‘steps to success’ planning is consistent across the school enabling teaching staff and pupils to be clear as to the specific skills that they are learning.

p.1

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

You have tackled the issues since the last inspection. For example, pupils are now working swiftly in writing because you have focused on helping them manage distractions and not give up when they encounter difficulties. This has helped them become independent learners who now take responsibility for checking their work against clear objectives set for them. You completely reorganised outdoor provision for the Reception class by changing the location of the classroom and by improving both planning and resources for the outdoors. This has ensured that children now have more choice and challenge and make good progress in relation to their starting points.

p.1

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

In our walks around the school, we found pupils eager to learn because lessons were exciting. For example, pupils in Year 6 were given challenging mathematical problems to solve, where in groups they had to explain their reasons for choosing certain mathematical operations. Displays around the school were of high-quality, demonstrating memorable moments of learning such as how Telford has changed over the years and what can be learned from the historical site of Battlefield about the way people used to live.

p.2

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

You aim to give your pupils the best start in life and to ensure that they become responsible citizens in the future. You do this by informing the school community that whatever is done in the school is ‘leading the children to life’. Pupils in the school are committed to the school’s values of Learning, Enjoying, Aspiration and Determination (LEAD). Pupils are encouraged to work towards a Wombridge LEAD badge by demonstrating good learning habits. This has a direct impact on their confidence in learning, developing teamwork, resilience and early leadership skills.

p.2

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

You have successfully created a rich, inclusive, environment in which innovative use of technology enhances learning. For example, a child with special educational needs used a voice-recognition program to support his writing and made good progress during the lesson. Your curriculum enables pupils to attain a qualification in computing by the end of Year 6. The school has achieved a number of national awards and is a Farming and Countryside Education model school. This has raised the profile of the school within the community and beyond and has had a positive impact on your pupils’ good attitudes to learning, and their pride in being a pupil at Wombridge school.

p.2

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

You know your school’s strengths and areas for development through thorough and accurate self-evaluation. Your action planning is fit for purpose and the recent introduction of a bespoke tracking system to record pupils’ progress, ensures that you have a very good overview of the progress of all pupils in relation to their starting points. Information from your monitoring of teaching is used to ensure that all staff have the necessary training to improve their practice, for example in providing opportunities for pupils to work at greater depth.

p.2

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

During the last inspection you were asked to improve pupils’ skills in writing and to develop the outdoor area and learning opportunities for children in the Reception class. Your staff are now providing more opportunities for pupils to write and to mark one another’s work in other subjects. However, children in the youngest classes do not always form their letters correctly and they struggle with spelling key words. You have transformed the Reception class’s outdoor area into an exciting outdoor classroom where the children extend the learning that they start indoors. Teachers’ planning now focuses on developing all areas of learning outdoors and as a result all groups of children, including the disadvantaged, make secure progress in learning.

p.2

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

Your in-house data shows that all groups of pupils in all year groups are now making at least secure progress in reading, writing and mathematics across the school in relation to their starting points.

p.3

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

You continue to work effectively, with the support of your governors, at enabling parents to become involved in their children’s learning. Your website is a testament to the efforts that you have made to keep parents up to date with what is happening in the school. While the vast majority of parents are very supportive, a minority struggle to recognise the school’s many strengths and supportive nature. I considered concerns raised by parents both through the Parent View questionnaire and conversations with them but I could not find any evidence that pupils were unhappy, that they were not learning enough or that senior staff were not approachable. The pupils I spoke to said that they loved coming to school and that they were well looked after by all the staff. The school’s most up-to-date attendance records, which show attendance to be good, confirm pupils’ view that they like coming to school.

p.3

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

You have created a culture of safeguarding in the school by providing pupils with many opportunities to learn about keeping safe. For example, assemblies follow themes of personal safety and the e-safety video ‘Keeping it mine’, created by pupils in key stage 2, highlights the importance of not divulging personal details online. You have signposted parents to many websites that they can use to keep their children safe online at home.

p.3

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

Your systems for keeping pupils safe are detailed and robust, fit for purpose and are reviewed regularly. Staff I spoke to know what to do should any incident of safeguarding come to their attention. I looked at case studies of vulnerable pupils and found that they are detailed, with correspondence from external agencies followed up swiftly.

p.3

Short inspection of Wombridge Primary School

Pupils have trusting relationships with all adults in the school and say that they are not afraid to let a member of staff know if they feel worried about any aspect of school life. During the inspection, pupils’ behaviour was consistently good and they were ‘safe and happy’.

p.3

Inspection findings

 As a leadership team you have explored why the outcomes for disadvantaged pupils at the end of the Reception Year were lower in reading, writing and number, shape and measurement than in other areas of the early years foundation stage curriculum. You established an accurate baseline that shows that these pupils come into school with skills well below those that are typical of children nationally.  You rightly introduced a detailed tracking system to ensure that the progress of these pupils is reviewed, monies are spent accordingly and that there is a tighter focus on familiarising children with the sounds that letters make. You invested in developing the outside area and purchased more practical resources for the teaching of mathematics. This is having a positive effect on pupils’ understanding of mathematical vocabulary. However, looking at children’s books, while they are enjoying writing, drawing shapes and counting

p.3

Inspection findings

numbers, they still struggle with forming their letters and numbers correctly and their spelling of key words is weak. This is an area that still needs to be developed as it has a knock-on effect in relation to pupils developing good handwriting skills as they move up the school.  You systematically analyse trends in your pupils’ outcomes in national tests and take effective action. When 2015 national tests results demonstrated that pupils needed to make faster progress in reading you immediately improved the library. You ensured that pupils read at least two e-books per week, trained staff in delivering guided reading sessions and developed a culture of reading throughout the school. As a result, the 2016 validated tests showed that reading had improved and more pupils are now reaching age-related expectations.  Year 2 pupils who are disadvantaged pupils or did not reach the expected standard in the phonics screening check at the end of Year 1 make swift

p.4

Inspection findings

progress due to bespoke support that they get from learning in small groups led both by teachers and teaching assistants. This is as a direct result of your monitoring of interventions led by staff.  The pupils who read to me from the Reception class and from key stage 1 were able to identify initial and final sounds and read unknown words accurately. Year 2 were able to make predictions as to what might happen next in the story and could read unfamiliar words. Middle- and high-prior- attaining pupils were making consistently secure progress in reading.  When I looked at work in their exercise books, pupils who are working at the standard expected for their age and those working at greater depth are making swifter progress in reading than in writing. While there were opportunities for writing in topic work, pupils did not write in depth. You have recognised this and the most recent planning reflects a much tighter focus on

p.4

Inspection findings

teaching the skills needed to reach greater depth. These include introducing the strokes needed to join letters in writing and the consistent use of correct spellings.  We discussed whether pupils in key stage 2 with middle prior attainment were being sufficiently challenged in writing and in mathematics. You showed me the new systems that you have introduced to ensure that every lesson has a tiered approach to challenge. This is having a positive impact on the quality of writing such as that seen in the detailed biographies Year 6 pupils had written. However, while pupils are reaching age-related expectations, there are still some missed opportunities for them to write extensively in other subjects. In mathematics, pupils demonstrated strong reasoning skills when solving mathematical problems but progress slowed down when they had to complete too many calculations when it was clear that they had mastered the concept.

p.4

Inspection findings

 Scrutiny of books both in key stage 1 and 2 showed that standards of presentation need to improve as not all pupils write neatly.

p.5

Next steps for the school

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that:

p.5

Next steps for the school

 a whole-school policy is put in place for both presentation of written work and the teaching of spelling and handwriting across the school  more opportunities are given to pupils to write at length in different subjects  teachers move pupils onto new learning once they are sure that pupils have mastered a mathematical concept.

p.5

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 Telford and Wrekin. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

p.5

Information about the inspection

During the inspection, I met with you; your assistant headteachers; the early years foundation stage coordinator; other school staff; an adviser from the local authority and the governor with responsibility for safeguarding. I spoke informally to pupils at breaktime and in lessons and to parents as they brought their children to school. I looked at the 47 responses to Parent View, Ofsted’s online questionnaire, including 26 free-text responses. We visited classes together and I looked at a selection of teachers’ planning and pupils’ exercise books in writing, mathematics and topic work. I heard five pupils read.

p.5

Information about the inspection

I scrutinised a wide range of documents including the school’s self-evaluation, school development plan, a local authority monitoring report, safeguarding, child protection policies and attendance records. I looked at a range of documentation pertaining to the provision for pupils who have special educational needs and disabilities. I took into account pupils’ current standards of attainment and rates of progress by looking at your most recent outcomes of teacher assessments.

p.5