Saxton Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School

Saxton Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School Dam Lane, Saxton, Tadcaster, North Yorkshire LS24 9QF

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

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Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Good

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Leaders do not have an accurate view of school performance, including teaching, because checks are not rigorous and robust. Leaders have not challenged or improved poor teaching.  Governors have not provided effective support or challenge to leaders. Governors lack sufficient knowledge and understanding about aspects of school performance.  Teachers’ assessment of pupils’ learning is inaccurate. Teaching regularly lacks challenge and does not meet pupils’ needs closely enough. When pupils underachieve, teachers do not identify and address barriers quickly.  Safeguarding is ineffective because pupils do not play safely in the playground. Adults do not communicate their expectations clearly enough to pupils regarding their behaviour and conduct outside, which occasionally leads to accidents.  Pupils make poor progress in writing and mathematics from their different starting points. Too few reach the expected standard

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

for their age in writing and mathematics. Too few of the most able reach a greater depth of learning across key subjects, including reading.  Teaching in the early years requires improvement because it does not meet children’s needs closely enough and children do not make good progress from their starting points.  The curriculum is broad, but opportunities to develop pupils’ literacy and numeracy skills in other subjects are missed. Pupils do not learn about subject-specific content in depth. Pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and their understanding of British values are not well developed.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Attendance of pupils is above the national average.  Phonics is taught well lower down the school. Pupils acquire early reading and writing skills quickly and securely. 8–9 March 2017

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Full report

In accordance with section 44(1) of the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the safety of pupils by ensuring that: – pupils are given appropriate space and guidance to play safely in the playground – staff always supervise pupils appropriately and the policies and procedures to keep pupils safe in the playground are adhered to by all adults – leaders record and analyse patterns of behaviour in order to implement safer practices.  Strengthen leadership and management of teaching and the curriculum by: – ensuring that the monitoring of teaching is robust, so that it identifies the training needs of staff and where support is urgently required – making sure that accurate assessment informs pupils, parents, staff and governors about how well pupils are achieving and what is needed to improve pupils’ outcomes – developing the curriculum so that pupils regularly practise their key skills and deepen their learning across different subject areas – ensuring that pupils learn in depth about how British values relate to their own lives

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

and about lifestyles different from their own.  Urgently improve the quality of teaching and outcomes by ensuring that: – work set for pupils is appropriately challenging, so that they make rapid progress over time, achieve high standards and apply their key skills effectively in subjects across the curriculum – teachers enable pupils to improve and correct their work and develop more independence in their learning.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

An external review of governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved. 8–9 March 2017

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

 Leaders, including governors, do not have a clear enough understanding of the effectiveness of the school. This includes the quality of teaching. This lack of understanding means that teaching is not improving rapidly and pupils are not making good progress across the curriculum.  The evidence of teachers’ success in meeting their appraisal targets is not clear or accurate. Leaders and governors do not have enough understanding of how appraisal can be used to identify training needs and provide professional development activities to improve teaching and learning.  The leadership of special educational needs requires improvement. Teachers and leaders usually identify pupils’ learning needs accurately. However, staff are not sufficiently well trained in enabling pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities to work on their own. This inhibits pupils’ progress and independence. Consequently, additional funding for special educational needs does not consistently

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

support the development of these pupils.  The curriculum is broad, but does not enable pupils to learn about different subjects effectively or challenge pupils to apply and extend their literacy and numeracy skills. Too often, learning across the curriculum lacks depth. Pupils demonstrate a limited understanding of different subjects and topics. Pupils’ limited understanding of different cultures and faiths reflects missed opportunities to enhance their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.  Phonics is led well in the school. The teaching of phonics is strong and the assessment is accurate. As a result, when there are issues of underachievement in phonics, they are quickly identified and effective support is provided.  Pupils do not always demonstrate a strong understanding of British values. For example, while they can talk about the need for respect for others, they do not always demonstrate this in the playground. Pupils do not take enough care to ensure that

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

they do not hurt others in the games played at breaktimes.  Parents largely have very positive views of the school and of the leadership. They report that their children are well cared for, safe and happy. However, a small minority of parents have a less positive view of the way in which leaders respond to their concerns.  The local authority has not provided effective support to ensure that pupils are safe in school. The checks they have done with governors have not been robust, and this has contributed to serious shortcomings in safeguarding.  There are too few disadvantaged pupils in the school to evaluate the use of the pupil premium funding. The sports premium funding is spent well and has broadened pupils’ experience of sports in school and in the extra-curricular programme. Pupils report that they really enjoy physical education (PE) lessons and learning about different sports. Pupils value the work they do to learn about how to eat healthily and remain fit.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

 Newly qualified teachers may not be appointed. 8–9 March 2017

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Governance of the school

 Governance is not effective because governors do not understand the urgent need for improvement in school.  Governors do not challenge leaders to ensure that pupils are safe and that policies and procedures to keep pupils safe are put into practice. When making checks on pupils’ safety, governors have not been robust.  Governors do not challenge and question leaders appropriately and they have not received accurate information from leaders. As a result, governors have an overgenerous view of teaching and pupils’ outcomes.  Governors have not used the published data on pupils’ outcomes well. Consequently, governors have not ensured that necessary changes to teaching and assessment have been implemented to meet pupils’ needs and improve outcomes.

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Safeguarding

 The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.  Checks on pupils’ safety are not robust or rigorous. Policies and procedures are in place, but not followed well enough. Leaders have not considered pupils’ safety carefully enough, and pupils are not safeguarded effectively. As a result, necessary actions to ensure pupils’ safety in the playground have not been taken.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

 Teaching, learning and assessment are weak. In mathematics and writing, pupils make poor progress over time because they are given work that does not challenge them and is often too easy. In addition, pupils are not given the chance to apply and use their mathematics skills or their skills of spelling, punctuation and grammar regularly.  Pupils have good phonics knowledge from an early age because early reading skills are taught well. However, further up the school, reading is not taught well, although the teaching of reading is stronger than of writing and mathematics. Good phonics knowledge helps pupils move on to more challenging reading material. However, opportunities are missed to ensure that the more complex skills of comprehension are secure. Pupils do not make strong progress in developing and applying their comprehension skills.  In lessons, teachers do not always check how well pupils understand. Teachers do not

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

notice and respond when pupils are ready for more challenging work or when pupils have developed misconceptions. Work is too easy for some pupils; others continue to make mistakes, contributing to weak progress in reading, writing and mathematics.  Teachers’ assessment is inaccurate, especially in writing and mathematics. This means that teachers are not well informed when planning the next steps of learning for pupils.  Teaching for the most able pupils is weak. Teachers do not meet the needs of this group well. Teachers do not plan activities to challenge the most able pupils to work at 8–9 March 2017 high standards. This limits the progress of this group of pupils and they do not reach greater depths in learning.  Teachers’ questioning does not offer pupils the chance to explain their understanding. Too often, teachers have low expectations of pupils’ ability to answer questions fully. Pupils are not pushed to give full, articulate answers and reasons for their responses.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

 The quality of support given by teaching assistants does not consistently provide strong support for pupils. Teaching assistants do not give pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities enough opportunity to work on their own to develop skills independently.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.  Pupils are not always kept safe in school. While pupils feel safe, they also recognise that there are a lot of accidents in the playground and complain that it is overcrowded and too busy, which is the case. Pupils report that when the field is in use in summer, there is more space and, consequently, fewer accidents. Pupils also report that they are discouraged from reporting accidents when they are hit by balls because it is their choice to play with balls. Thus, the record of accidents is not accurate or informative for leaders in school.  Supervision at playtime is not sufficient and policies about supervision are not put into practice. This compromises the safety of pupils at playtimes.  Parents believe that their children are safe and happy in school. Behaviour records show that, in class, pupils’ behaviour is good and pupils agree with this. In addition,

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Personal development and welfare

there are very few incidents of bullying.  Pupils understand what bullying is and the differences between bullying and falling out with a peer. There are opportunities for pupils to discuss problems with an adult when they feel upset, and work is done to ensure that pupils know how to resolve issues.  Pupils understand the potential dangers of using the internet and have e-safety lessons and activities on a regular basis. They know what to do if they are worried about themselves or someone else online and know how to report their worries.  Most pupils eat a healthy school dinner and they report that these are very tasty. During meal times, pupils from different classes sit together and chat sociably.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is inadequate because their behaviour in the playground leads to too many accidents. Pupils have not been given guidance on how to play sensibly so that their play does not hurt others. This is particularly the case with older pupils, who can be overly boisterous and pay too little regard to the safety of younger pupils, who are therefore not always able to access the playground or can be hurt. 8–9 March 2017  Pupils conduct themselves well in class and respond immediately to teachers’ instructions. Pupils largely complete their work in books and present their work well. However, when they are asked to do something in their books to improve and correct their work, too few respond to this. Pupils do not always show positive attitudes to learning.  Attendance is consistently above average. This a particular strength of the school and shows that pupils enjoy coming to school and understand the importance of being in

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

 Pupils do not make enough progress from their starting points in subjects across the curriculum. This lack of progress results in low standards at the end of key stages 1 and 2. It also means that pupils are not well prepared for their next stage of learning.  Although outcomes in the Year 1 phonics check are strong, the success of the phonics teaching is not always used to push pupils to have a secure understanding of more complex reading skills, such as inference and deduction.  Teachers and leaders do not have an accurate view of what pupils can and cannot do. This means that learning activities do not match pupils’ needs properly and this slows progress. At times, this means that pupils continue to make mistakes and it can often mean that pupils are not challenged sufficiently. As a result, too few pupils reach the expected standards for their age in reading, writing and mathematics.  The most able pupils, like other ability groups, do not make good progress. They are

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

not given work which meets their needs and challenges them. This means that very few move beyond the expected standards in reading, writing and mathematics.  Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities do not make enough progress in reading, writing and mathematics.  There are too few disadvantaged pupils currently in the school to draw conclusions about this group’s progress and achievement.

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Early years provision Inadequate

 Children from the early years join pupils from Year 1 to Year 6 at playtime in the morning. Due to the unsafe behaviour of older pupils and the lack of supervision by adults, children are not safe at this time of the day. Safeguarding of children in the early years is therefore not effective.  Most children arrive with skills and abilities that are typical for their age. From these starting points, children make progress and a very high proportion reach the expected standard by the end of Reception. However, very few move beyond the expected standard.  Teachers do not always plan activities that challenge children to ensure that more of them can move beyond the expected standard across the different learning areas of the early years curriculum. 8–9 March 2017  Teaching does not meet children’s needs well because assessment is not precise enough. Assessment is not sufficiently effective to plan activities and experiences

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Early years provision Inadequate

which extend and challenge children.  The curriculum and indoor activities enable children to develop their reading, writing and mathematics. Children also develop their physical and communication skills. Opportunities to develop these skills are not as strong in the outdoor area. This inhibits children’s progress over time.  Children conduct themselves well and understand the routines in place, which they value and follow. As a result, children enjoy the opportunities provided.  Parents are happy and feel that their children are well cared for and make good progress. Children often reach the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics and are sufficiently well prepared for Year 1. 8–9 March 2017

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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

Email address headteacher@saxton.n-yorks.sch.uk

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School details

Date of previous inspection 5–6 October 2011

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Information about this school

 The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.  This is a smaller than average-sized primary school.  The majority of pupils are of White British heritage.  A much lower than average proportion of pupils are disadvantaged.  The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is above average.  Children enter the school in Reception on a full-time basis.  The school is organised into three mixed-aged classes. 8–9 March 2017

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Information about this inspection

 The inspector observed learning in a range of lessons and in books.  The inspector observed and spoke with pupils during lessons and at breaktime. She also met formally with groups of pupils from the Reception class to Year 6. In addition, she considered the responses from 15 pupils to the online questionnaire.  Inspectors heard pupils from Year 2 and Year 6 read.  Meetings were held with senior and middle leaders. Meetings also took place with some parents, members of the governing body and representatives from the local authority.  The inspector observed the school’s work and looked at pupils’ work and a range of documents, including the school’s arrangements for safeguarding, performance management procedures and pupils’ attendance data. Information about pupils’ progress and attainment was also examined.  The inspector considered 47 parental responses to the online questionnaire (Parent View) and spoke with parents as they brought their children to school. The inspector

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Information about this inspection

also considered the views of parents who wrote letters to her.  The headteacher was absent during the inspection.

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Inspection team

Fiona McNally, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector 8–9 March 2017 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

If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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