Stirling Primary School

Stirling Primary School Prospect Place, Doncaster, South Yorkshire DN1 3QP

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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 Requires improvement

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Leaders, managers and governors have not done enough to improve the school’s performance or improve the quality of teaching and learning.  The standards that pupils achieve at the end of Year 6 are too low in reading, writing and mathematics and show little sign of improving.  The quality of teaching is inadequate. Teaching does not ensure that pupils make good enough progress over time.  The work set in lessons is not well matched to the needs of the pupils. This means that they are unable to learn as well as they should.  Behaviour is inadequate. Staff do not all have high enough expectations of behaviour in lessons. Weaknesses in pupils’ behaviour impact adversely on learning.  Safeguarding is ineffective. Recent improvements to safeguarding procedures have not yet created a culture of safeguarding in school.  Pupils’ progress across key stage 1 is slow. This means that they will not catch up from their

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

low starting points.  The support for disadvantaged pupils is not helping them to catch up with other pupils nationally.  Leadership of the curriculum is weak. Leaders do not know if the pupils receive a broad and balanced curriculum. They do not know how well the curriculum is being delivered or how well pupils achieve across all subjects.  Leaders do not check the progress of groups of pupils. Early years provision does not provide well for the needs of different groups of children.  Teachers in key stages 1 and 2 do not use information from assessments of pupils’ current abilities to inform planning.  Governors do not hold leaders to account sufficiently for pupils’ poor progress. They do not check the accuracy of information they receive effectively enough.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 The majority of pupils are polite, respectful and behave well in the playground.  Leaders have developed stronger links with parents and have effective bilingual support in place.  Leadership of mathematics has been strengthened and recent changes are beginning to improve the quality of the teaching of mathematics.

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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?

 As a matter of urgency, ensure that all aspects of safeguarding are effective by: – updating the safeguarding policy to ensure that it reflects the school’s context – ensuring that all staff read and understand the school’s safeguarding policy and procedures and follow these closely – providing appropriate supervision at all times to keep pupils safe – ensuring that strategies to improve attendance are effective, especially for disadvantaged pupils.  Improve the quality of leadership and management by: – rapidly improving the capacity and skill of leaders so that they are able to drive improvement in the school. This is particularly the case in English, the early years and in the support the school gives to pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities – leaders, including governors, ensuring that pupils receive a broad and balanced curriculum that promotes good outcomes – checking that teachers use the information they gather about the progress of

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

different groups of pupils to inform their planning so that all pupils make good progress.  Improve the quality of teaching and learning in order to raise achievement by ensuring that teachers consistently: – plan activities that meet the needs of all groups of pupils, including the most able, those who speak English as an additional language and those in low prior-attaining groups, to enable them to make rapid progress in reading, writing and mathematics – check how well pupils are learning within lessons so that they can provide further challenge or support – check that pupils act on the advice they receive – have high expectations of what all pupils can achieve, how they should present their work and how they should behave in lessons – provide further opportunities for pupils to develop their use of English. An external review of the school’s use of the pupil premium funding should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

An external review of 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 Inadequate

 Leaders, managers and governors have been ineffective in preventing a decline in the school’s performance since the last inspection. Areas identified for improvement in the last inspection have not been sufficiently addressed.  Until recently, the school has had very little leadership capacity to implement the changes that are required. Staff turnover has meant that the deputy headteachers have little time to support the improvement of teaching and learning because they have been given an increased teaching commitment. The school has benefited from the addition of an executive headteacher and support from a range of external sources. This has ensured that a detailed rapid improvement plan and clearer systems for checking the quality of teaching and learning are now in place. It is too early for these to have had significant impact on the quality of teaching and learning.  Systems to check the quality of teaching in lessons and the quality of learning over

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

time in pupils’ books have been underdeveloped until recently. This has meant that leaders have not had an accurate picture of the quality of teaching and learning, and what has needed to be done to raise standards.  The school now has senior leaders and middle leaders who have a clear understanding of their areas of responsibility. However, the way they are currently deployed means that they are not always able to carry out their roles effectively. The person responsible for supporting pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities has very limited time to fulfil her role.  The leader responsible for mathematics has a good understanding of how well the mathematics curriculum is being taught. The leader now has a plan in place to check this and to provide support for teachers and other adults. Some recent improvements have been made to the teaching of mathematics by encouraging teachers to plan

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

sequences of lessons in more depth and to use resources effectively. The results of this work, however, remain inconsistent.  The headteacher and executive headteacher share responsibility for the leadership of English. Their impact on English is limited due to the substantial commitments required by their leadership roles, which include implementing the school’s rapid improvement plan. There is no clear plan in place to raise standards in reading or writing.  The leader responsible for supporting pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities has put in place systems that allow the school to identify the specific needs of pupils and provide them with support. However, she has little time to ensure that these systems are effective. This means that the systems may not be sustainable and pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities may not get the support that they need. The use of special educational needs funding has had a limited impact.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

The adults working with pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities provide useful guidance. However, the impact of their support is limited because pupils’ activities are sometimes not well matched to their particular learning needs.  The leadership of the curriculum is weak. The school has adopted a thematic, project- based approach to the curriculum. However, leaders are not consistently checking whether the content is being taught. The school has a leader for physical education and for science. Leaders do not check how well these and other subjects are being taught. This means that leaders cannot know whether the national curriculum is being delivered fully, or how well the pupils are achieving in different subjects. There are currently very few extra-curricular activities available for pupils.  The school has recently developed stronger links with parents. The appointment of a

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

member of staff who provides bilingual support has had a positive impact in developing good relationships between parents and the school.  The local authority is providing the school with rigorous and regular support, and now holds fortnightly challenge meetings following a review in January 2017.  Newly qualified teachers may not be appointed.

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Governance of the school

 Governors have an extensive knowledge of the context of the school and are passionate about helping it to improve. The governors know that standards are not high enough. Governors have been proactive in engaging with the local authority, a local academy trust and the local teaching school for support. Governors recognise that these actions have been ‘too little, too late’ and that support now needs to be more intensive.  Governors do not carry out checks on safeguarding to validate the information they receive, but accept the information they receive from leaders. Governors have a clear understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and the reasons behind these. Governors are aware of the actions the school is taking to address these issues through their attendance at fortnightly challenge meetings with the local authority. They make some visits to the school and they have looked at pupils’ books.

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Governance of the school

 Governors do not challenge leaders sufficiently to adapt how pupil premium funding impacts on pupils. Governors have a good understanding of the performance management process. The way that teachers move up and down the pay scale is matched to their performance. Governors are informed about the use of the pupil premium funding. They recognise that this is not impacting sufficiently on outcomes for these pupils.

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Safeguarding

 The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.  The school has appropriate policies in place and staff receive relevant training. These policies and practices are not always used well by adults in the school and this means that some pupils could be at risk of harm. Leaders agree that there is not yet a culture of effective safeguarding in school.  There is a considerable gap in the recording of physical restraint between 2015 and 2017. This means that there is no information about how pupils were handled for a significant period of time.  Supervision procedures are not always followed effectively enough. For example, a group of children in the early years were deemed to be at risk because they were left unsupervised in the classroom.  Safer recruitment processes are robust. Appropriate checks are carried out to ensure that adults are suitable to work with pupils.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

 By the end of Year 6, pupils do not make the progress expected of them from their starting points. This is because the quality of teaching across the school is too variable. The quality of teaching over time ranges from being inadequate to a small proportion of teaching that is very strong. Overall, this is not strong enough to raise pupils’ standards across the school.  The most able pupils are not challenged sufficiently in too many lessons to enable them to reach higher standards in reading, writing and mathematics. The additional activities that teachers plan for the most able pupils do not always extend pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding.  Teaching is not always effective for lower-ability pupils. Activities are often not well planned. As a result, their progress is too slow.  Pupils who speak English as an additional language are not supported well enough. Adults reinforce useful vocabulary and encourage pupils to respond and write in

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

complete sentences. This is not enough to accelerate their progress. Pupils experience too few opportunities to develop their use of English by talking about their learning during lessons. Resources and displays do not enable pupils to develop their use of the English language.  Pupils learn well when they are taught effectively. The adults know exactly which pupils need support and which pupils need further challenge. This was the case in Year 2 mathematics, where pupils learned well in finding fractions of shapes. The activities matched the pupils’ abilities and pupils were encouraged to solve problems. However, teachers are not responsive enough when individual pupils need support or need to be challenged by more difficult tasks. This means that pupils learn slowly and can become restless.  Expectations of behaviour and pupils’ attitudes to learning are not high enough. Large numbers of pupils lose focus quickly, especially when they are not working directly with

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

an adult. Often, these behaviours are not corrected by adults, so pupils continue to chat or distract others, resulting in less time for pupils to learn.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.  Pupils’ attitudes to learning vary. When activities are not well matched to the pupils’ needs, they lose concentration quickly and their behaviour deteriorates.  Pupils feel they are safe in school and that the staff are there to help them. They feel less confident that cases of bullying will be resolved in the long term, even if they are addressed immediately by adults. A small number of pupils say that bullying usually focuses on race or religion. School records show that a high number of instances of bullying are reported.  Pupils have a good understanding of healthy living and they enjoy assemblies which help them to learn more about the ways they can keep fit. They can explain how they can stay healthy and would like to have the opportunity to participate in more physical activities.  There is only one extra-curricular activity currently available for pupils. This means that

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Personal development and welfare

they do not have opportunities to broaden their experiences or benefit from opportunities to enjoy additional activities with their friends.  Only half of the pupils responding to Pupil View (the inspection questionnaire) would recommend their school to other pupils, although they feel that their school is ‘getting better’.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.  Pupils say that they are often distracted by others in the classroom and this stops them from learning.  A small number of pupils show a lack of respect for staff and refuse to follow instructions. While this is generally managed within the classroom, some pupils have to be removed to enable others to learn. Some younger pupils were observed climbing on furniture and this put them at risk of harm.  Pupils’ behaviour at playtimes and at lunchtimes is positive. Pupils played well together on the field and enjoyed using the playtime equipment. The atmosphere was calm in the dining hall. Pupils were observed running through the school several times and this was not addressed by adults.  Attendance remains below the national average. It has increased slightly this year, but this improvement is fragile due to the high numbers of pupils entering and leaving the school. Unauthorised absences remain high and the proportion of pupils who are

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Behaviour

persistently absent remains well above the national average. The gap between the attendance of disadvantaged pupils and other pupils has continued to widen despite the use of the pupil premium funding.  Rates of exclusion were high in 2015/16 and have increased considerably this year due to the behaviours of a small number of pupils.

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

 Pupils’ achievement is inadequate and standards in reading, writing, English spelling and grammar, and mathematics have been well below average for the past two years. The school has not met floor targets for the past two years and is unlikely to do so in 2017.  Teaching is too variable to raise standards. Progress in books shows that many pupils will not make enough progress to reach the expected standards for their age.  The most able pupils do not achieve as well as they should because work is often not demanding and does not give them the opportunity to deepen or apply what they have learned.  A large proportion of pupils enter and leave the school throughout the year. While some pupils start the school later than others and find it hard to catch up, those pupils who have attended the school for much longer fare no better because they make similar or slower progress.  Disadvantaged pupils, those supported by the pupil premium, make similar progress to

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

other pupils. This does not enable them to catch up with other pupils nationally.  Outcomes at the end of the early years have improved over the past three years, but remain well below the national average. Although outcomes have got closer to the national average, this progress is not sustained in key stage 1. Pupils make slow progress across Year 1 and Year 2, and remain well below the national average for reading, writing and mathematics.  The progress of pupils in key stage 2 this year appears to be more positive following the high levels of support that the school has received. However, the school cannot be confident that these pupils have made similar progress in recent years, and does not have the evidence to demonstrate this. Pupils’ attainment in Year 6 is expected to remain below floor targets this year.  Pupils’ phonic skills in Year 1 are well below the national average and are predicted to

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

remain so this year. Pupils are beginning to use their skills to read unfamiliar words more confidently due to the way teachers support children early on in school.  Leaders are unsure of how much progress different groups of children in the early years make during the year. Leaders assess the children as they enter the school, but they do not check how much progress different groups of children have made until the end of the year. This means that funding and support for these groups is not clearly focused on what children need.  The school has now implemented a detailed system to track the progress of different groups of pupils as they move through key stage 1 and key stage 2. This enables the school to identify individual pupils who are not making the progress they should, and plan actions to support their development. This is at an early stage and any impact is yet to be determined. School leaders are not confident that teachers’ assessment of the

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

standard of pupils’ work is always accurate, so they cannot be sure that pupils are making expected progress in each class.

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Early years provision Inadequate

 Information about the children shows that they enter school well below the level expected for their age. Children’s attainment has improved over recent years and is expected to be similar this year, although it remains well below the expected level.  The school provides a wide range of opportunities for parents and children to make an effective transition into Nursery. The school organises ‘play and stay’ sessions for families to visit the setting. Family meetings are also held about specific issues such as dental health. These meetings help parents to form relationships with the school from an early stage.  The school does not know whether the funding for disadvantaged children in the early years is being used effectively. This is because leaders do not track the progress of different groups of children across the early years.  Teachers do not use the information they have about children’s learning well enough to

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Early years provision Inadequate

plan appropriate activities. Adults check children’s learning accurately, but the plans they produce lack enough detail to provide tasks that are well matched to the needs of the children. For example, the most able children are not challenged because over- simplistic activities do not stimulate them.  Children enter the early years with language skills that are below the level expected for their age. There are not enough high-quality opportunities for children to develop their language skills and extend their vocabulary. When children are given opportunities to discuss ideas about their story, ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’, many do not follow instructions and some choose not to contribute. Adults’ modelling of language is sometimes incorrect and grammar is poorly used. This impacts negatively on the children’s language development.  Children are quick to lose focus and this means that behaviour deteriorates quickly.

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Early years provision Inadequate

Adults have to continually bring the children’s attention back to their tasks and this slows learning. Some children lack focus when working independently and move frequently from one activity to another. This means that they do not focus on the learning intended and are sometimes disruptive to others. Some children climbed on furniture and threw equipment at their peers.  The headteacher leads the early years supported by the early years mentor. The impact of early years leadership is limited considerably by the headteacher's commitment to lead and manage other areas of the school. Consequently, the capacity of the school to improve provision in the early years is limited. The quality of teaching is too variable and this impacts on the children’s progress.  The previous Ofsted inspection identified that the school should improve the outdoor provision for children. Leaders have not acted quickly enough to address this. The

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Early years provision Inadequate

outdoor provision still does not provide enough purposeful learning opportunities for the children.

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School details

This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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School details

Appropriate authority The local governing body

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School details

Email address headteacher@stirling.doncaster.sch.uk

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School details

Date of previous inspection 17  18 March 2015

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Information about this school

 The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.  This school is larger than the average-sized primary school and the numbers on roll change considerably during the academic year.  The proportion of disadvantaged pupils, those supported by the pupil premium, is well above average.  Over three quarters of pupils speak English as an additional language.  The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is lower than average.  Large numbers of pupils enter or leave the school each year. This means that class sizes and the needs of each class can change considerably.  The school does not currently meet the government’s floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics.  The school works closely in partnership with the local authority, an academy trust and a local teaching school alliance.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed learning in all year groups except Year 6 who were undertaking their national curriculum tests. Some of these observations were carried out jointly with the executive headteacher.  Inspectors looked at examples of work in a range of subjects and spoke with pupils about their work.  Meetings were held with senior leaders, middle leaders, the member of staff responsible for attendance, the local authority, staff, pupils and two members of the governing body.  Inspectors scrutinised the school’s website.  Inspectors spoke with a number of parents on the playground and considered parents’ views on Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View.  Inspectors reviewed a range of documentation relating to safeguarding, attendance, and pupils’ behaviour and achievement. The school’s rapid improvement plan and the school’s own evaluation of its performance were also considered.

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Inspection team

Jaimie Holbrook, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector

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Inspection team

Lynda Johnson 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

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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