Haytor View Community Primary School

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

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Mrs Katy Galling Haytor View Community Primary School Queensway Newton Abbot Devon TQ12 4BD

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Short inspection of Haytor View Community Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 12 July 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 October 2012.

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Short inspection of Haytor View Community Primary School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You, your leadership team and governors have been uncompromising in your drive to ensure that the school is firmly rooted in the heart of the community it serves. Involving pupils and parents in decisions made about the school’s development is integral to the ethos of the school. For example, you sought and included a number of their ideas for the way the new school building should look and operate. Your commitment to ensuring that all pupils are afforded the very best opportunity to achieve as well as they possibly can, is at the centre of every decision you make. Your emphasis on developing pupils’ resilience, their social skills and personal confidence ensures that they work hard in lessons and enjoy their time at school. You have developed strengths within the leadership team that have secured improvements in teaching and raised pupils’ standards. Targeted

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Short inspection of Haytor View Community Primary School

professional development opportunities for staff at different stages of their career have helped them to improve and to carry out their roles and responsibilities well.

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Short inspection of Haytor View Community Primary School

Pupils behave well, work hard in lessons and listen carefully to their teachers and each other. They value each other and work together to find solutions in a mature way. A very small number of parents responded to the online questionnaire, Parent View, but many more have responded to the school’s own questionnaires over the last year. The vast majority of parents express strongly their confidence in the school and recognise and appreciate its place as the hub of their community, although a few express negative views. Since the previous inspection, you have strengthened the quality of leadership in the early years and Years 1 and 2. This has resulted in the improved teaching of letters and the sounds they represent, which has lifted the standard of pupils’ reading and writing. The number of pupils passing the phonics screening check in Year 1 has increased significantly to above the national average. Standards in

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Short inspection of Haytor View Community Primary School

mathematics have also improved, as lessons enable pupils to build successfully on what they already know and understand.

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Short inspection of Haytor View Community Primary School

You have supported other leaders and teachers to develop procedures for accurately assessing pupils’ knowledge and skills. This has led to much-improved planning of lessons. You acknowledge that there is more to do to ensure that this process is highly effective across the school, and that it identifies precisely what each pupil needs to learn next so that they achieve as well as they can from their different starting points.

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Short inspection of Haytor View Community Primary School

A strong culture of safeguarding has been established that is informed by a deep knowledge of pupils’ individual needs and those of their families. You have ensured that safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are detailed and of high quality. Pupils report that they feel safe at school and are confident that an adult would support them if they have a worry or concern. Staff are quick to note, and to follow up on, any issues that might arise. Working closely with your parent support worker, you ensure that pupils and parents get the help they need, and you are determined in your pursuit of a response from outside agencies to keep pupils and their families safe. You ensure that parents and pupils have access to a wide range of information and guidance to help them to understand how to keep themselves safe.

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Short inspection of Haytor View Community Primary School

You and your staff promote respectful relationships between pupils and between adults and pupils. This helps to ensure that everyone is valued and pupils are able to enjoy their lessons. Pupils who find behaving well a challenge receive bespoke support to help them to improve. A number of pupils have been successfully managed in this way and are now able to interact positively with other pupils and to focus on their learning. Pupils are able to explain how to manage personal risk in a range of situations. For example, when using mobile telephones or computers, they are clear that ‘if you feel uncomfortable, you should turn it off and go and tell an adult.’ Leaders are very quick to pursue any issues relating to attendance with families, and as a result pupils’ attendance is good.

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Inspection findings

 One of my lines of enquiry was to explore the circumstances that lead to pupils being excluded from school for a fixed period of time. We looked at why these exclusions have happened in the past, how the school has liaised with parents throughout the process and what has happened to reintegrated pupils into school. It is clear that difficulties pupils experience outside school sometimes have an impact on the way they behave in school. Working closely with pupils and their parents, the school provides support to help them to resolve any issues, to try to prevent any situation arising that would result in a pupil being excluded. Where exclusion is unavoidable, a comprehensive plan is implemented to successfully reintegrate pupils back into school after the exclusion period is over. By reviewing and revising the school’s procedures over the last two years, the likelihood of pupils reaching a crisis point that results in exclusion has been

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Inspection findings

hugely reduced. Help is provided at an earlier stage for pupils and parents both from within the school and, where appropriate, from outside agencies. This proactive approach has significantly reduced the number of fixed-term exclusions over the last two years.  Standards at the end of early years have improved over the last three years and are now close to those found nationally. We looked at how this has been achieved. With your encouragement, the leader of early years has raised the expectation of what children can achieve. Better assessment procedures mean that staff are clear about what children already know and understand, and what they need to learn next. Using this information to guide planning has resulted in children making good and often rapid progress in, for example, their understanding of numbers and letter sounds. Activities are well matched to children’s experiences and interests, and encourage them to investigate and

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Inspection findings

explore their environment inside and outdoors. Adults involve themselves directly in children’s play and are quick to seize opportunities as they arise to move children’s learning on quickly. Although there is more to do, this approach is ensuring that an increasing number of children are well prepared for their work in Year 1.  Finally, we looked at what is being done to increase the progress made by disadvantaged pupils, including the most able disadvantaged, through Years 3 to 6 so that more reach the expected or higher standard in reading, writing and mathematics. You were able to demonstrate that every year group is different. In some years, disadvantaged pupils have done better than other pupils in terms of the standards they reach, and for other year groups the reverse is true. What is clear is that in every year group teaching responds to pupils’ individual needs. Year-on-year, the progress being made by both groups of pupils is rising,

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Inspection findings

particularly in reading and mathematics. This trend has continued this year, with many pupils in Year 6 having made rapid progress from Year 2. The accuracy of teachers’ assessment has improved and they check frequently on the progress being made by pupils. Teachers adapt their planning if necessary to ensure that pupils’ learning continues to move forwards at a good rate. If a pupil is not making enough progress, the reasons for this are unpicked and action is taken swiftly to address them. Work is ongoing to ensure that the process of assessing pupils, identifying precisely what they need to learn next and ensuring that they are challenged at the right level so that they make the best possible progress continues.  Standards in writing across the school are improving in each key stage. Pupils’ progress in writing, although good, has not been as rapid as for reading and mathematics. You recognise, however, that although the content of pupils’

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Inspection findings

written work in English lessons is often of good quality, their handwriting and the resulting overall presentation of their work does not always reflect this. In addition, pupils have too few opportunities to understand the relevance of their learning by practising their writing skills in other subjects.

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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

 across the school, assessment information is used more precisely to ensure that pupils make rapid progress from their starting points, so that more reach the expected or higher standard in reading, writing and mathematics  pupils have more opportunities to use their writing skills when working in other subjects  the quality of pupils’ handwriting improves, so that it better reflects the often good-quality content of their written work.

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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 Devon. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, I held meetings with you and your deputy, your parent support worker, business manager and attendance officer. We reviewed documents and records linked to safeguarding, including how the school registers and pursues concerns about pupils, and staff training, recruitment and vetting procedures. Three members of the governing body, including the chair of governors, met with me to discuss the school’s progress since the previous inspection and their future plans for the school. I had a telephone conversation with a representative of the local authority. The school’s current self-evaluation information and improvement plan were considered. I spoke to parents at the start of the school day and gathered their views further through the school’s most recent parent questionnaires and Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View. Responses to the staff questionnaire were also taken into account. I talked with pupils during lessons and at lunchtime.

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Information about the inspection

You and your deputy observed lessons with me in the Nursery and Reception and in Years 1 to 6. We looked at a selection of pupils’ written and mathematics work and information about their progress.

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