West View Primary School

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

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Mrs Charlotte Haylock West View Primary School Davison Drive Hartlepool TS24 9BP

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Short inspection of West View Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 12 September 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 your predecessor school was judged to be good in December 2009.

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Short inspection of West View Primary School

Since your appointment as headteacher in November 2016, you have promptly identified the steps required to secure the continued development for the school and are providing insightful leadership to drive improvement. This has ensured that pupils receive good teaching in a calm and purposeful learning environment, which enables them to grow personally and improve academically. Along with your deputy headteacher, senior leaders and governors, you have accurately identified the school’s strengths and priorities for improvement. The school’s detailed self- evaluation and improvement plan clearly identify the priorities for improving the school further. Your approach to developing leadership roles across the school has further strengthened leadership capacity. Consequently, the leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection.

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Short inspection of West View Primary School

The hard work you and your staff put into creating a nurturing, friendly and caring school is paying dividends. As a result, pupils develop good learning behaviours, and they demonstrate caring and tolerant attitudes and their confidence flourishes. Pupils work hard in lessons and teachers provide them with regular praise and feedback. This encourages pupils to improve and develop their work. Parents’ exceedingly positive responses and comments to the online parent survey, Parent View, show how highly parents value the work of everyone in your school.

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Short inspection of West View Primary School

Leaders and staff have successfully tackled the areas identified for improvement at the inspection of your predecessor school. They have also maintained the previously identified strengths related to pupils’ personal development and welfare.

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Short inspection of West View Primary School

Your first area to address was to improve the attainment of Year 2 pupils in reading, writing and mathematics. In the last two years, pupils have in the main made good progress from their starting points by the end of Year 2. Furthermore, children make good progress in developing their phonics knowledge from early years and across key stage 1. As a result, by the end of Year 1, the proportion of pupils working at the expected standard is similar to the national average. By the end of Year 2, the vast majority of pupils are working at the expected standard in phonics.

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Short inspection of West View Primary School

The second area to improve was the consistent use of assessment to promote learning. You have revised your approaches to assessment to match the curriculum. Staff and leaders make effective use of assessments to monitor pupils’ progress and to identify any gaps in pupils’ learning. During the inspection, pupils could readily explain to me how teachers helped them to improve their work.

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Short inspection of West View Primary School

The third area to address was improving the use of outdoor provision in early years by using it more and providing challenging activities. When we visited the outdoor provision, we noted that the two-year-old and Nursery children engaged well with a range of activities and adults provided effective guidance and questioning to develop children’s learning. While some activities were available to develop children’s reading, writing and mathematical skills, you agreed that there is more to do to enhance further this aspect of the provision.

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Short inspection of West View Primary School

The final area to address was to improve the attainment of boys in English by providing ‘boy-friendly’ activities that meet their needs. You and your staff have introduced a range of strategies to engage boys with their learning. One example of this is your ‘Oasis’ curriculum, which provides tailored practical activities to support the learning of small groups of pupils who benefit from this approach. As a result of your variety of approaches, by the end of key stage 2 there is little variation between the progress of boys and girls in reading and writing. However, you recognise that the attainment of boys still lags behind that of girls. The difference between boys’ and girls’ outcomes in reading and writing at the end of early years in 2017 is one that you and your early years leader have identified and have developed clear plans to address.

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Short inspection of West View Primary School

You and your staff are ambitious to accelerate further pupils’ progress across the school. You have recognised that in 2017, pupils’ progress in key stage 2 was not as strong as in the previous year and have taken swift action to improve this. This has included targeted deployment of staff and additional teacher support for pupils where you have identified any gaps in their learning. Your detailed analysis of pupils’ progress has identified that pupils’ progress and attainment in writing are areas for development, particularly across key stage 2.

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Short inspection of West View Primary School

Safeguarding is effective. Leaders and governors have ensured that current safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are of a high quality. You, your staff and governors give the highest priority to keeping pupils safe and there is a strong culture of safeguarding across the school. Leaders carry out appropriate checks for all staff, governors and volunteers. The safeguarding systems and records are meticulously organised to make retrieval of safeguarding information efficient. Staff understand the safeguarding procedures and their own responsibilities. Leaders manage referrals to other agencies effectively and work closely with parents where required. Staff and governors receive regular and appropriate training so they know how to keep pupils safe, including training about how to protect pupils from radicalisation and extremism. The social inclusion manager has a determined and diligent

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Short inspection of West View Primary School

approach to ensuring that vulnerable pupils and where necessary their families receive the support they need to be safe and to access appropriate support services.

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Short inspection of West View Primary School

Your curriculum helps pupils know how to keep themselves safe, including when they are online. They know the different forms that bullying can take and know that staff will help them if they ever have concerns. The school’s records show that staff quickly address the limited number of incidents of bullying. Parents agree that their children feel safe in your school and that staff ensure that children are well behaved.

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Inspection findings

 You are providing strong leadership to steer the school on its journey of continuous improvement. Your approach of developing leadership throughout the school, well supported by your governors, is increasing leadership capacity. Regular checking of the quality of teaching by collating a range of information helps you and your leaders to identify where staff need support or where they have strengths to share both within school and across the trust. As a result, teaching is enabling pupils to make good progress overall. Where pupils’ progress needs to improve, you and your staff are taking appropriate action to address this.  Governors have a good understanding of the school’s priorities and the community the school serves. They provide an effective balance of support and challenge. Their regular meetings with leaders keep them well informed about school improvements. Governors are keen to hear the views of pupils and ensure

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Inspection findings

that ‘pupil voice’ is considered through pupils’ presentations and by visiting classrooms. As a result, they can strategically check that leaders’ actions are improving outcomes for pupils. The governor with responsibility for safeguarding meets regularly with the social inclusion manager and the special educational needs coordinator to ensure that she is well informed about these aspects of the school.

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Inspection findings

 The assistant headteacher, who provides subject leadership for English, has a good understanding of the priorities for improvement in reading and writing. Working with other leaders in her team, she has developed appropriate plans to develop pupils’ progress in writing, which is a priority for the school. She carefully checks the impact of the actions taken to improve pupils’ outcomes. For example, following training for staff in the teaching of spelling, she completed a useful analysis that demonstrated improvements in pupils’ spelling skills.  The development of mathematics teaching was a key priority for the school in 2016. The mathematics subject leader identified through analysis of pupils’ assessments and auditing of staff’s own subject expertise a range of actions to improve pupils’ outcomes in mathematics. This included the introduction of new mathematics resources and training for staff. The impact of this work is evident

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Inspection findings

in improved attainment in mathematics across the school including early years. When I visited classrooms with you and your deputy headteacher, there was strong evidence of improved use of reasoning and problem-solving work in pupils’ mathematics books. Pupils were keen to tell me how much they enjoyed the ‘learning without limits’ mathematics challenges that you have introduced.  The leader for early years has ensured the continued development of early years provision. Over the last three years, the overall proportion of children achieving a good level of development has improved. As a result, more children are ready for starting Year 1. However, your analysis shows that boys’ achievement in reading and writing is an area that requires further development. The early years leader has clear plans to address this area.  Since the last inspection, the school has introduced provision for two-year-olds.

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Inspection findings

When we visited this provision together, the new starters had already settled well into the routines and provision provided. They were mixing well with older Nursery children in the outdoor provision and engaging well with a range of appropriate learning activities. This is helping children be well prepared for starting Nursery and supporting the development of their early learning and personal development and social skills.  The overall levels of attendance have not been high enough and the persistent absence levels for some boys were particularly high in 2016. You and your social inclusion manager have taken robust action to address this. For example, this has included visiting the homes of absent pupils to identify how support can be provided for pupils to improve their attendance. Your determined approaches and strategies of support are having a clear impact. Overall attendance is improving and the level of persistent absence by boys is falling. You recognise that there is

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Inspection findings

more to do and have plans to introduce a ‘walking bus’ to further support pupils and their families in improving punctuality and attendance. During my meeting with pupils, they were clear about the value of good attendance and punctuality.

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Inspection findings

 The Ad Astra Academy Trust has provided effective support to improve the quality of teaching and learning and leadership. Staff have benefited from a range of trust network hubs to develop their skills. The range of school support services, such as human resources and estate management, enables school leaders to focus on curriculum development and the quality of teaching and learning. Opportunities for peer review completed with a number of local schools, including those in the trust, support school improvement and working beyond your own school.

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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

 pupils’ progress in writing accelerates and that the proportion of pupils working at the expected levels and higher standards increases, particularly across key stage 2  boys make improved progress in reading and writing in early years so that increased numbers of boys achieve a good level of development.

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

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Information about the inspection

During this one-day inspection, I discussed the work of the school with you, your deputy headteacher, the social inclusion manager and the leaders for English, mathematics and early years. I observed and spoke with pupils during playtime and at other times during the day. I held discussions with the chief executive officer and head of school improvement for Ad Astra Academy Trust. I met with two governors who were able to provide me with additional information. I took into account school documentation, assessment information, policies and information posted on the school website. I considered the 62 responses to the Ofsted questionnaire, Parent View. I reviewed the 24 responses to the pupil survey and the 36 responses to the staff survey. Along with you and your deputy headteacher, I visited seven classes to observe teaching and learning. I looked at pupils’ English and mathematics work to help evaluate the quality of teaching and learning over time. I considered

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Information about the inspection

behaviour and attendance records and information relating to safeguarding.

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