Kelvin Grove Primary School

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

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Mr Ian Hyde Headteacher Kelvin Grove Primary School Kelvin Grove London SE26 6BB

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Short inspection of Kelvin Grove Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 12 September 2017 with Clementina Aina, Ofsted Inspector, 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 July 2013.

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Short inspection of Kelvin Grove Primary School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection

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Short inspection of Kelvin Grove Primary School

Following your appointment as headteacher in September 2016, you quickly established an accurate understanding of the quality of the education at the school. As a result, your plans for improvement are focused on the right areas. Staff and governors understand what more they need to do and are committed to bringing about further success.

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Short inspection of Kelvin Grove Primary School

You have clarified roles and responsibilities of leaders within the school and made sure that staff understand that they are accountable for pupil progress. You have raised expectations by providing teachers with more accurate and frequent feedback about the quality of their teaching and its impact on how well pupils learn. Similarly, you have supported teachers to develop their effectiveness in the classroom through well-focused training.

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Short inspection of Kelvin Grove Primary School

You have developed close partnerships with other schools and the local authority to ensure that teachers’ checks on pupils’ progress are accurate. This has helped you and your team identify groups of pupils who are not achieving as well as they could. As a priority, you have rightly ensured that the most able pupils routinely attempt tasks which deepen their knowledge and skills across the curriculum, including in reading, writing and mathematics. Equally, you have identified that boys who have special educational needs and/or disabilities need further support to ensure that they do not fall behind in their learning. Governors demonstrate a strong commitment to the school and have high expectations for pupils’ academic success and their well-being. They are well informed about the school’s strengths and areas for further improvement. Parents and carers overwhelmingly agree that the school is welcoming. They also agree that

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Short inspection of Kelvin Grove Primary School

the school helps their children learn well.

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Short inspection of Kelvin Grove Primary School

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are detailed and of high quality. Regular training, open communication and the regular sharing of information ensure that staff have an up- to-date understanding of the risks to pupils’ safety and well-being. The team of staff specifically responsible for pupils with medical needs ensures that these pupils are kept safe. Staff know how to report concerns and develop their understanding of identifying and responding to risks through discussion and updates. Detailed records, timely responses and partnerships with external organisations ensure that any referrals and concerns are resolved as quickly as possible.

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Short inspection of Kelvin Grove Primary School

Pupils say that they feel safe in school because staff are caring and act promptly upon any concerns raised. Surveys of pupils and parents confirm this view. Cases of bullying are rare and are dealt with promptly and effectively, further underpinning pupils’ welfare.

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Short inspection of Kelvin Grove Primary School

Governors have a strong understanding of safeguarding. They take regular action to check that all staff understand the potential risks to children and how to respond should they have any concerns. They follow safer recruitment procedures correctly as part of their responsibility for ensuring the safety of pupils.

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Inspection findings

 A particular focus of this inspection related to how well children in Nursery and Reception develop their speaking and listening skills, particularly disadvantaged children. Pupils in Year 1 achieved less well in the phonics screening check compared to previous years. You identified that this reduced success with the phonics check was due to the quality of teaching in early years.  You recognised the need to strengthen the quality of teaching in the early years shortly after your arrival in the school. You provided support for teachers and raised their expectations through regular feedback about their teaching. There is now a stronger team of teachers in early years. They have already given children more opportunity and guidance to develop their speaking and listening skills. These teachers know the children’s needs well. They make sure that disadvantaged children do not fall behind and, where necessary, catch up with

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Inspection findings

their peers in relation to their speaking and listening skills.  Children are taught to develop their skills in phonics earlier than in previous years. Staff model the skills and sounds of language development and regularly discuss children’s ideas with them. Children enjoy learning through play. They are curious and enthusiastic about discussing their ideas. As a result, children are building good habits and laying strong foundations for the development of their speaking and listening skills. Disadvantaged pupils develop their language skills at a similar pace to other pupils.  A second focus for the inspection was related to your priority to strengthen pupils’ writing skills across all subjects in the curriculum in key stage 2.You accept that provisional assessment information suggests pupils in Year 6 in 2017 made only average progress in writing. Wider inspection evidence, including scrutiny of your own assessment information, shows that most groups of pupils

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Inspection findings

actually made good progress in writing. Boys who have special educational needs and/or disabilities achieved less well than other pupils and they lowered the school’s overall progress figure. You also identified that you need to provide more challenge for most-able pupils in writing and other subjects.  All staff make good use of the training they have received on the key features of quality writing. They have revised their teaching plans and now include many different types of opportunities for writing. Pupils across Years 3 to 6 regularly write for different audiences and different purposes. Teachers now receive more precise assessment information and use this increasingly carefully to target their teaching to better meet pupils’ needs. As a result, most groups of pupils make good progress. Disadvantaged pupils, as they pass through the school, make increasingly similar progress to that of other pupils. The focus upon boys who

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Inspection findings

have special educational needs and/or disabilities is a recent one and you accept that staff need to adjust their teaching further to ensure that these boys keep up with their peers. Inspection evidence also confirmed that teaching does not routinely ensure that the most able pupils are challenged to make strong progress.  The inspection considered whether there has been improvement from the weaker achievement in 2016. Provisional assessment information suggests that there has been improvement in reading outcomes. Progress in reading was noticeably higher compared to that in writing and mathematics. This confirms the strong capacity of leaders to bring about improvements in pupils’ learning.  During the inspection, pupils told us that they read widely. They also said that they read different types of texts. This includes Shakespeare, other modern popular authors and different types of non-fiction texts, including information

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Inspection findings

leaflets from organisations such as campaigning charities. Inspection evidence agreed with pupil and staff views that there are diverse opportunities to read across different subjects across the curriculum. The inspection team were also able to confirm that pupils see the value of reading, enjoy reading and read widely in their own time as well as in school.  A further focus of the inspection was to check whether rates of absence had reduced from the previous year. Published data indicated that over the past year rates of attendance for most groups of pupils had been below the national average. This was particularly the case for disadvantaged pupils and those pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities.  We found that attendance is now broadly average for most groups of pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and those pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. The school keeps pupils registered at the school even

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Inspection findings

when they have left. Pupils are only removed from the school register when the school receives confirmation that pupils who have left are safely attending another school. Although published attendance data seems low overall as a result of this policy, it helps to ensure the safety of pupils. Alongside this issue, your detailed checks on attendance confirmed that pupils from only a few families are have poor attendance. You continue to help these families increasingly understand and commit to the importance of good attendance at 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

 the progress made by the most able pupils at least matches that of other most- able pupils nationally by providing these pupils with work that is sufficiently challenging  the progress made by boys who have special educational needs and/or disabilities in writing is increased so that it at least matches their progress in reading.

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Next steps for the school

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body and the director of children’s services for Lewisham. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

We met with you and your senior leadership team, a group of teachers and members of the governing body, including the chair. We had a formal discussion with a group of pupils. The inspection considered 78 responses from parents to the school’s own recent questionnaire and 45 responses from parents to Ofsted’s online survey. There were 18 responses to Ofsted’s staff questionnaire, which we also considered. We jointly visited lessons to observe learning and to review pupils’ work. We evaluated a range of documentation and procedures related to safeguarding, including the school’s website and record of pre-employment checks on staff. Inspectors reviewed additional documentation related to leaders’ monitoring of the quality of teaching, the school’s self-evaluation, improvement plans, and assessment information relating to pupils’ progress and attainment.

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