Setting

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

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James Tee Executive Headteacher Berridge Primary and Nursery School Brushfield Site Berridge Road West Hyson Green Nottingham Nottinghamshire NG7 5LE

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and Nursery School

Following my visit to your school on 8 November 2017, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. Thank you for the help that you gave me and for the time that you made available to discuss the actions you are taking to improve the school since the most recent section 5 inspection.

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and Nursery School

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in February 2017. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. At its section 5 inspection before the one that took place in February 2017, the school was also judged to require improvement.

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and Nursery School

Senior leaders and governors are taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the recent section 5 inspection in order to become a good school.

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Evidence

During the inspection, I held meetings with you and the head of school, members of the governing body, subject and other leaders, and with a representative of the Nottingham Education Trust, which is providing external support for the school, to discuss the actions taken since the last inspection. I visited classrooms to observe the pupils working and discussed with them what they were doing. I looked at examples of their work during those visits and separately. I evaluated the school improvement plan and looked at a range of other documents, including information about the pupils’ recent progress, training and professional development records, records of activities by the governors and safeguarding records.

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Main findings

You, the senior leaders and the governing body are, steadily and systematically, bringing about the necessary changes required by the areas for improvement from the last inspection. Together, you have planned suitable developments carefully and in reasonable detail. As a result of your work with the governing body to produce a clearer and more sharply focused school improvement plan, the governing body has been able to check much more closely than before on how effective senior leaders’ actions have been in improving the school.

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Main findings

You and the senior leaders have set out clearly for the staff the priority to raise expectations of what the pupils can achieve. You have used several techniques effectively to establish minimum requirements for the quality of teaching and learning. The staff are responding well to the challenge.

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Main findings

Assisted well by an enthusiastic and dynamic team of subject and other leaders, the staff have improved the quality of teaching and learning. Routinely, they set out clearer and higher expectations of the pupils than were apparent at the last inspection. They demand greater care with handwriting and insist now on more and better work from the pupils. The expectations of what the pupils can achieve have risen, though they are not currently consistently high, particularly expectations of the most able pupils.

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Main findings

I found the emphasis given now in key stage 1 to improving handwriting skills, increasing the pupils’ vocabulary and ability to construct sentences, and to correcting the pupils’ misunderstandings and errors to be very evident. It was apparent in the classrooms, in the interactions between the staff and the pupils, in the pupils’ work and around the school.

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Main findings

The teachers have made useful changes, which have helped the pupils to understand better what they are supposed to be learning. They pose questions, verbally and in writing, designed to make the pupils think more deeply and to explain their thinking, including in mathematics. In mathematics, the school has adopted a particular scheme of work. That scheme is helping the teachers to provide the pupils with regular and frequent opportunities to practise their reasoning skills.

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Main findings

You have introduced new topics and activities and bought new resources, including books, designed to capture the boys’ interest and to motivate them more. In the lessons that I visited, the boys were concentrating on their work just as well as the girls. You are checking carefully now in each year group on how well the boys are doing, compared with the girls. You have identified clearly the areas where differences are still apparent and, particularly, where the boys are still doing noticeably less well than the girls.

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Main findings

The subject and other leaders check carefully on the quality of the school’s work. They use the results of their efforts astutely to provide guidance to and training for the teachers. The member of staff responsible for the physical education (PE) and sport premium has completed a detailed analysis of the pupils’ attitudes to PE and sport. That analysis provides a very useful baseline from which to measure improvements, including in relation to the relative participation of boys and girls.

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Main findings

The positive impact of the school’s work is becoming apparent in the pupils’ results in national tests and assessments. Although the results for key stage 2 in 2017 are still provisional, the pupils’ progress was above average in writing and in mathematics. It was average for reading. The progress in mathematics improved from 2016. The progress in reading improved notably, having been below average previously.

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Main findings

In key stage 1, the proportions of pupils reaching the expected standard show good increases in 2017. It is apparent that challenges remain at key stage 1 and, despite improvements in 2017, a challenge remains at both key stages in enabling more pupils to achieve greater depth in their learning.

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Main findings

You and the other leaders at the school are fully alert to the things that require further improvement. It is a mark of how the school works that such things are identified accurately through the careful and frequent checks that you carry out and are then dealt with progressively.

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External support

The school has benefited from a range of external support and training opportunities. I found clear evidence of the positive impact on leaders at different levels and on the governing body of the work of an adviser from the Nottingham Education Trust. You have also ensured that the staff take part in suitable training via a teaching school alliance and other networks. The staff are using what they learn to good effect.

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External support

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

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