Sheringham Community Primary School

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

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Mrs Rachael Carter and Mrs Sue Brady Headteachers Sheringham Community Primary School Cooper Road Off Holway Road Sheringham Norfolk NR26 8UH

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Short inspection of Sheringham Community Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 25 January 2018 with Paul Copping HMI, 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 Sheringham Community Primary School

This school continues to be good. The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection.

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Short inspection of Sheringham Community Primary School

Sheringham primary school is an outward-looking learning environment both for pupils and for adults. There is a shared commitment to ‘be all that you can be’. As joint headteachers, you work very effectively together to provide seamless leadership for the school. You are ably supported by the leadership team that welcomes the opportunities to take on responsibility for improving aspects of the school. Staff support each other and feel well supported by you.

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Short inspection of Sheringham Community Primary School

You have addressed the issues identified in the previous inspection report. One of these was attendance, which we looked at in detail during this inspection and have reported on below. The other issue was to improve the quality of teaching by making sure that work is closely matched to pupils’ abilities. You have done this by ensuring that teachers provide pupils with a range of challenges to select from, and that teachers carefully check that pupils choose appropriately. Consequently, work is well matched to pupils’ needs and abilities. You have also encouraged pupils’ positive attitudes. We found pupils to be very enthusiastic about their learning in all classes.

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Short inspection of Sheringham Community Primary School

Governors are highly committed to the school. However, they recognise that they need to be more rigorous in their level of monitoring and challenge in order to hold leaders more fully to account for the standards achieved. They requested and have responded quickly to a recent review of governance. They have changed personnel, introduced improved systems for monitoring and are taking steps to increase the capacity of the governing body. Pupils get off to a flying start to school in early years where they quickly learn the basics of reading through well-planned and effectively taught phonics sessions. They are given lots of opportunities to develop their independence, for example, through making their own play dough and cooking toast. As a result, they are well prepared to move into key stage 1.

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Short inspection of Sheringham Community Primary School

Teaching is good across the school. You have strategically placed teachers to share expertise across year groups. By moving staff between year groups, you develop their professional skills and expertise. You schedule joint planning sessions for teachers, which ensures a high level of consistency in teaching and learning across classes in the same year group. Teachers are confident and knowledgeable about the subjects they teach. Some have particular expertise as specialist leaders of education (SLE), which is utilised well. Teachers enjoy highly positive relationships with pupils. They plan interesting work and, as pupils told inspectors, make lessons fun.

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Short inspection of Sheringham Community Primary School

Pupils behave exceptionally well. They are welcoming and polite and enjoy talking with adults and with each other. This is because adults are very consistent in their expectations of how pupils behave in school. Pupils behave well in lessons, and at playtime a harmonious atmosphere exists.

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Short inspection of Sheringham Community Primary School

Pupils benefit from a broad and interesting curriculum, including high-quality science, art and language teaching. For example, pupils’ artwork was displayed around the school and showed the pupils’ good artistic skills. Pupils carry out science investigations and reflect on the scientific concepts they have learned. Pupils also enjoy an extensive range of clubs covering a wide range of interests, including chess, guitar, cricket and pottery. Trips such as residential trips and a trip to the O2 in London enhance learning. You are determined to ensure through your curriculum that pupils develop a love of learning, and the impact of this was evident in pupils’ highly positive attitudes during the inspection. Pupils enjoy school and said that they like their lessons and their teachers. A number of pupils could think of no way in which they could improve the school.

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Short inspection of Sheringham Community Primary School

Parents and carers are mostly supportive of the school. You provide a range of opportunities for parents to engage them with their child’s learning. For example, a wide range of learning cafes are held, which are well attended and enjoyed by parents. Typical of many of the comments sent in response to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, included one from a parent who said, ‘My children have always been interested in their learning and are keen to bring their learning from school back into the home.’ Another wrote, ‘We have some very dedicated teaching and support staff at our school who work hard to ensure our children have the opportunity to achieve their best and have a positive experience at school.’ However, a few parents feel that communication could be even better and would welcome further information about the progress their child is making at school.

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Short inspection of Sheringham Community Primary School

A strong culture of safeguarding is demonstrated across the school. Leaders have ensured that all staff are well trained and, as a result, know what to look for that indicates that a child may be at risk. Leaders know the issues that affect some pupils in the community and plan events and work which address these. For example, pupils learn that they are ‘great as you are’ in personal, social and health (PSHE) lessons and that violence, outside or in the home, is not to be tolerated.

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Short inspection of Sheringham Community Primary School

Statutory requirements for staff recruitment are carried out and recorded appropriately and you keep careful oversight of this on a regular basis. You provide parents with lots of information about how they can help keep their child stay safe online, for example holding parent meetings and putting information in newsletters. Pupils also are knowledgeable about safety when using technology because this is taught regularly in computing lessons.

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Inspection findings

 The first line of enquiry that we agreed inspectors would look at was the progress pupils are making in mathematics. This was because over the past two years fewer pupils made good progress from key stage 1 to key stage 2 than was the case nationally.  We looked at pupils’ books and found that these showed that a good range of mathematical skills are taught. Pupils are given increasingly good opportunities to develop their reasoning and problem-solving skills, particularly in key stage 2. As a result, current pupils are making good progress in mathematics.  You have extended the range of resources to support mathematical understanding. The purchase of an online mathematics programme, for example, has been particularly successful in promoting both enjoyment of mathematics and pupils’ engagement with mathematics tasks at home. I saw at first hand pupils’ enthusiasm and excitement as one class lined up for their turn on the programme.

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Inspection findings

 You recognise that the attainment of girls in mathematics is lower than that of boys in a number of year groups. The school is part of a project to raise girls’ attainment run by the on-site teaching school. Leaders talked confidently about how this is structured and the positive impact this is already having in terms of raising staff awareness of the need to more fully engage girls in mathematics and build their confidence in their abilities.  You have carefully analysed the reasons for the dip in pupils’ progress in mathematics and identified the need to increase the pace and stamina of pupils’ working when completing tests. However, teachers are not routinely building this into their lessons. Sometimes, too little time is allowed for pupils to work through a range of problems; occasionally, pupils are not encouraged to work as quickly as they are capable of. As a result, some pupils are not helped to develop the necessary stamina and pace through day-to-day lessons.

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Inspection findings

 My next line of enquiry looked at the progress that disadvantaged pupils are making. We found that you plan very carefully for disadvantaged pupils so that provision closely matches the barriers to learning that you have identified.  Initiatives such as the appointment of ‘learning champions’ are proving effective, both in improving achievement and in boosting pupils’ confidence and self-esteem.  You ensure that all teachers are aware of the needs of the disadvantaged pupils in their class. As part of your pupil progress meetings, you ask each teacher to identify the specific needs for each pupil, the ways in which these have been addressed and the impact this is having.  The support put in place is proving effective in accelerating the progress of disadvantaged pupils in key stage 1, but is not demonstrating sufficient impact across all year groups. Higher up the school, some disadvantaged pupils are not making the accelerated progress

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Inspection findings

needed to reach expected standards.  The final line of enquiry that we looked at was in relation to attendance. Improving attendance was an area identified in the previous inspection report. In 2016, attendance was lower than that found nationally, and particularly for some groups such as disadvantaged pupils and pupils who have special educational needs (SEN).  The school’s policy on non-attendance is now firmer and backed by the use of fixed penalty notices, which was not the case prior to the last academic year. This is changing the culture in which termtime holidays were seen as acceptable by some parents. A comparison of attendance in the autumn term 2016 with the autumn term 2017 shows a strong upward trend in attendance.  You have appointed a parent support adviser who works with parents, including those of disadvantaged pupils to improve their attendance. You have also ensured that your attendance leader has sufficient time allocated to this role to enable her to follow up non-

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Inspection findings

attendance rigorously. This is having a positive impact on improving overall attendance at school. Despite this, some pupils are still absent too frequently and so the rates of persistent absence are currently higher than they are nationally.

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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 develop greater stamina by teachers providing more time to work on extended tasks and encouraging pupils to work at greater pace in lessons  strategies to improve the achievement of girls in mathematics continue to be developed  governors sharpen their monitoring processes so that they hold leaders to account with greater rigour  current higher attendance rates are sustained, and the attendance of the small number of pupils who are absent too frequently is improved.

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

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, inspectors met with both headteachers and senior leaders, some middle leaders and three governors. One inspector met with a group of pupils from Years 4, 5 and 6. We scrutinised a range of documents, including information on pupils’ progress, safeguarding, development planning and the school’s self-evaluation. We visited all classes and evaluated pupils’ work. I took account of 81 responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View.

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