The Nettleham Church of England Voluntary Aided Junior School

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

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Mr David Gibbons Headteacher Nettleham Church of England Voluntary Aided Junior School Mill Hill Nettleham Lincoln Lincolnshire LN2 2PE

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School

Following my visit to the school on 6 February 2018, 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 March 2014.

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School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have responded purposefully to the recommendations from the previous inspection of the school. You have made improvements to the teaching of mathematics, particularly since the disappointing pupils’ progress recorded in key stage 2 in 2017. The improvements were planned carefully and implemented in an orderly and well-conceived sequence. You have, to use your own expression, ‘ramped up’ the extent to which leaders and managers monitor the work of the school.

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School

You, the staff and the governing body give a sense of constantly working to improve things for the pupils. The checks that you carry out on the quality of teaching, learning and assessment lead routinely to the identification of things that can be improved. The staff are provided with clear feedback about their teaching. This, allied to useful opportunities for professional development and training, means that they are able to put the changes that you plan into action effectively.

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School

You have established a broad programme of activities to monitor the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, involving both other leaders and the governing body. Your approach is systematic. The activities are routine, regular and frequent. They provide you with detailed and useful information. You have made good use of external evaluations of the school’s work, for example a review of mathematics teaching carried out by the local authority. These things enable you to judge the school’s work honestly and realistically. You identify appropriate improvements for the school and set about making them happen with determination.

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School

The leaders’ and governing body’s analyses and evaluations of how much progress the pupils are making are not incisive enough. You are not able currently to make clear analyses of emerging trends in the pupils’ progress by using the school’s assessment information. You have worked steadily to improve the accuracy with which the teachers assess the pupils’ work. You have made good use of a range of activities to enable the teachers to check on the accuracy of each other’s assessments and also had them checked by professionals from outside the school. The school’s approach to assessment is, however, still being refined. As a result, you are not able to evaluate incisively the impact on the progress of all groups of pupils of the specific actions that you have taken.

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School

You have set everyone an unequivocal target to improve the pupils’ progress in mathematics. The pupils respond well in mathematics lessons. Often, they show excitement at the work that they are asked to do. They find the tasks that they are given suitably challenging. The teachers ask them challenging questions. The questions make the pupils think and the teachers press the pupils to explain their answers. The teachers adapt the teaching, based upon what they find out from the pupils’ responses. For example, the teachers often follow up a question with further questions, so that the pupils have to work things out more carefully and to think further. The pupils do not always understand clearly, however, why they have made a mistake when they have done so. In mathematics, the pupils’ progress currently is better than it was last year, but is still mixed, although only a few are not making enough progress.

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School

The provision for the pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities is planned in detail. The staff have a good understanding of the individual development needs of the pupils. They set meaningful and precise targets for the things that the pupils need to be able to do. The work provided for these pupils is as challenging for them to do as the work set for other pupils. You make suitable adaptations to assist the pupils with their work, including providing specialist equipment and resources. The pupils who have the highest levels of need are supported well in lessons. As a result, they are able to learn effectively alongside their peers.

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School

The SEN coordinator maintains careful oversight of the provision for the pupils. The pupils’ transition into and through the school, and on to the next school is managed carefully. The records kept on the pupils are of good quality. The senior leaders and the governing body do not, however, analyse and evaluate the academic progress of these pupils as a group sufficiently precisely.

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School

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are detailed and of high quality. The staff know the school’s policy and operate the systems for recording concerns conscientiously. They are trained regularly and updated frequently on safeguarding matters. As a result, they have a good understanding of the types of things to which they need to be alert. They are not afraid to raise a concern, even if they are unsure about it. The school works effectively with external agencies, when necessary. The governing body discusses the school’s safeguarding work regularly and often.

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Inspection findings

 You have made good use of staff training and development to help in putting planned changes into practice.  The pupils concentrate hard and manifestly want to do well. The teachers do not always provide them with clear enough explanations of what they have done wrong and why they have made a mistake to enable the pupils to understand and so to avoid repeating errors.  The teachers use some novel techniques effectively to help the pupils to remember and to recall ways of working in mathematics, including, for example, learning songs.  The presentation of the pupils’ work in mathematics has improved since the last inspection. Generally, their books show care and attention to presentation. Occasionally, the pupils are not accurate enough in setting out calculations. This hampers the ability of the pupils to complete the task successfully, particularly the pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities.  The pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities grow in confidence and make good

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Inspection findings

gains in developing a range of social skills.  The leaders have not analysed the academic progress of the pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities sharply enough. They do not have a fully rounded view of how well those pupils are doing, compared with others, or of what specifically needs to be done in order to improve their academic progress.

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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 pupils are able to understand the nature of any mistakes that they have made and are able to correct them  the assessment information collected by the school is used frequently to evaluate trends in the progress of different groups of pupils incisively, including those who have SEN and/or disabilities.

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Next steps for the school

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

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Information about the inspection

The inspection focused on the school’s work to improve the teaching, learning and assessment in mathematics, the effectiveness of leaders and managers in evaluating the impact of the work of the school, and how well the progress of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is monitored. During the inspection, I held meetings with you, other senior staff at the school, the mathematics leader, the designated leaders for safeguarding, and the SEN coordinator. I met with members of the governing body and discussed by telephone the work of the school with a representative of the local authority. I made a series of visits to lessons, accompanied by you. I discussed the work of the school with pupils during lessons and on other occasions. I looked at examples of the pupils’ work during lessons and reviewed examples of their workbooks. I looked at the views of parents and carers expressed using the Ofsted online survey, Parent View, and at the results of the

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Information about the inspection

inspection surveys for the pupils and the staff. I scrutinised various documents, including safeguarding records, records relating to pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities, a range of policy documents, a self-evaluation report, other reports on the work of the school, the school’s latest assessment information, and records of checks on the quality of teaching, learning and assessment.

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