Lambley Primary School

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

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Mrs Victoria Dilnot Headteacher Lambley Primary School Catfoot Lane Lambley Nottingham Nottinghamshire NG4 4QF

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Short inspection of Lambley Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 31 January 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 January 2014.

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Short inspection of Lambley 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 Lambley Primary School

Since your appointment as headteacher, you have brought enthusiasm, energy and clarity of vision to the school. You have built a team that is committed to doing its best for pupils. You have developed new leaders who understand the school’s priorities. Everyone understands how they can contribute to the school’s improvement.

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Short inspection of Lambley Primary School

You have maintained and built upon the positive culture seen at the last inspection. You have strong support from parents, carers, staff and pupils. Parents appreciate that their children settle quickly into the early years and are making good progress. Pupils enjoy coming to school and attendance is above the national average. Pupils who spoke with me during the inspection told me that behaviour is good and bullying is very rare. During the inspection, pupils also told me that they enjoy a wide range of out-of-school activities, including sports, arts and study clubs. Pupils are proud of their achievements, particularly the choir’s success at the Young Voices festival in Sheffield. Older pupils explained how they have been trained to be play leaders. The pupils say that helping the younger children helps them to be more responsible and it gives them ‘a nice feeling inside when the children say thank you’.

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Short inspection of Lambley Primary School

You have welcomed and acted upon the advice, challenge and support from the local authority and the Candleby Lane Teaching School Alliance. This advice has helped you to secure your understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses. As a result, the school’s improvement plan priorities are appropriate. The plan has clear mid-year checkpoints so governors can see if the school is on track to achieve targets. The members of the governing body are very skilled and experienced. They provide you with good levels of both support and challenge to improve.

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Short inspection of Lambley Primary School

Since the last inspection, you have ensured that teachers provide clear and consistent advice about how pupils should present their work. Pupils respond well to this guidance and take a pride in their books. Handwriting has improved since the last inspection.

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Short inspection of Lambley Primary School

At the time of the last inspection, leaders were asked to raise teachers’ expectations even higher and to maximise pupils’ good attitudes. Pupils now take greater pride in their work because you and your team have high and consistent expectations. For example, pupils underline titles with a ruler and take care to write neatly. Pupils have good attitudes to learning. Pupils explained to me that the ‘Lambley Way’ means that they should ‘reach for the stars’ and this can mean tackling difficult things, such as ‘understanding the relationship between fractions, decimals and percentages’.

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Short inspection of Lambley Primary School

Since the last inspection, you have improved teaching in mathematics by providing teachers with guidance, training and support to improve their planning for lessons. This work is having a positive impact and most pupils’ progress in this subject is good and improving. However, you recognise that further work is still needed to ensure that all teachers are confident in providing the challenge needed for the most able pupils. You and your team are providing the support where needed.

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Short inspection of Lambley Primary School

Although pupils’ attainment in reading at the end of key stage 2 was broadly in line with the national average in 2017, pupils’ progress was significantly lower than the national average. You are working effectively to improve reading by learning from successful practice in other schools and through giving teachers much clearer guidance and training in the teaching of reading. These actions are leading to improved progress in reading, but this area remains a high priority for the school.

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Short inspection of Lambley Primary School

With help from the local authority, you have strengthened the systems for supporting disadvantaged pupils. You agree that this work is not fully embedded. You also acknowledge that the pupil premium strategy needs to be updated, shared with governors and published on the school’s website.

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Short inspection of Lambley Primary School

You have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. You have clear procedures for raising concerns. Safeguarding records are thorough and show that any concerns about a pupil are followed up very diligently. The school works well with parents and a range of outside agencies to ensure that children are kept safe and well supported.

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Short inspection of Lambley Primary School

Staff are well trained. They have a good understanding about the signs of abuse and how to keep children safe. The governing body has a very good understanding of the importance of safeguarding and it makes regular checks to ensure that school policies are working well in practice. Pupils enjoy coming to school. Pupils trust staff to deal with any concerns. Pupils told me that they learn how to keep themselves safe through regular assemblies, including a talk from the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Pupils also say that regular practices help them to know what to do in a fire or other emergencies.

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Inspection findings

 During the inspection, I looked particularly at pupils’ reading skills in key stage 2, how effectively the most able pupils are challenged in mathematics and how well pupil premium funding is used to support disadvantaged pupils.  You recognise that improving progress in reading is a high priority for the school. The school’s information about current progress and inspection findings show your work is having a positive impact to improve reading. You have improved the phonics teaching in the early years so that all children progress quickly and are well prepared for key stage 1. During the inspection, all pupils who read to me used phonics skills well to read unfamiliar words. You have established a very positive reading culture in the school. Pupils told me how they enjoy reading and how the school provides them with a good supply of interesting reading books.  In order to secure the improvements in reading, you have also identified that teachers

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Inspection findings

need clear guidance to ensure that pupils develop their understanding of what they read. During the inspection, I saw how this guidance is helping teachers to plan lessons to help pupils extend their vocabulary and understand more difficult texts. However, you recognise that the improvements in reading are not fully embedded across all classes. You agree that careful monitoring and support is needed so all teachers provide the same high-quality provision for pupils’ reading.  You and the mathematics leader are providing good support to improve teaching and learning in the subject. This has led to improvements in pupils’ progress across the school. During the inspection, our visits to classrooms and sampling of work in books showed that pupils are getting more frequent opportunities to reason and to apply their skills to solve mathematical problems. Pupils, especially the most able, enjoy the challenge of the new mental calculation activities. However, these pupils are not

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Inspection findings

always given challenging enough work in the main part of mathematics lessons.  With guidance from the local authority, you have established a system for making more regular checks to ensure that the pupil premium funding is used to good effect. Early monitoring evidence shows a positive picture for these pupils’ progress. Pupils told me how additional activities are helping them to improve. Leaders do not yet ensure that precise information about the impact of additional activities funded by the pupil premium is regularly shared with governors and published on the school’s website.

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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

 middle leaders check that recent initiatives to improve pupils’ progress in reading are working well in all classes, and then provide additional support for teachers where needed  teachers consistently plan mathematics activities to provide sufficient challenge for the most able pupils to enable them to make the best possible progress  the impact of the school’s pupil premium strategy is regularly reviewed, and the review outcomes are shared with governors and published on the school’s website.

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

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, I held meetings with you, other senior leaders and three governors. I spoke with parents before school. I also spoke with a group of pupils about their school experience and observed pupils at playtime. You and I observed learning throughout the morning, including in phonics, mathematics and English. I scrutinised pupils’ workbooks and I heard pupils read. I also discussed reading with a group of older pupils. In addition, I checked the school’s safeguarding arrangements, including the school’s record of recruitment checks on staff. I evaluated the school’s documentation about planning for improvement and pupils’ achievement, behaviour, welfare and attendance. I took account of the 41 responses to Parent View, Ofsted’s online survey, and the 36 responses from parents to Ofsted’s free-text service. There were 10 responses to Ofsted’s online surveys for staff and 9 pupil responses for me to consider.

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