St Peter’s Church of England Primary School

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

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Ms Samanda Adcock Headteacher St Peter’s Church of England Primary School Chippenham Mews Paddington London W9 2AN

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Short inspection of St Peter’s Church of England Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 22 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 January 2014.

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Short inspection of St Peter’s Church of England 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 St Peter’s Church of England Primary School

You have demonstrated a relentless drive for further improvement in all aspects of the school. Your highly capable and effective leadership team shares your high expectations. You have nurtured and developed leaders’ skills so that they uphold your values and ambition for pupils and staff. Leaders have accurately evaluated the strengths of the school and acted swiftly to address identified priorities for further improvement. You are rightly confident in their capacity to take responsibility for the quality of teaching in their subject areas.

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Short inspection of St Peter’s Church of England Primary School

During a period of considerable change to staffing and leadership since the previous inspection, you have been determined to sustain good provision and high standards. You have ensured the prompt implementation of new assessment systems across the school. Groups of pupils and individuals who underachieve are given the help and motivation they need to catch up. You have wasted no time in analysing the reasons for a drop in outcomes in the early years in 2016 and identified accurately what was needed to make swift improvements. You recognised that boys do less well than girls across the school and have taken action so that boys’ attainment is improving. You have also responded effectively to the need for more pupils in all year groups to attain greater depth in their work, especially in key stage 1. Pupils do very well in key stage 2. All groups of pupils make consistently strong progress in reading, writing and mathematics from their different starting points.

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Short inspection of St Peter’s Church of England Primary School

You have continued to forge positive links with parents and carers. A range of initiatives, such as ‘parent gym’ and phonics workshops, provide helpful information about what their child is covering at school and how to support their learning at home. Parents and pupils have responded enthusiastically to the newly introduced ‘tree of hearts’, writing heart-warming comments on paper leaves about why they love the school.

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Short inspection of St Peter’s Church of England Primary School

Pupils highlight strengths of the school that include everyone being kind and friendly. This is also cited as an utmost priority for governors and senior leaders. The school is rightly proud of its recent national equality award. This reflects the ethos of the school, which is ‘invite, include, imagine, inspire’. Pupils show respect for each other and their teachers and gain fulfilment in their learning.

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Short inspection of St Peter’s Church of England Primary School

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Records are detailed and of good quality. Leaders demonstrate persistence in their communications with parents and outside agencies to ensure that children are safe. For example, they follow up referrals, monitor attendance and take appropriate steps to check that pupils are safe when pupils leave the school and go off the roll.

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Short inspection of St Peter’s Church of England Primary School

Pupils who spoke to me mentioned how much they appreciate having ‘listening partners’. These are members of staff they have identified as those they can go and speak to at any time at school if they have any worries. Special events, guest speakers and lessons help pupils to know how to keep safe, for example when working online and when not in school. Staff and pupils are well aware of risks in the local community and leaders follow up concerns swiftly in order to keep pupils safe. All parents who completed Parent View, the online survey, agree that their child feels safe at school. All staff who completed the survey for this inspection also agreed that pupils are kept safe in the school.

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Inspection findings

 The first focus for this inspection was on the effectiveness of leaders’ actions to raise the achievement of groups of pupils, especially disadvantaged pupils and most-able pupils. This was because, within a generally positive picture of pupils’ progress and attainment in 2017, the proportions of pupils attaining the higher or greater-depth standards at the end of key stage 1 were below average. This was particularly the case for disadvantaged pupils.  Leaders provide teachers with training and individual guidance to sharpen their use of new schemes for the teaching of mathematics and writing. Leaders’ modelling of good practice and one-to-one support for staff have also contributed to improved teaching. Leaders check that teachers’ assessments are accurate. They meet regularly to hold them to account for the progress of groups and individuals in their classes. These meetings are used productively to identify

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Inspection findings

when pupils need more help to make the progress of which they are capable. Leaders also check on the difference made to pupils’ progress by the interventions they receive. This enables them to identify swiftly what is or is not working so that changes are made accordingly. The progress of disadvantaged pupils is given careful scrutiny. Governors oversee the investment of the pupil premium funding wisely, being watchful of the interventions that have the greatest impact on helping disadvantaged pupils to improve.  Leaders have clear expectations that all pupils will be challenged to do their best in lessons. Initiatives to support this, such as ‘star challenge’, are routine. Even so, leaders recognise that tasks and the quality of teachers’ questioning do not consistently provide the right level of challenge to enable more pupils to attain a greater depth of learning.  My second line of enquiry was to evaluate the school’s work to improve boys’

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Inspection findings

progress and attainment. The school’s assessment information shows that girls substantially outperform boys in the early years and both key stages 1 and 2, with a widening gap further up the school. Tackling this issue is a priority in the school’s development plan.  Leaders have rapidly raised the profile of improving boys’ achievement. They draw sensibly on a range of sources of information and advice. External support, pupil voice and surveys have been used to devise a range of strategies to improve boys’ interest and motivation in their work at school. Teachers have adapted existing resources well and introduced new activities, such as visiting authors, to stimulate boys’ imagination and perseverance.  You have extended the range of high-quality texts so that more boys choose to read for enjoyment and to pursue their interests. You have raised expectations that pupils use the reading record in their diaries regularly. This has been

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Inspection findings

successful in ensuring that pupils have the opportunity to read out loud more at home and at school. Boys’ attainment in reading has improved across the school and is catching up with girls’ attainment.  Leaders carefully plan the topics covered in pupils’ cross-curricular work to inspire creative work in all year groups equally well for boys and girls. Pupils frequently complete pieces of extended writing, motivated by their teachers’ enthusiasm for a subject and access to helpful resources. However, leaders recognise that some opportunities are missed for pupils to improve their grammar, punctuation and spelling in this work.  Finally, we agreed to focus on the early years provision. Although there was some improvement in 2017 over previous years, the proportion of children achieving a good level of development remained below the national average. Progress in reading and writing was weaker than in other areas of learning.

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Inspection findings

 In response to the 2016 results, leaders completed a rapid and effective analysis of areas to improve in the early years provision. This has led to more comprehensive assessment systems which leaders use to identify any key early learning goals in which the children are underachieving. Leaders and staff know each child very well and are vigilant in identifying when they need extra support.  The early years team and the subject leaders for English, phonics and mathematics work effectively together to develop staff skills in identified areas. Children in the early years now have more opportunities to improve the quality of their writing. Adults recognise when underlying abilities, such as fine motor skills, need to be developed first.  The school has put in place specific strategies to meet individual children’s needs, including improved communication with parents and other providers. An extensive range of interventions involving specially trained staff, including speech

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Inspection findings

and language specialists, make sure that children receive the right support from the earliest opportunity.  The school’s current information shows that children’s progress in the early years has improved.

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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

 teachers’ questioning and the tasks given to pupils, including most-able pupils and disadvantaged pupils, are challenging so that they attain the greater depth of which they are capable  opportunities are developed further to improve the quality of pupils’ grammar, punctuation and spelling across different subjects.

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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 London, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Westminster. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

During this inspection, I met with you, other school leaders, the chair of governors and two other governors. I visited lessons in all year groups, accompanied by leaders. I met with a group of pupils and held informal conversations with pupils and staff. I held a telephone conversation with a representative of the diocese. I scrutinised a range of documentation, including the school’s self-evaluation, records relating to the safeguarding of pupils, the school’s own achievement information and notes of progress review meetings. I took into account the responses to Parent View, the online survey, and surveys completed by staff and pupils.

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