Parkhead Community Primary School

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

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Mrs Paula Bailey Headteacher Parkhead Community Primary School Park Lane Winlaton Blaydon-on-Tyne Tyne and Wear NE21 6LT

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Short inspection of Parkhead Community Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 6 March 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 Parkhead Community 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 Parkhead Community Primary School

You have continued to manage the school well through a number of staffing changes and the appointment of a new deputy headteacher. Your calm and purposeful leadership ensures that the good quality of teaching and learning identified at the time of the last inspection is being maintained and built on. You know your school well and your enthusiasm and dedication to secure the very best outcomes for all pupils remain a strength.

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Short inspection of Parkhead Community Primary School

Together with your deputy headteacher, you provide strong and stable leadership for the school. You have secured reliable assessment procedures across the school. You use this information to identify any pupils falling behind in their learning and to organise appropriate additional support, so that they catch up quickly. Your detailed analysis of whole-school assessment information provides an accurate evaluation of the effect of your actions. It enables you to identify precisely subsequent improvement priorities. This strong cycle of monitoring and evaluation is a highly effective aspect of your leadership. Although your action plans are detailed and set out your end-of-year targets clearly, we agreed that governors would benefit from mid-point milestones for pupils’ achievement. This would enable governors to hold you and your team to account more effectively for the progress pupils make. It would also provide them with a greater understanding of ongoing successes.

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Short inspection of Parkhead Community Primary School

You invest heavily in the professional development of all staff and have established a shared ambition for continuous improvement. There is a strong culture of coaching and mentoring in the school, especially for those teachers who are new to the profession. As part of your regular monitoring programme, all staff receive timely and constructive feedback and are supported effectively to improve their practice. At the same time, you do not shy away from difficult decisions to hold staff to account fully. As a result, staff morale is high, and outcomes from the staff survey show that all staff are proud to be members of the staff team.

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Short inspection of Parkhead Community Primary School

All pupils understand the well-established behaviour management system, which is applied consistently by all staff. Pupils’ movement around the school is calm and orderly. They demonstrate good manners, by holding doors open for peers and adults, and their behaviour in classrooms is exemplary. Playtimes are lively and energetic with lots for pupils to do. The library bus provides a haven for those pupils who prefer a quieter experience. Pupils have a clear understanding of right and wrong and know the importance of being considerate and tolerant of others. Occasionally, a very small minority of pupils find managing their behaviours difficult. A review of your behaviour logs showed that you manage these pupils sensitively, effectively and in an age-appropriate way in accordance with your behaviour policy. However, you acknowledge that not all of your actions are recorded in sufficient detail to truly reflect the extent of the actions taken by you and other leaders. This

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Short inspection of Parkhead Community Primary School

At the time of the last inspection, you were asked to undertake a number of actions to improve the quality of teaching in the school. One of the most significant and successful actions you have taken was to strengthen your assessment and tracking of pupils’ learning. You use pupils’ assessment information regularly to lead progress meetings with staff, focusing primarily on disadvantaged pupils and those whose progress has stalled. As a consequence of your meticulous actions, there was marked improvement in pupils’ achievement at the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics in the end of key stage 1 and 2 tests in 2017. This trajectory of improvement continues for those pupils currently in the school. However, you recognise that there is still more to do to secure pupils’ achievement at the higher standard in reading, writing and mathematics, particularly for disadvantaged pupils. This aspect remains variable.

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Short inspection of Parkhead Community Primary School

A further area for improvement was to engage parents and carers more widely in their children’s learning. We discussed some of the many actions you have taken in the past and the opportunities you currently provide for parents to be involved. Despite your best endeavours, you have had varying degrees of success. You recognise the need to continue to look for new and different ways of developing this aspect of your leadership.

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Short inspection of Parkhead Community Primary School

School leaders, including governors, are mindful of the important role they play in keeping pupils safe. They have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Detailed checks are completed on all those who work at the school to ensure that they are fit to do so. Staff undertake regular training to ensure that they are up to date with the most recent, relevant legislation. The designated safeguarding and health and safety governors complete regular checks to ensure that agreed policy and procedures are adhered to.

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Short inspection of Parkhead Community Primary School

Pupils said that they feel safe in school and can explain how to keep themselves safe when they are away from school, particularly when using the internet. They know the various forms of bullying and recognise that it ‘sometimes happens’. They were equally confident in leaders’ ability to sort any issues straight away. Although the majority of parents agreed with pupils’ views, a small minority of parents feel that leaders do not manage allegations of bullying effectively. A review of leaders’ actions shows that issues are dealt with in a timely manner. However, the detail with which records are maintained could be improved. You agreed with this observation.

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Inspection findings

 My first focus for this inspection was to determine why pupils’ progress in reading has not been as strong as that in writing and mathematics, particularly for disadvantaged pupils. I found that you have already identified this as an area for improvement. You have already begun to take appropriate actions to improve pupils’, including disadvantaged pupils’, progress in reading. A detailed analysis of pupils’ achievement identified the skills of understanding vocabulary and imagery and reading fluency and stamina as needing to improve. Accordingly, teaching has been adjusted to prioritise the development of these skills. You have also organised a programme of additional support and intervention to support individual pupils and small groups of pupils to make faster gains in their learning. This is paying dividends, as current pupils’ outcomes indicate that there will be further improvements in progress and attainment compared to 2017.

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Inspection findings

However, there remains some variability in the proportion of pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils, who achieve at the higher standard.  Phonics teaching is a strong feature of practice. You have invested heavily in training and support to ensure that phonics teaching is consistent across the early years and key stage 1. This means that pupils, especially boys, are able to make rapid gains in their acquisition of phonetic awareness. All classrooms display a ‘speed sounds chart’ to enable pupils to apply their skills outside of phonics sessions. This means that pupils’ success in the phonics screening check continues to improve. You keep a close eye on the achievement of boys, who, historically, have not acquired skills at the same rate as girls.  Guided reading sessions have been reviewed in light of your improvement plans. Teachers ask effective questions that enable pupils to practise their reading skills

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Inspection findings

successfully. However, for those pupils not working directly with the teacher, their activities lack the challenge needed for them to deepen their understanding. You agreed that this is an aspect of the teaching of reading that requires improvement.  I also wanted to check on the wider promotion of reading, particularly in the early years. While the mechanics of reading is improving strongly, we agreed that nurturing a love of reading is an aspect of your provision that needs to be under constant review.  My final focus of the inspection was to review the actions you are taking to improve pupils’ attendance. In 2017, there was a slight reduction in the proportion of pupils, including disadvantaged pupils, who were regularly absent from school. However, overall absence rates increased to above the national average. You have tightened your procedures for managing pupils’ absence. You have put in place a detailed tracking system for all of those pupils whose

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Inspection findings

attendance falls below 90%. You work cooperatively with the local authority to use all the powers available to you to ensure that pupils attend school regularly. As a result of your actions, there is marked improvement in attendance rates so far this year, when compared to the same period last year, especially for disadvantaged pupils.

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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

 record-keeping in respect of incidents relating to misbehaviour and bullying is detailed to reflect better the actions taken by the school  pupils’ love of reading is encouraged further, particularly in the early years  activities in guided reading sessions are suitably challenging to deepen pupils’ reading skills, particularly those of disadvantaged pupils, and to help them achieve at the higher standard  work with parents to improve pupils’ attendance remains a focus for the school.

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

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, I met with you, your deputy headteacher, four members of the governing body and a representative from the local authority. I also met formally with pupils and listened to them read, talked to them informally about their learning and looked at their work in books. I spoke with parents at the end of the school day and took account of the 66 responses to Ofsted’s online parent survey, ‘Parent View’, and their free text responses. I reviewed 29 responses to the online staff survey. I scrutinised a number of school documents including those relating to pupils’ assessment, safeguarding, behaviour, bullying, attendance and exclusion.

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