Setting

Mrs Claire Wilson Executive Headteacher Leesland Church of England Controlled Junior School Gordon Road Gosport Hampshire PO12 3QF

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England Controlled Junior School

Following my visit to your school on 27 March 2018, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the monitoring inspection findings. Thank you for the help you gave me and for the time you made available to discuss the actions you are taking to improve the school since the most recent section 5 inspection.

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England Controlled Junior School

The monitoring inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005 and has taken place because the school has received two successive judgements of requires improvement at its previous section 5 inspections.

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England Controlled Junior School

Senior leaders and governors are taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the last section 5 inspection in order for the school to become good.

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England Controlled Junior School

The school should take further action to:

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England Controlled Junior School

 ensure that as pupils’ starting points and standards rise, increasing proportions achieve a greater depth of learning in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of key stage 2

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England Controlled Junior School

 secure consistently effective teaching across the school, with pupils demonstrating the independence and resilience to help themselves ‘get un- stuck’ when tackling challenging work. Ofsted

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England Controlled Junior School

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

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Evidence

During the inspection, I met with you and the associate headteacher to discuss the actions you have taken since the last inspection. Together, we visited a range of lessons in Years 3, 4 and 6 to observe learning, talk to pupils and look at their work. We also reviewed together some examples of writing and mathematics work from pupils in Years 4 and 6. I met with groups of pupils, staff and governors, and spoke with a representative of the local authority on the telephone. I took into account a range of other relevant information, including the school’s self-evaluation and improvement plan, governor records, leaders’ checks on standards in the school and their information about current pupils’ performance. I also considered external reviews of governance and pupil premium funding commissioned by leaders and looked at leaders’ records of recruitment checks on adults working in the school.

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Context

Since the inspection in May 2016, there have been a number of changes to the personnel working in the school. Two teachers, four teaching assistants and the emotional literacy support assistant (ELSA) have left the school. Four teachers have been appointed, as well as an assistant headteacher who acts as inclusion leader across the federated infant and junior schools. An admin officer and five teaching assistants have also joined the school, one of whom has taken up the role of ELSA. Two teachers in Year 5 are currently on maternity leave.

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Main findings

The improvements that you, the associate headteacher and the staff team have made to standards in the school since the last inspection are clearly evident. Staff and governors share your ambition to help pupils to be well prepared for their future learning and ready to take up their place in the world. Your collective determination to develop consistently effective teaching across the school is the driving force behind pupils’ accelerating progress and increasingly secure attainment over time. Pupils are rightly proud of the improvements in the school, particularly relating to behaviour, which they feel help them to learn better.

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Main findings

At the last inspection, you were asked to improve outcomes for all pupils, especially the most able and those who are eligible for the pupil premium. The strong progress achieved by pupils who finished key stage 2 in 2017 demonstrates your success in this regard. Year 6 pupils, including the disadvantaged, made well-above average progress from their typically low starting points in reading, writing and mathematics. However, you accept that the proportion achieving the standard expected for their age was too low, particularly in reading and mathematics, and that too few pupils achieved a greater depth of learning. Standards for pupils currently in the school continue to rise, indicating that progress remains secure. Increasing proportions of pupils are working above the standard expected for their age. As pupils join the school with increasing levels of prior attainment, sustaining rates of progress will be

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Main findings

vital, so that the proportion of pupils achieving the higher standard of learning improves to at least the national average, and disadvantaged pupils routinely achieve as well as other pupils nationally.

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Main findings

Your focused work to improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment has been the key factor in improving pupils’ outcomes. Carefully planned opportunities for year teams to work together are helping teachers to develop their understanding of what effective learning looks like. This helps them to plan work that meets the needs of different groups of learners increasingly well. Staff share leaders’ sense of urgency in acting to address weaknesses in teaching when they are identified. You recognise that inconsistencies remain in the effectiveness of teaching across the school, and your leadership team is working hard to address these.

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Main findings

During my visit, the atmosphere around the school was calm and purposeful. Pupils listened attentively to their teachers and followed instructions carefully. They engaged with appropriately structured and resourced activities which helped them to complete suitably challenging tasks. However, when they ‘got stuck’, they did not routinely demonstrate the independence to be able to find a way to move their learning on, tending towards being overly reliant on support from an adult. At times, this slowed the pace of their learning or led to some losing focus. Pupils talked to me about the useful feedback they receive from their teachers that helps them to improve their work. We looked together at samples of book work where it was evident that pupils were editing and improving their work, both independently and as a result of verbal or written feedback from their teacher. Consequently, the quality of pupils’ writing and mathematics work is clearly improving over time.

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Main findings

Since the last inspection, you acted swiftly to commission reviews of governance and of the school’s use of pupil premium funding. The findings of these reviews have supported you and your team in further refining the effectiveness of leadership, including governance. Leaders and governors have simplified and focused how their detailed checks on the quality of learning and pupils’ progress help them to recognise clearly the impact of the school’s work. This consistent approach is enabling leaders to promptly identify emerging priorities for improving teaching, and to put appropriate training and support in place. Teachers expect to be held to account for the progress pupils are making and provide useful evidence that helps them and leaders identify appropriate next steps for different groups of pupils. Leaders’ monitoring activities link directly to staff members’ performance management and to helpful and appropriate future training and support.

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Main findings

Staff routinely model fundamental values, linked to the school’s Christian ethos but encouraging acceptance and awareness of other religions and cultures. This was evident moving round the school, and in the themes covered during assemblies and collective worship activities. Pupils value the opportunity to participate in democratic activities, such as a mock Brexit vote, or in executing their roles as learning ambassadors, house captains and members of the school council. Leaders’ emphasis on ‘praising in public, sanctioning in private’ supports the school’s core values of love, grace and respect. Pupils are courteous in their interactions with each other and the adults in school. They say that the recently relaunched ‘behaviour blueprint’ makes it clear for everyone to understand what is expected of them.

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External support

Leaders make effective use of opportunities to enhance their school improvement work. Teachers access helpful expertise from beyond the school, including that of colleagues in the federated infant school, which improves their teaching practice and checks that their judgements about the quality of pupils’ work are accurate. Leaders utilise well-established links with the local authority and with other schools in the local cluster and more widely across Hampshire, to support staff training, with the expectation that learning is shared in a way that has a positive impact across the school. Governors are similarly outward-looking, using support from the local authority to develop their understanding of performance information and holding leaders firmly to account.

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External support

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

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