Woodville CofE Junior School

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

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Mrs Jayne Smart Executive Headteacher Woodville CofE Junior School High Street Woodville Swadlincote Derbyshire DE11 7EA

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Short inspection of Woodville CofE Junior School

Following my visit to the school on 10 April 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 February 2014.

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Short inspection of Woodville CofE Junior School

Based on the evidence gathered during this short inspection, I have identified some priorities for improvement which I advise the school to address. In light of these priorities, the school’s next inspection will be a full section 5 inspection. There is no

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

The school is now improving after a period of decline following the last inspection. The federation with the infant school has provided many benefits in the way that the school is led and managed and there are better links between teachers in the schools. You now have effective systems which provide regular checks on teaching and the quality of work in pupils’ books. Teachers, within their year groups, are now more accountable for the progress of the pupils in their class.

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

You have introduced a range of improvements, particularly to the teaching of reading, writing and mathematics, which have increased pupils’ progress and improved their learning and skills. Senior leaders know the strengths and areas for development in the school, and self-evaluation is accurate.

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

The roles of senior and middle leaders are well established. Subject leaders in English and mathematics have ensured that good-quality training has been delivered to teachers and teaching assistants and that new initiatives are monitored carefully. In mathematics, the development of the mastery approach has now been in place across the school for over two years. Pupils’ basic skills are sound and teachers ensure that lessons include good opportunities for problem-solving and reasoning. In English, the biggest improvement has been in the teaching of reading. A focus on the teaching of specific skills has, for example, improved pupils’ abilities to make inferences from a text. The changes to engage pupils better in independent reading have resulted in most being well motivated to read independently or to an adult at home. However, further developments are still required in order to ensure that pupils read a wider and

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

more challenging range of books, particularly those who are the most able.

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

Small reading groups to help some pupils to catch up, led by teaching assistants, are successful. These have been monitored carefully, as have most of the school’s interventions, with carefully chosen criteria for ensuring that progress can be accurately checked.

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

Writing standards have improved, particularly in lower key stage 2, and pupils have good opportunities to write across the curriculum. Most show age-appropriate skills which mean that they can write in particular styles and for a chosen audience.

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

At the time of the last inspection, senior leaders were asked to ensure that the most able pupils reach the higher standard (level 5, as it was in the previous assessment system) in reading, writing and mathematics by making sure that teachers in all classes consistently give the most able pupils work that is sufficiently difficult. Still too few of the most able pupils are achieving the higher standard in reading, writing and mathematics in Years 5 and 6. This is because they have not yet caught up from historically weaker teaching in the school. There are still some inconsistencies in teaching. However, teachers do now ensure that pupils are given appropriately challenging work, as teaching has improved.

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

Pupils behave well in and around the school and take a pride in their work. They show good attitudes to learning, and like to learn new skills. Pupils are courteous and well mannered. They listen to each other well when discussing their ideas in lessons and are considerate to others. In the responses to Ofsted’s Parent View questionnaire, and in discussions with the inspector, a minority of parents raised concerns about behaviour and bullying at the school, as did some of the pupils who completed the online questionnaire. Pupils spoken to during the inspection said that some bullying did take place from time to time, but they felt that any issues that they or their peers had were dealt with appropriately by staff. The inspector’s observations, checks on the school’s behaviour records and overall discussions with pupils, parents and staff, including surveys undertaken by the school, conclude that behaviour in school is typically good

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

and, although there is evidence that some bullying has taken place, it is addressed well by staff.

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

You have developed a clear policy to ensure that teachers provide pupils with regular oral and written advice on how to improve their work. However, not all staff are applying this policy consistently. This is one of the inconsistencies that remain in teaching, alongside some teaching being less than good at times. There are also some inconsistencies in the assessments of pupils’ learning, which means that leaders and managers do not have accurate information from all year groups about how well pupils are achieving.

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

Over the past year, you have developed a new tracking system. However, you are aware of its limitations in enabling leaders and teachers to focus on ensuring best progress from pupils’ starting points.

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

Governors check the work of the school appropriately and receive useful reports from the senior leaders to help them to know how well pupils are achieving. Governors have ensured that they attend relevant training, and challenge leaders to ensure that the school continues to improve. They are organised appropriately, so that each governor has specific areas to report back to the full governing body.

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. All parents and staff who responded to the online surveys were confident that children are safe in school. All the pupils I spoke to also said that they are happy and safe there. Staff have identified that one of the ways that the pupils in the school are most at risk is online. As a result, much work has been undertaken to help pupils and parents to keep themselves safe, by increasing their knowledge of the specific risks and how to avoid them.

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change to the school’s current overall effectiveness grade of good as a result

The school’s designated safeguarding officers, led by you, ensure that safeguarding arrangements are effective, and that records are useful and accurate. Self-audits of safeguarding arrangements take place regularly, and action plans to continuously improve record-keeping and training are well established. Staff and governors receive relevant and up-to-date training, including on the ‘Prevent’ duty. Staff are vigilant and confident that their training helps them to keep children safe. They know procedures well for raising any concerns that they may have.

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Inspection findings

 You, your team and governors know that pupils across the school have not made enough progress from their starting points, particularly in reading, but also in mathematics. This is particularly true of the most able and, to a lesser extent, of the disadvantaged. This trend has continued over at least a three-year period.  Your actions to tackle this trend have been appropriate. Standards have been raised, especially in reading, and differences in attainment between your disadvantaged pupils and other pupils nationally are diminishing. However, you also appreciate that due to previous less-than-good teaching, the current Year 5 and 6 pupils still need to make even more progress in all subjects, so that more of them reach the higher standard or greater depth.  The significant focus to improve the teaching of reading has had a positive impact on accelerating pupils’ progress. Pupils typically enjoy reading, and this was especially

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Inspection findings

evident while hearing the Year 3 readers. They think carefully about using and developing their reading skills. For example, the pupils ensured that they used good expression when reading aloud, and the most able pupil was particularly keen to choose some of the reading skills from his chart to challenge himself by making a prediction and drawing a conclusion from some information in the text he had just read. All the pupils I spoke to like the new reading record charts and love to earn books as rewards.  Attendance has fallen slightly from above average in 2015 to average currently. Persistent absence increased from 2016 to 2017. The school has raised the profile of the importance of attendance and is taking appropriate actions to stem the decline. Senior leaders rightly explained that the figures are skewed due to the non-attendance of a few pupils, whose needs the school continues to try to address. However, the

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Inspection findings

school knows that improving attendance, including for disadvantaged pupils, is still a priority.  Teachers now have much better information about the Year 3 pupils who enter the school. Therefore, transition is smooth, no time is now lost in ensuring that their learning and emotional needs are met, and work set is appropriately challenging for them.  The results from Parent View and my discussions with a number of parents at the start of the inspection did result in an additional focus during the inspection. As well as raising some behaviour and bullying concerns, previously mentioned in this report, a minority of parents had concerns about how well the school was led and managed, and that concerns raised, including regarding problems with communication, were not addressed. This information, we agreed, clearly differed from the last school surveys from March and October 2017, when almost no parents raised any of these concerns.

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Inspection findings

The inspector found that school leaders and governors had identified where communication with parents could be improved and had taken action. However, it was also agreed that it was important to engage with all parents to ensure that they had accurate information about how the school was tackling any of their concerns, and to discuss any issues that they wish to raise.  We discussed the items on the school’s website that required adding or updating, and I know that you have already started to make these improvements.

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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

 progress in Years 5 and 6 is improved so that more pupils, especially the most able, make good progress from their starting points in reading, writing and mathematics  pupils’ outcomes are checked between teachers in the same year group more accurately, so that all teachers have a clear understanding of the standards required  the school’s tracking system gives leaders and managers better information in order to track progress more effectively from pupils’ starting points  remaining inconsistencies in the quality of teaching are eliminated, and all teachers follow the school’s policies  the strategies to improve attendance continue to be embedded and persistent absence is tackled, so that the decline in attendance is halted and reversed  all staff engage more effectively with the small minority of parents who feel that the school does not meet their needs or the needs of their children well  the school’s website meets the legal requirements in terms of the key stage 2 results,

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Next steps for the school

the school’s accessibility plan, the governors’ attendance at meetings and the evaluation of the sport grant.

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

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Information about the inspection

During this inspection, you, the two heads of school and I regularly met throughout the day. I also met with five senior and middle leaders and three governors. We conducted a tour of the school together, visiting all classes. I looked at the quality of displays, and looked in detail at work in pupils’ books. In the morning, I spoke informally with parents, and also had various discussions with pupils. I spent time listening to some pupils read. Time was spent reviewing the school’s self-evaluation and improvement plan, as well as other documents, including the behaviour, bullying and attendance records. I examined safeguarding documents, including the single central record. I took account of 34 responses to Ofsted’s Parent View questionnaire and 25 free-text responses. I also took account of 25 responses to the pupil questionnaire and eight responses to the staff questionnaire.

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