Coppermill Primary School

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

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Mrs Figen Bektaşoğlu Headteacher Coppermill Primary School Edward Road Walthamstow London E17 6PB

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Short inspection of Coppermill Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 25 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 March 2014.

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Short inspection of Coppermill Primary School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Based on the evidence gathered during this short inspection, I am of the opinion that the school has demonstrated strong practice and marked improvement in specific areas. This may indicate that the school has improved significantly overall. Therefore, I am recommending that the school’s next inspection will be a full section 5 inspection.

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Short inspection of Coppermill Primary School

You have built a strong staff team. Staff are continually striving to improve their performance and are sharply focused on the progress of each pupil. Leaders have a very detailed understanding of the school’s strengths and a clear vision for its development. The governing body is very effective in holding leaders to account for the school’s performance. Governors work with school leaders on an annual cycle to identify future priorities and carefully check that actions undertaken are meeting their targets. Parents are very positive in their views of the school, and particularly that you respond quickly to their concerns. This is a great improvement since the previous inspection.

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Short inspection of Coppermill Primary School

Pupils from all groups make very strong progress across the school in all subjects. This includes pupils supported through the pupil premium and those receiving special educational needs (SEN) support. Attainment is above average.

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Short inspection of Coppermill Primary School

You swiftly tackled the slight fall in attendance last year by being much firmer with the families of persistently absent pupils. Meetings held with families causing concern have proved effective. Links to social services have provided further support for parents. Time lost through extended holidays in term time has fallen.

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Short inspection of Coppermill Primary School

Pupils greatly enjoy school. Those I spoke to said that teachers make learning fun but challenging. In classrooms, pupils concentrated on their learning and collaborated very effectively with each other. Pupils know they can learn from their mistakes, so feel confident to explore and try out their ideas. Those who are school council members fully understand that their role is to speak on behalf of others and represent their views. Pupils said that the excellent behaviour seen during my visit is typical of their daily experience. Pupils said that they feel very safe in school. They told me that pupils get on well together and any rare instances of bullying are dealt with swiftly.

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Short inspection of Coppermill Primary School

You are now working with senior and middle leaders to explore the possibilities of further strengthening the work of the school in partnership with others, with an emphasis on sharing good practice.

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Short inspection of Coppermill Primary School

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Parents who responded to the questionnaire are very strongly of the view that the school cares for their children and keeps them safe. You have established a strong culture of safeguarding through training, using procedures including quizzes to test staff understanding. Informal discussions show that staff are very vigilant and know the signs that might raise concerns that pupils are at risk of harm. Staff have had recent training that includes being alert to the risks of female genital mutilation and of radicalisation. Your team carefully identifies what makes particular pupils vulnerable. Your close links with the police and community workers provide further intelligence on whether pupils are in danger of becoming involved in local gangs so that action can be taken to keep them safe.

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Short inspection of Coppermill Primary School

You keep meticulous records of any concerns and the support provided by the school. You link closely with outside agencies when appropriate. The provision of mentoring and counselling in school provides very effective support for vulnerable pupils. You rigorously check and record the whereabouts of pupils when they leave to go to another school to make sure they have not gone missing.

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Inspection findings

 We agreed at the start of the inspection to explore three lines of enquiry. The first of these was teaching and pupils’ progress in mathematics. We chose this because an area for improvement at the previous inspection was to challenge the more able pupils in mathematics. Assessment data over the last three years suggests you have tackled this very successfully. In 2017, pupils’ progress by the end of key stage 2 was among the highest in primary schools nationally, including for the more able.  You have changed the school’s approach to teaching mathematics. With support through a local partnership and drawing on expert leadership within the school, all staff have been trained so that the teaching of mathematics is consistently strong. Teachers’ subject knowledge is very secure. They provide considerable challenge to pupils through their probing questions and high expectations. Pupils know they are expected to explain their thinking when giving answers.

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Inspection findings

 The very strong progress seen in recent years is being sustained, with many pupils working beyond expectations for their age. Pupils explore ideas, develop their reasoning and deepen their understanding of new concepts. Their calculating is fluent and accurate. Pupils’ books show how they explore new ideas through solving problems, investigations and puzzles. They often select resources themselves to support their learning. They enjoy mathematics and achieve well.  The second area we agreed to explore was how well the curriculum promotes pupils’ learning across subjects. This was chosen because the school’s website does not give much detail of how this is achieved. Leaders have done much over the last two years to make sure that skills are developed systematically as pupils move through the school. For example, skills in history and geography topics are mapped carefully so they make progress and deepen their learning. Skill

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Inspection findings

development in geography can be seen from Year 2 pupils starting to learn about directional language to Year 5 pupils learning map reading skills.  Subjects are taught imaginatively and in depth. For example, enquiry-based learning underpins science teaching; this was seen in Year 5, where the challenge was ‘to launch and evaluate bottle rockets’. Skills developed in computing are linked innovatively to other subjects, such as when pupils used programmable robots to produce art in the style of Jackson Pollock. Additionally, special events such as weeks focused on careers, business, mathematics or science enable pupils to focus even more deeply on specific topics.  The creative arts are a significant strength of the school. Support from the local authority music service helps meet your goal of depth and progression. Pupils learn to play the recorder in Year 2 and the ukulele in Year 4. Instrumental

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Inspection findings

lessons and weekly singing assemblies lead to a termly performance to an audience of parents. The art leader has trained teachers to link skill development to the study of well-known artists. Pupils’ sketchbooks follow them through the school and show very creative outcomes. Many parents are involved in the creative arts and come into school to share their expertise, such as in the termly ‘Everybody Draw’ activity.  The curriculum also promotes the values of ‘Unity, Creativity, Empathy, Respect, Determination and Aspiration’, which are shared by all of the school community. This is found in particular in philosophy lessons, in which pupils consider relevant issues. For example, through discussion, pupils arrived at the key question for debate, ‘Can money buy happiness?’ Respect for others features strongly in pupils’ study of the ceremonies and festivals of world religions. The curriculum promotes deep learning and strong progress across all subjects.

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Inspection findings

 The third area of enquiry was pupils’ progress in English. We chose this because of the strong outcomes in both reading and writing across the school. Pupils make a good start in early reading, and an above-average proportion reached the expected standard in the national phonics screening check. Strong progress continues through to the end of Year 6, resulting in above-average attainment in both reading and writing.  Phonics teaching is lively and interesting. Teachers are highly skilled and teaching assistants have been trained well to follow the teaching programme closely. Pupils participate enthusiastically and are keen to learn new sounds and identify where these feature in words they know.  The school has focused effectively on developing pupils’ key skills of comprehension, inference and deduction. The outcomes are seen, for example, in pupils’ refined inference skills and their ability to respond to questions on the text

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Inspection findings

they are studying. World Book Day added considerably to the pupils’ love of books. They greatly enjoyed working with an actor on drama based on ‘Macbeth’ and dance stimulated by ‘A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream’.  Pupils said that they enjoy writing because they can draft their ideas before putting them together in their final versions. Opportunities to practise early writing skills are plentiful in the early years and provide a secure foundation for key stage 1. Pupils’ writing is creative and imaginative across the school. A further factor in the success of writing is that each history and geography topic has the requirement of a weekly written outcome. Pupils learn to write in a wide range of styles, often stimulated by the quality of the texts they study. Pupils develop the stamina to write at length. This was shown by the lengthy diary entries Year 6 pupils wrote as evacuees from second world war London. These

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Inspection findings

were creative, using ambitious vocabulary and complex structures.

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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

 work continues to promote partnerships to share good practice and further enrich the work of 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 Waltham Forest. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

I carried out the following activities during the inspection:

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Information about the inspection

 I met you and your senior team. I met four governors, including the chair of governors.  You and your assistant headteacher accompanied me when I visited parts of lessons. I also observed pupils as they moved around the school.  I met with a group of pupils to discuss their experiences of school.  I took account of the 49 responses to Parent View, Ofsted’s online questionnaire. I also took account of the 37 responses to the staff questionnaire and the 87 responses to the pupil questionnaire.  I evaluated safeguarding procedures, including policies to keep children safe and records of training and safeguarding checks.

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