All Saints Church of England Primary School

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

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Miss Joanne Strachan Headteacher All Saints Church of England Primary School Magpie Hall Road Chatham Kent ME4 5JY

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Short inspection of All Saints Church of England Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 6 June 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 your predecessor school was judged to be good in June 2014.

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Short inspection of All Saints Church of England Primary School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You lead the school with passion and determination to provide the best possible education for the pupils in your care. You have developed a strong and supportive staff team, ably supported by senior leaders and the Medway Anglican School’s Trust. Staff, parents and carers, governors and the trust acknowledge the stability and improvements that your leadership has brought to the school. You are acutely aware of the school’s priorities and have worked closely with the trust to establish an effective plan for achieving further improvement. In doing so, you have created a culture of high expectations. As a result, pupils are motivated and challenged to achieve their best.

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Short inspection of All Saints Church of England Primary School

Staff who responded to the Ofsted survey are overwhelmingly positive. They are proud to work at the school and enjoy being part of the team. You make staff development a constant priority, providing helpful opportunities for staff to strengthen their expertise. They benefit from a wide range of training, both within the school and across the trust. Your skilful pairing of newly appointed staff with more experienced teachers is helping to further strengthen the quality of teaching.

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Short inspection of All Saints Church of England Primary School

The majority of parents are positive about the school. They feel very involved in their children’s education and are well supported in how to continue their children’s learning at home. They appreciate the frequent opportunities to visit the school and see their children’s work for themselves. Several parents spoke of the school’s family-orientated approach, and one parent commented, ‘The school provides a happy and friendly environment that promotes safe learning.’ Pupils are polite and respectful towards staff and each other. Pupils who responded to Ofsted’s online survey agree that they enjoy school and teachers help them to do their best. The atmosphere around the school is calm and positive, reflecting the school’s values of ‘achieve, respect, include, support and enjoy’. Staff know pupils extremely well. This enables staff to plan learning effectively to suit particular needs. As a result, pupils are keen to engage and show determination to succeed in

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Short inspection of All Saints Church of England Primary School

their learning. They enthusiastically respond with ‘Bring it on!’ when presented with challenges in class. However, the most able pupils do not achieve as well in reading and writing as they do in mathematics. Too few pupils are working at greater depth in these subjects.

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Short inspection of All Saints Church of England Primary School

You care deeply for the pupils at the school and are committed to supporting them to attend regularly. You are aware that attendance for disadvantaged pupils is below the national average and are tireless in your efforts to address this. Sensible steps to improve this aspect are in place. The school’s pupil/family support worker is engaging families effectively where persistent absence is an issue. Nevertheless, this work is at an early stage, and more is needed to ensure that all groups of pupils attend regularly.

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Short inspection of All Saints Church of England Primary School

You have developed a strong culture of safeguarding through a combination of regular staff training, positive relationships and detailed knowledge of the pupils in the school. The school carries out relevant checks to ensure the suitability of staff to work with children. All staff, including governors and trustees, receive annual safeguarding training, and the trust provides further update training regularly. Policies are suitably comprehensive and checked frequently by the trust. Staff are confident in using the required procedures for reporting concerns. The pupil/family support worker follows up any concerns swiftly and provides helpful support and guidance to parents and children when needed.

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Short inspection of All Saints Church of England Primary School

Pupils reported that they feel safe at school and are confident that adults will help them if they have a problem. Pupils are taught well about staying safe online and know how to report concerns when using the internet. Behaviour around the school is generally good, and pupils feel that there are few incidents of bullying. Most parents agree that the school’s staff make sure that pupils are well behaved.

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Inspection findings

 At the start of the inspection, we agreed that we would focus in particular on: the actions leaders are taking to improve pupils’ outcomes in reading and writing, following the dip at the end of key stage 2 in 2017; how effectively leaders are making use of additional funding to accelerate progress for disadvantaged pupils; the achievement of the most able pupils; and how effectively the trust is supporting the school to develop further.  You responded promptly to the dip in reading and writing outcomes in key stage 2 in 2017, analysing clearly the reasons behind these disappointing outcomes. You took firm action to address the decline, providing additional staff and individual interventions for pupils where required. As a result, pupils are now making better progress in English throughout the school, building on the firm foundations set in the early years.  Leaders have taken decisive action to tackle underachievement of disadvantaged

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Inspection findings

pupils. You analyse pupils’ progress carefully to identify barriers to success, such as poor attendance. Your chosen strategy to provide frequent advice and feedback during lessons is also supporting disadvantaged pupils to make stronger progress. As a result, disadvantaged pupils’ progress is typically at least the same as, and in some cases exceeds, that of their peers. You are very aware that some inconsistencies remain in the progress that some of these pupils make, and you are taking decisive action to remedy these.  You are sharply focused on accelerating the progress of the most able pupils. You have instigated a strong focus across the school on providing challenge for all ability levels, including the most able pupils. This has already made a positive difference, with pupils’ outcomes improving in mathematics in key stage 2. Although a legacy of underachievement continues for this group, particularly

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Inspection findings

among older pupils, you are relentless in your determination to raise standards.  The trust took firm and effective action to arrest the decline evident in key stage 2 outcomes in 2017. Trustees managed the changes in leadership very effectively and continue to support and challenge you in equal measure. The trust benefits from a wide range of expertise and demonstrates the capacity to continue supporting the school on its improvement journey. Trustees monitor standards meticulously, ensuring that they understand the school’s priorities extremely well. The trust is highly ambitious for the school’s future.

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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

 they redouble efforts to improve the progress of disadvantaged pupils by further reducing persistent absence for this group  they build on early successes in providing greater challenge, particularly for the most able, to secure better outcomes for these pupils, particularly in reading and writing.

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Next steps for the school

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the chair of the board of trustees and the chief executive officer of the multi-academy trust, the director of education for the Diocese of Rochester, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Medway. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

I met with you to discuss the school’s priorities and agree the areas to focus on during this inspection. I met with the chair and other members of the local governing board, the chair of the trust and chief executive officer. I met with senior leaders, pupils and parents. You and I undertook a ‘learning walk’ across the school, and we jointly reviewed pupils’ work in English and mathematics. I listened to pupils read. I observed pupils’ behaviour in and around the school throughout the day and met with a group. I met with the school business manager to review checks made on the suitability of staff to work with children and checked other safeguarding procedures with the designated safeguarding lead. I reviewed a range of school documentation relating to pupils’ progress, attendance and leaders’ improvement planning. I took account of 33 responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View, including 32 free-text comments, and met with parents at the start of the school

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Information about the inspection

day. I considered 96 responses to the pupil survey and 32 responses to the staff survey.

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