Shrubland Street Community Primary School

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

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Mr Jonathan Wright Headteacher Shrubland Street Community Primary School Shrubland Street Leamington Spa Warwickshire CV31 2AR

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Short inspection of Shrubland Street Community Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 13 September 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 May 2014.

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Short inspection of Shrubland Street Community Primary School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Pupils currently at the school are thriving and making good progress in reading, writing and mathematics. Disadvantaged pupils and those who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities are making good progress across the curriculum. Attendance improved in 2018. Pupils behave well and are safe.

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Short inspection of Shrubland Street Community Primary School

Your leadership is calm and decisive. You are well supported by a strong senior leadership team. For example, the deputy headteacher has implemented a clear assessment policy that helps pupils understand their successes and what they need to do next. The special educational needs coordinator has an impressive understanding of the wide range of spoken language needs of your pupils and has planned effective learning opportunities. Your staff are passionate about improving the lives of pupils. Staff speak highly of your leadership because you support and challenge colleagues while understanding the need to keep workload at a reasonable level. You have brought the school through some highly challenging and turbulent times. The school has emerged as a strong and safe place for all to learn. Numbers applying to the school are rising and there are waiting lists for classes in almost every year group.

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Short inspection of Shrubland Street Community Primary School

Governance is a strength of the school. You and your staff help governors to understand the information you give them and they are skilled at using this to check on the quality of education. You and the governors have produced a clear and challenging development plan. This is as a result of unflinching and accurate self- evaluation. The monitoring information you give to governors is of a high quality. My scrutiny of minutes of governing body meetings and discussion with the governing body showed how openly you share the strengths and weaknesses of pupils’ progress. For example, when pupils did not do as well as you had expected in the key stage 2 mathematics tests this year, you shared all your evaluation of this with them and subjected yourself to close scrutiny from your governors. As a result, governors trust your information.

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Short inspection of Shrubland Street Community Primary School

Parents and carers are very pleased with the education you and your staff provide. All of the 23 free-text comments to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View, were positive. A typical comment was, ‘We couldn’t be happier with Shrubland Street. The staff give their all to support and nurture our children.’ All of the parents who responded to the Parent View questionnaire said that they would be happy to recommend the school to another parent. You and your staff take the community school designation seriously. For example, you hold after-school English and mathematics workshops for all parents, and Diwali celebrations are run jointly with parents who speak English as an additional language.

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Short inspection of Shrubland Street Community Primary School

Staff offer breakfast workshops for pupils before school in English and mathematics. Pupils can attend after-school classes to help take their learning further in, for example, science, football and the arts. You hold what you call ‘Space Camp’ evenings for pupils to develop their curiosity about astronomy. Your ‘Phiz Lab’ encourages pupils to develop an interest in physics of measurement and movement through practical and engaging lessons. Consequently, science is a strength of your school.

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Short inspection of Shrubland Street Community Primary School

Most of your pupils speak English as an additional language and this proportion has grown significantly since the last inspection. More than 20 languages, as well as English, are represented in the school community. You have seized the opportunities this presents and the school welcomes diversity. For example, your curriculum helps pupils understand a wide range of faith and cultural traditions. Pupils are proud of their cultural heritage and have respect for modern British values.

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Short inspection of Shrubland Street Community Primary School

You are disappointed by the provisional results of the recent national tests in writing and mathematics at key stage 2. However, the books of pupils in Year 6 and Year 5 currently at the school show good progress over time in writing and in mathematics. For example, their work on relative and subordinate clauses shows pupils rising to the challenge of complex writing skills. Pupils’ work in mathematics shows good progress, for example in their learning about space, measurement and problem solving.

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Short inspection of Shrubland Street Community Primary School

Provisional results indicate that pupils in key stage 2 did better in the national test in reading in 2018 than the cohort did in 2017. Pupils enjoy reading and speak enthusiastically about the books they have chosen. You have successfully trained staff to help pupils develop secure skills of inference and comprehension. Pupils read aloud with confidence and fluency. Most pupils come into the school with attainment below that of pupils of a similar age. Nevertheless, pupils make strong progress through the early years and key stage 1. In recent years, the results of the Year 1 phonics screening check have been consistently strong, with nearly all pupils reaching the expected standard. Similarly, by the end of Year 2, the proportion of pupils achieving age-related expectations, and working at greater depth, is in line with or above the national average for reading, writing and mathematics.

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Short inspection of Shrubland Street Community Primary School

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Pupils are safe and understand how to do all they can to stay safe. Pupils know whom to turn to if they are worried. Staff are well trained and vigilant. They use the school’s safeguarding policies to identify when pupils need help, and they provide effective support. Case studies of your safeguarding work show how successfully staff bring about positive outcomes for pupils. The school works effectively with agencies in the local authority to support pupils and their families.

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Short inspection of Shrubland Street Community Primary School

Governors monitor your safeguarding work closely. They are well informed about how well you support pupils. You provide after-school drop-in sessions for parents so they can discuss any concerns they have. Your personal, social and health (PSH) education curriculum helps pupils learn how to stay safe online and when using mobile phones, and what to do in unfamiliar settings. You have set up a group called ‘Shrubland Online Safety’. This is a regular meeting for staff and representative pupils to discuss, for example, the latest mobile phone applications and how pupils can use them safely.

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Inspection findings

 At the start of the inspection, we agreed to look at the progress the school has made in addressing the issues raised in the previous inspection report. In particular, we focused on the ability of leaders to evaluate the impact of their strategies and thus whether finances are being well spent. For example, your review of the pupil premium spending and the physical education and sport premium spending is now thorough and effective. You have used resources to appoint an additional member of staff whose role is to work with disadvantaged pupils, supporting them in lessons. You have checked the impact of this spending and provide clear reports to governors. For example, almost all disadvantaged pupils made at least good progress in reading and writing last year.  You tracked the impact of other uses of pupil premium funding, such as the training you bought in to help teachers teach inference skills more effectively.

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Inspection findings

You did this as a result of detailed analysis of the needs presented by disadvantaged pupils, especially in key stage 2. Disadvantaged pupils are now making good progress in this area. You also provide a counselling service, offer a range of enrichment activities and have improved the systems you use to record and interpret information about disadvantaged pupils’ progress. As a result, disadvantaged pupils now make good progress in all key stages.  At the previous inspection, you were asked to improve the ways pupils solve problems in mathematics. You have put in place a range of effective strategies to improve this and I could see the impact of some these during the inspection. For example, in a Year 3 lesson, the teacher showed the pupils how to analyse a problem involving the measurement of angles. Pupils’ books showed clearly that they had learned from their teacher and were using similar skills well.

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Inspection findings

 You were also asked to give more attention to the kind of tasks the most able pupils are offered. Most-able pupils are now making better progress. Staff are setting tasks that are more challenging and giving pupils the time and advice to complete this work well. For example, in a Year 5 lesson, pupils had risen to the challenge of reading Shakespeare and writing about the characters using lines from ‘Macbeth’.  A second area of focus was the progress made by pupils who speak English as an additional language. Inspection evidence shows that these pupils make good progress in reading, writing and mathematics across the school. Your strategy of what you call ‘inclusive learning’ is effective. You have decided to withdraw pupils less frequently from their lessons for support. As a result, pupils get the attention they need from their teacher quickly. During the inspection, I saw teaching assistants and your English as an additional language staff working effectively

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Inspection findings

with pupils in their lessons. Pupils behave well, and this gives teachers the chance to spot misunderstandings and correct them quickly.  You work successfully with families to help support language learning at home. You have built on the effective phonics teaching in early years. Consequently, in 2018, provisional results indicate that pupils did well in the phonics screening check, with almost all pupils who speak English as an additional language reaching the expected standard.  Another focus of the inspection was the progress that pupils in key stage 2 are making in writing and mathematics. This is because you are disappointed in the provisional results for writing and mathematics in the recent national tests.  Inspection findings indicate that the progress of current pupils in writing is good. Pupils are writing increasingly successful non-fiction, such as the work they have done on writing formal letters and newspaper articles. Pupils clearly enjoy the

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Inspection findings

descriptive and poetry work they do. Workbooks show how effectively pupils are writing longer pieces and how they make good progress in skills such as understanding writing structure and using paragraphs effectively.  Most pupils write with confidence and accuracy. This is because staff have been helping pupils to spot the spelling errors they make earlier and to put them right. Pupils have learned how to write clear sentences with effective punctuation. For example, in a Year 6 lesson, pupils were enjoying working out how and when to use colons and semi-colons. A minority of pupils still find spelling and punctuation difficult when writing on their own and their progress is less strong.  Pupils currently in key stage 2 are making good progress in mathematics. For example, pupils understand number patterns and data handling. In a lesson in Year 5, pupils’ books showed strong progress in solving problems. In Year 6

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Inspection findings

books, pupils identified the properties of shapes and angles and broke down the task into easier steps, explaining clearly why they had done this. Some pupils are less knowledgeable about fractions, decimals and percentages. Leaders are reviewing the planning of this teaching to ensure that pupils build a clear understanding in Year 5 without having to repeat the same work in Year 6.

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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

 pupils use accurate spelling and punctuation to improve their independent writing  pupils develop a better understanding of, and become more skilled at working with, decimals, fractions and percentages.

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

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, you and I observed and discussed pupils’ learning throughout the school. I talked to pupils about their work and their experiences in school. I reviewed your evaluations of the school, your plans for improvement and information about pupils’ progress. I met with five members of the governing body, including the chair, to discuss the work of the school since the previous inspection.

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Information about the inspection

I had a telephone discussion with an officer from the local authority and with the school improvement partner to explore their views about how well the school is doing. I also met your senior leadership team to discuss its work on improving the school. I had meetings with the staff who have safeguarding responsibilities.

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Information about the inspection

I reviewed school records of the checks made about staff’s suitability to work with children. I scrutinised the school’s safeguarding arrangements, including examples of your work with other professionals to keep pupils safe. I considered the 29 responses to Parent View, including 23 free-text comments. I also considered 17 responses to the staff questionnaire and 26 responses to the pupil questionnaire.

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