Netherseal St Peter's CofE (C) Primary School

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

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Mrs Sue Hart Headteacher Netherseal St Peter’s Church of England (C) Primary School Main Street Swadlincote Derbyshire DE12 8BZ

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School

Following my visit to the school on 3 October 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 December 2014.

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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

Leaders have not been quick enough to address weaknesses identified for improvement at the last inspection, nor to address teaching that is not consistently effective enough to ensure that pupils make good progress in reading.

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

Following the last inspection, a key priority for leaders was to ensure that teaching and achievement improved by ensuring that teachers give the most able pupils more challenging work in writing and mathematics lessons. In response to this, you recently adapted provision to ensure that the progress of the most able pupils is tracked more closely and that learning challenges more accurately match their ability. Specific targets are set for these pupils. You have now introduced a provision map to closely monitor the support these pupils are receiving. However, though this strategy is now helping more of the current pupils who are most able to improve, its introduction was not swift enough to have sufficient impact on the achievement of the most able pupils in previous years. As a result, progress for these pupils was not good enough and their attainment was below that found nationally. In addition, not all teachers ensure

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that the most able pupils are given consistently challenging work. As a result, these pupils do not achieve their potential. Your analysis of pupils’ comprehension work shows that, when pupils read, they are not sufficiently skilled in being able to notice the things an author is implying when he or she writes, or pupils do not explain their responses to these inferences clearly enough in writing. Teachers are not ensuring that pupils are given sufficient practice so that they can do this proficiently. This hampers considerably pupils’ progress in reading.

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

You have recently introduced a system to assess and record what pupils know and can do. The initial signs suggest that this is helping you and staff to have a clearer idea of pupils’ outcomes. However, as this system is new to the school, you cannot be sure of its accuracy over the longer term, or its effectiveness in helping you to drive up outcomes. You are passing information about pupils’ overall outcomes to the governing body. This is helping them to understand the progress that pupils overall make, and the standards they attain. However, the questions that they can currently ask you are too limited, as they have not been provided with sufficient information about how well different groups of pupils, such as those who are disadvantaged, or the most able, are achieving. The necessary improvements also risk being delayed because school improvement planning is not sufficiently clear. Governors cannot see

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explicitly which actions are happening, nor precisely what the intention of each one is.

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Staff are supportive of each other and are happy to take advice from you and colleagues to improve their practice. You encourage and support staff to develop curriculum areas and allow them to have a greater oversight of provision, attainment and progress.

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St Peter’s is a welcoming school. Staff clearly enjoy working here as nearly all have been your colleagues for many years. Responses to the staff survey were all positive. Parents and carers are universally supportive of the school and recognise how hard staff work. Your impact on the school community was particularly appreciated. I spoke with parents who have moved their children to St Peter’s and who speak very highly of the care and education you and the staff provide. One parent commented that each child was treated according to their individual needs, describing this as, ‘like a little nutshell just waiting to grow’. All parents who responded to the Ofsted survey, Parent View, said that they would recommend the school to others.

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The school is a calm, well-ordered and purposeful environment. You have ensured that all staff understand the school’s ethos and pupils are attentive to their learning. Pupils treat each other and adults with respect and display good manners. Pupils behave well and work hard in lessons. They are polite and friendly and speak clearly and confidently about their school. Pupils are well prepared for life in modern Britain. They speak respectfully about others, are sensitive to the needs of others and suggest that they would warmly welcome new pupils to school, irrespective of their differences. Pupils show excellent attitudes to equality. They recognise your role in keeping them safe and developing them into responsible young citizens.

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Safeguarding is a very high priority at St Peter’s. Pupils are kept safe because you have ensured that an ethos has been created where all staff care about the safety and well-being of all pupils. All staff receive thorough, frequent and well-planned training in their safeguarding roles. Staff I spoke with were all clear about what the signs of possible abuse are. Staff are also very clear about the procedures for reporting concerns. The case studies we looked at indicated that clear records are kept and referrals, although few, are followed up tenaciously. You have good links with outside agencies and this ensures that pupils receive the required help when they need it. Pupils feel very safe in school and the vast majority of parents agree with this. A small number of parents who responded to Parent View raised questions about bullying. However, pupils I met with explained that bullying was not an issue and they were

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confident that staff would deal with any issues, including infrequent misbehaviour, quickly and effectively, should they occur. Pupils know how to keep themselves safe and know that all staff can be trusted to keep them safe. They know that they can turn to familiar adults with concerns or write their concerns and put them in the ‘Percy Pig’ bags in the classrooms. Staff know each individual child well and quickly recognise changes in behaviour that could cause concern.

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Inspection findings

 Progress for pupils at the end of Year 6 in 2017 was in line with the national average, for all pupils in all subjects. The proportion of pupils attaining the expected standard in each of reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 6 was slightly above the national average.  Provisional information shows that, in the last academic year, pupils in the Year 6 cohort made progress in mathematics that was broadly in line with the national average, and well above in writing. However, their progress in reading was below the national average. Your data shows that some pupils currently in the school also do not make fast enough gains in this subject. You have identified that this is because pupils’ skills in inferring meaning from texts is not good enough. You have not planned sufficiently effective action to ensure that this weakness is addressed quickly.  No pupils have left the school having attained the higher combined standard for

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Inspection findings

two years. You have recently introduced systems to allow you to monitor the progress of the most able pupils more closely and check the effectiveness of support these pupils receive. There are early signs of improvement, with these pupils provided with more tasks that are designed to stretch and challenge them. However, this is not consistent in all year groups. The most able pupils overall do not make sufficiently strong progress.  Governors are supportive of leaders and keen to see pupils do well. However, while they understand pupils’ overall outcomes well, they are not sufficiently precise when explaining how specific groups of pupils are achieving. This means that the governing body cannot ensure that leaders quickly plan and take action to address any underperformance.  The recently introduced system for assessing pupils is new to the school. Therefore, you cannot be sure that it is sufficiently effective in identifying any pupils who are

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Inspection findings

falling behind and that, where it does, teachers take swift action to address it.  Development planning is too vague. Though improvements are occurring, they are not consistently effective because plans do not explicitly set out the actions leaders are taking, nor make it clear how actions can be judged. Consequently, the governing body cannot be sure that improvements are having the impact leaders intend.

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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

 teachers show pupils how to infer meaning from different texts, so that pupils are able to give clear and accurate answers to questions that probe their understanding of what they have read  the most able pupils are given work in all year groups that challenges them sufficiently, so they make better progress, and good proportions of pupils are on track to attain the higher standards by the time they leave the school  leaders provide the governing body with good, clear information about the achievement of different groups of pupils, so they can challenge leaders to ensure that all groups are making good progress  the school’s new system of assessment for pupils is checked rigorously to make sure that it identifies, without delay and accurately, any underachievement, and that teachers immediately adjust their planning, so that these pupils catch up  the school’s development planning identifies specific areas for improvement, precise

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Next steps for the school

actions to address them, when these actions will take place, and how they can be judged for their impact.

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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 the inspection, I met with you and your senior teacher and shared my key lines of enquiry with you. I also met with three members of the school’s governing body, the leader for English, the teacher of Years 1 and 2, and the school office manager. I also considered responses to the Ofsted survey, Parent View, and staff responses to the Ofsted survey. I met with a group of Year 6 pupils and heard pupils from several classes read. We visited a number of classes together and I conducted a work scrutiny. I spoke with parents before school and observed pupils’ behaviour at both break- and lunchtime. I looked at a range of school documentation, including improvement planning and documents relating to current and historical data on pupils’ outcomes. I also scrutinised the school’s website to check that it complies with requirements.

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