Henry Moore Primary School

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

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Mrs Mary Evans Executiv e Headteacher Henry Moore Primary School Kiln Lane Church Langley Harlow Essex CM17 9LW

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Short inspection of Henry Moore Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 31 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 predecessor school was judged to be good in February 2012.

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Short inspection of Henry Moore Primary School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection.

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Short inspection of Henry Moore Primary School

Your leadership is regarded highly by staff and parents. All teaching and non- teaching staff at your school who responded to Ofsted’s questionnaire said that they are proud to be a member of staff. I spoke with most of your teachers during the day. Those with leadership roles are confident in leading their areas of responsibility across the curriculum, while newly qualified teachers (NQTs) are effusive regarding their support. Although only a small proportion of parents responded to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, the great majority believe that your school is well led and managed. For example, one parent emailed to say, ‘the school has been a fantastic support for our family’ and her children ‘have received outstanding care from teachers and support staff academically and also emotionally’. Although a couple of parents expressed individual concerns, the parents who made written responses to Parent View were overwhelmingly positive.

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Short inspection of Henry Moore Primary School

Since the school became an academy in 2015, you have addressed the areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection of its predecessor school with determination and success. You and governors have an accurate view of the school’s current strengths and areas for further development. Your staff understand these too and are working effectively to improve pupils’ outcomes further. Safeguarding is effective.

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Short inspection of Henry Moore Primary School

Procedures for keeping pupils safe are thorough and used well. You and your staff ensure that all safeguarding procedures are fit for purpose. Pupils have a safe environment in which to learn. Your staff are alert in their approach and diligent both in keeping records and following procedures to ensure that the safety of pupils is maintained. Pupils told me, and parents report, that they feel very safe in school. Governors have a good understanding of requirements and procedures, while staff are regularly trained and are able to give examples of where their actions have had a positive impact on safeguarding pupils.

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Short inspection of Henry Moore Primary School

Your school’s work with external agencies is recorded effectively. Files are immaculate, but most importantly all staff are highly vigilant and maintain a caring culture where safeguarding is at the heart of the school.

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Inspection findings

 I pursued several lines of enquiry to ascertain whether the school remained good. The first of these was to check that leaders’ intentions for the curriculum are being implemented and the extent to which they are having a positive impact on pupils’ outcomes. I found that pupils benefit from a rich and stimulating curriculum. The large team of subject leaders spoke to me with authority about how they become subject experts and then train the rest of the staff. Pupils’ progress is monitored in a range of subjects such as physical education, music, English, mathematics and science. As a parent put it: ‘Teachers and support staff do a fantastic job in bringing the curriculum to life through plays, experiments and school trips. The arts and culture enrichment programmes have enabled my boys to appreciate music and the arts as young people.’  My second enquiry was to check how well leaders have responded to the area for

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Inspection findings

improvement in the previous inspection, asking them to provide appropriate challenge to children in the early years foundation stage. Early years provision has improved strongly. You immediately focused greater attention on improving this aspect of the school. You and other staff continue to work with the local authority in developing the curriculum and improving assessment in the early years, for example using the local authority adviser on the day before this inspection to check the accuracy of your assessments of children starting at the school. There is effective work on transition from pre-school settings and into Year 1. The school works speedily to develop pupils’ speech and language by using specialist staff. You have also brought in external advice. As a result, the indoor and outdoor areas are well planned and very well organised. For children to make even more rapid progress, all early years staff need to increase their

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Inspection findings

understanding and raise their expectations of what children can do.  Next, I looked at how leaders had responded to the other main recommendation from the previous inspection, to spread best practice around the school. This is now a real strength. Middle leaders are effective in facilitating the sharing of best practice. For example, teachers have had to change their approach to mathematics teaching radically. There has been a systematic approach to mathematics leaders receiving external training, then demonstrating to other teachers in the school and finally observing, coaching and supporting the rest of the staff. Similar approaches are taken across the curriculum. Teachers plan together and, within each year group, divide up some of the teaching to play to their strengths. Partnership work with other schools (both within the multi- academy trust and across the town) and sharing of staff is proving successful at

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Inspection findings

supporting education in Harlow and bringing in fresh ideas to the school.  The information available before the inspection suggested that, while all groups of pupils make at least average progress, pupils who had not attained well at the end of key stage 1 made particularly strong progress in key stage 2. I wanted to find out why this was the case. I found that leaders and teachers are adept at identifying pupils’ barriers to learning. As a result, additional support is very well targeted so that lower-attaining pupils make rapid progress by the end of Year 6. Leaders recognise that the key stage 1 assessments are not as positive as those at the end of key stage 2 and are addressing this issue.  Finally, I wanted to know why the school does very well in getting disadvantaged pupils to attain in line with other pupils at the expected standard, but does not do so well in supporting them to reach greater depth, especially in writing. The

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Inspection findings

comments above about identifying barriers to learning and putting in appropriate support explain why disadvantaged pupils do well in reaching the expected standard at the end of key stage 2. Additionally, 2018 results suggest that the attainment of disadvantaged pupils has improved further, including the proportion attaining greater depth. This is because staff have higher expectations of these pupils and have been successful in raising pupils’ expectations of their own capabilities.

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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 raise the expectations of what children are capable of for all staff in the early years, so children can achieve their potential more rapidly  current actions to improve pupils’ outcomes in key stage 1 result in all pupils making strong progress from their different starting points, so that key stage 1 attainment is more consistently above the national average in reading, writing and mathematics combined, by: – continuing to spread the latest successful approaches used in school, including the current work on developing pupils’ long-term memory – raising expectations of all staff and pupils of what pupils can do.

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

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, I met with you, your senior and middle leaders, groups of teachers, including NQTs, members of the governing body, and a group of pupils. Together, you and I visited a range of classes to observe teaching. While in class I looked at pupils’ books and briefly listened to pupils read. I reviewed school documents about self-evaluation, development planning and safeguarding, including the single central record. I also considered the 46 responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, including 23 written comments, and 34 responses from staff and 26 from pupils.

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