Bishop John Robinson Church of England Primary School

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

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Mr Kenneth Maslin Headteacher Bishop John Robinson Church of England Primary School Hoveton Road Thamesmead London SE28 8LW

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School

Following my visit to the school on 13 November 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 October 2014.

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School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Leaders have worked hard to develop a curriculum which nurtures pupils’ personal development. Teaching is effective in motivating pupils to learn and providing appropriate challenge. As a consequence, current pupils are making good progress. Outdoor learning in particular is a strength, with pupils benefiting from rich opportunities to learn how to get along well together. You have taken advice on best practice for the early years, where outdoor provision is very effective. Nursery and Reception children learn as well outside of the classroom as inside it. They develop strong communication and social skills, such as turn taking, as well as the more obvious physical development. Leaders have successfully addressed the actions for improvement from the previous inspection report. Lower-attaining pupils are now making good progress, as shown

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School

in the main section of this report. Leaders have also shown responsiveness to changing circumstances. When, recently, pupils’ behaviour became a priority, leaders took prompt and effective steps to support pupils who find it difficult to manage their behaviour. You have also increased external support and staffing to ensure that high standards of behaviour are maintained. The governors take an active role in supporting the school and work in partnership effectively with the senior leadership team to raise standards. Parents and carers speak highly of your school. They praise the school’s Christian ethos and values, which underpin all that you strive to do. They also value the provision for children with special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities. One parent summed up the views of others in describing a ‘charming village school’ that ‘makes everyone feel like they are part of a family’. The pupils echo these sentiments and say they enjoy

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School

coming to the school. This is because leaders and staff provide experiences that motivate pupils to learn, including exciting trips and extra-curricular activities. Pupils know the importance of good attendance and say that attendance is high because they want to come to the school.

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School

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Safeguarding is taken seriously. All staff, including governors, understand their responsibility to keep children safe. Systems and processes are in place and staff know why these are important. Recent and relevant training has been implemented and is updated as a matter of course; this includes ensuring that staff have a heightened awareness of risks such as extremism and female genital mutilation.

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School

Pupils feel safe at school, including online. The school prepares pupils to remain safe in a digital world, using suitable policies and parental consent. Pupils, especially in the older year groups, can explain why keeping safe online is important and know how to do this.

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Inspection findings

 We agreed to focus on four key lines of enquiry during the inspection. The first of these was an area of improvement from your previous inspection. Leaders were asked to ensure that lower-attaining pupils have grasped essential key concepts before moving on to more complex ones, especially in mathematics.  The school has worked hard to address this. In classrooms, teachers make sure they revise initial concepts and staff typically intervene quickly to help pupils overcome any misconceptions. Pupils who need further help are spotted quickly and benefit from additional support as soon as they need it. Teachers and additional adults work together effectively to ensure that any extra help is tailored to pupils’ needs.  In addition, the school has established a classroom to cater for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities, particularly pupils with more complex needs. High staff– pupil ratios, well-trained staff and individual learning plans mean these pupils are

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Inspection findings

now making good progress. These pupils also spend a large part of the day with their peers back in their classrooms, to ensure that they are fully included in all aspects of the school.  Next, we looked at the progress of children in the early years foundation stage, including whether the most able children are sufficiently challenged in mathematics, reading and writing.  The curriculum and teaching in the early years, both adult-led activities and those children choose for themselves, are effective in extending children’s learning. Adults plan activities and resources with a focus on key skills such as mark making, use of initial sounds, and the development of number skills. Opportunities for children to practise and deepen their learning outdoors are a real strength. For instance, children developed their fine motor skills effectively by ‘painting’ the shed with water, using a variety of tools such as brushes and

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Inspection findings

rollers.  Adults encourage children to talk about their activities in order to extend and enrich their vocabulary. However, this approach needs to be developed further, in order to maximise the benefits for as many children as possible during the course of the day.  The third line of enquiry focused on pupils’ progress in mathematics, especially the progress of disadvantaged pupils, and towards the end of key stage 2. In 2018, there was a dip in pupils’ attainment in mathematics, showing that they had not made the progress of which they were capable. Leaders responded swiftly and identified a series of actions to bring about improvement. This includes increased monitoring at all levels; focused and specific checks on pupils’ outcomes; regular work scrutiny; and a change in the mathematics curriculum to include opportunities for problem solving and reasoning.  The consequence of these actions is that the leadership team now has a very

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Inspection findings

clear picture of pupils’ progress and what needs to be done next. Leaders are quick to put in place sharply focused extra support for pupils who are falling behind, including those pupils who are disadvantaged. Pupil premium funding is used well to support some of these initiatives. Outcomes for the current pupils, including disadvantaged pupils, are strong, with the majority of disadvantaged pupils making substantial progress. Nevertheless, further work is needed to ensure that these improvements are maintained over time.  Finally, we discussed the school’s work to provide a broad and balanced curriculum, including the role of middle leaders. A rich curriculum is central to your vision for pupils’ education. It was evident in classrooms and pupils’ work that the curriculum supports the development of specific knowledge and skills in a range of subjects, so that pupils can make good progress. This was seen in

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Inspection findings

physical education, art, history and technology, for example. In addition, teachers ensure that pupils develop and apply their writing skills in other subjects to support their progress.  Middle leaders, including some who have new responsibilities for a subject or key stage, feel well supported in their drive to raise standards while ensuring this breadth and balance. They are enthusiastic about leading their subjects and, with support from the senior leaders, follow clear action plans to do this. A particular feature of their work is the off-site visits, which are seen as vital to extending and enriching the learning; residential visits begin in Year 3 with the ‘school sleepover’.

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Next steps for the school

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that they:  sustain the current practice in mathematics to secure strong outcomes at the end of each key stage  consolidate the role of middle leaders to deepen the curriculum and strengthen the high-quality learning environments, to maximise pupils’ outcomes  continue to develop opportunities for high-quality talk in the early years to ensure the best possible start for developing children’s reading and writing skills.

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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 Southwark, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Greenwich. 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 other senior and middle leaders, the chair of governors and two governors. I also spoke to a representative from the local authority. I spoke briefly with parents as they dropped off their children in the morning and I took account of the responses to the online Ofsted questionnaire completed by 10 parents. I spoke informally with staff and pupils and analysed the 15 staff survey responses and 32 pupil responses to the online Ofsted questionnaires. Together, we observed learning both indoors and outside from Nursery to Year 6 and watched a small-group teaching activity. I looked at samples of pupils’ English, mathematics, religious education and topic books from Year 1 to Year 6. I also reviewed a wide range of documents, including the school’s self- evaluation, the single central record and other documentation relating to safeguarding.

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