Crofton Junior School

Crofton Junior School Towncourt Lane, Orpington, Kent BR5 1EL

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding

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Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Good

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Teaching is inspiring. It is of a consistently very high standard.  Pupils behave excellently. They are highly committed learners, care for each other, and share fun and laughter together.  Pupils achieve very well. Their reading, writing and mathematical learning is excellent.  Pupils do well too in all the other subjects, including the performing arts and sport. They enjoy their wide range of learning.  Higher-attaining pupils additionally benefit from very well planned, exciting, specialist activities in the ‘academy’ provision.  Disadvantaged pupils, as well as those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), achieve very well.  Pupils feel very well cared for, safe and secure. Staff care for them closely. Their attendance rate is high.  School leaders set clear, ambitious objectives and make sure these are reached. Leaders are approachable and highly committed. They constantly try new ideas and the school is self-

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

improving.  The trustees carry out their strategic responsibilities very well. The local governing body challenges the school effectively.  The curriculum is broad and very stimulating. It allows all pupils to shine in some way, and to learn deeply.  However, there is some room for further improvement in the planning of some subjects, including art, geography and religious education (RE), and for educational visits. Rightly, leaders are addressing these things.  Parents and carers are very pleased. One commented for many: ‘I would strongly recommend the school and absolutely regard it as outstanding.’

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Extend the work under way to improve the curriculum by: – reviewing and, where possible, expanding further still the substance and range of learning activities across subjects, most particularly in art, geography and religious education – clarifying the purposes and place of educational visits and fieldwork.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

 Senior leaders from the school and trust work very well together. They are practical and get things done quickly. Their roles are complementary and clearly defined. The school is driven by their shared moral purpose, thoughtfulness and dedication.  Leaders evaluate the school positively and accurately. This, together with their well- constructed vision, enables them to set a precise direction for school development. The school has suitable plans and management systems, but the main driver is the energy and focus of leaders and staff.  The school develops new leaders very well. Many members of staff have grown their skills, and level of responsibility, within the school and trust.  The performance management of staff is very effective. Adults feel motivated and well supported. Leaders make excellent arrangements for training and developing their team’s practice. Newly qualified teachers are well supported.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

 The school spends its pupil premium funding carefully and effectively. Disadvantaged pupils achieve very well as a result.  The school’s provision for pupils with SEND is very well managed, and these pupils fare well. Parents are pleased. A few comment that communications from the school deteriorated during a recent changeover of staff members.  Leaders look outwards. They are keen to gain insights from external expertise, including that in other schools. Staff from many schools visit Crofton to learn. The school works very effectively with the infant school to ensure pupils’ continuity of learning.  Leaders ensure that pupils learn very well from appealing, well-sequenced learning activities across the different subjects. Staff frequently demonstrate to pupils useful links between subjects and how learning builds up over time. The school provides very well for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

 Subject leaders do a strong and improving job. They set clear and coherent expectations for all subjects, check how well pupils are learning, and very usefully promote improvements. Pupils benefit from learning in well-appointed specialist accommodation, and outdoors.  Leaders spend the sport funding excellently. Consequently, pupils enjoy a wide range of physical activity. The school also draws very well on the expertise within the local music education hub, providing a very energising music curriculum for all pupils.  Leaders are nevertheless rightly working to reduce minor shortcomings in the design of the curriculum. In RE, for instance, pupils receive some exceptional moral teaching, without being shown consistently the significance to believers of the religious practices and beliefs taught. The art curriculum for all pupils, while effective, is not as well structured as the superb provision for chosen pupils in the art ‘academy’. The

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

geography curriculum excels in many respects, but has some limitations in the way pupils’ skills are developed and in exploiting the full value of fieldwork. Leaders have cancelled some educational visits, which has caused uncertainty and irked some parents.  The school offers a broad and inclusive range of clubs and activities which motivate and enthuse pupils.

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Governance of the school

 The trustees and the local governing body dovetail their work very effectively. Together they ensure that the school has a clear strategic direction, effective leadership structure, and the resources necessary to be successful.  The local governing body checks carefully that pupils achieve well. They hold leaders to account appropriately. Rightly, governors have adjusted their work to take increasing note of outcomes for pupils in subjects other than English and mathematics.  Trustees and governors are sharp in fulfilling their statutory responsibilities. They ensure that the school safeguards its pupils correctly.

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Safeguarding

 The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.  The school’s culture of safety is robust. Staff are regularly well trained. Child protection policies and procedures are well established and effective.  The school recruits adults correctly, carrying out carefully the procedures to ensure that they are suitable to work with children. Risk assessments are correctly made for activities on and off site. The school site is suitably secure.  Pupils explain how to keep themselves safe, including when on the internet. Parents comment very positively on safeguarding and their children’s happiness and sense of security.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

 Teaching is consistently challenging and stimulating. Teachers usually show very strong subject knowledge – exceptionally so in English and mathematics – and consequently have very high expectations, which the pupils fully meet.  Teachers closely structure tasks and give crystal clear explanations at just the right level for all pupils. This is achieved because staff consistently and very skilfully apply the school’s policies, in which they are carefully inducted and trained. As a result, pupils learn very quickly.  When not being directly taught, pupils get on with their work productively, think for themselves, and help and explain things supportively to each other. Scrutiny of their work shows that teaching, and their learning, over time is invariably strong.  Teachers test pupils’ learning carefully by asking them excellent, diagnostic questions. These make pupils think hard. Teachers develop pupils’ reasoning very well, by asking,

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

for example: ‘Could you be a little more specific with your explanation?’ Pupils are used to this constant level of challenge and respond quickly and precisely.  When pupils struggle with aspects of their learning, staff provide helpful interventions to enable them to overcome the difficulties. Typically, these are successful quickly, though a few parents feel that certain interventions, while being effective, go on for longer than needed.  Teaching assistants typically contribute very well to pupils’ learning. Their work is a key part of the strength in teaching.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is outstanding. Pupils feel very secure and well cared for in school. The school ensures their well-being excellently. The atmosphere in school is happy and upbeat.  The level of mutual respect among pupils, and between adults and pupils, is terrific. Many parents comment that though the school is large, it feels small and caring.  The school effectively helps pupils and families to deal with any problems on social media.  The school provides very effective pastoral care, which is typically much appreciated by pupils and parents. Pupils who become vulnerable, or who are at any particular risk, are looked after very well by staff. The school properly and sensitively involves external agencies and parents as needed.  Bullying is very rare. It is effectively prevented and addressed by staff.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is outstanding.  In lessons, pupils consistently behave extremely well. They are very receptive to the teaching and highly engaged. They help each other willingly and concentrate carefully. They present their hard work with pride. They can succeed when given freer open- ended tasks, being able to make mature decisions for themselves.  Pupils’ conduct is orderly and safe around the school.  Pupils are polite, friendly and kind. They socialise and play happily with big smiles, enjoying together the range of fun breaktime activities and equipment which promote their happiness. Understandably, they would like more!  The attendance of all groups of pupils is high. Very few pupils are persistently absent; staff work efficiently and caringly to prevent this.  Naughtiness or nasty behaviour is so unusual that it really stands out and is clearly noticed by pupils and parents when it occurs. It is dealt with very well by staff. Pupils

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Behaviour

feel secure.  The rate of fixed-term exclusion is very low. There have been no permanent exclusions in the past few years.

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Outcomes for pupils Outstanding

 Pupils’ writing is excellent. It is interesting, fit for purpose, carefully structured and well presented. Pupils generally apply grammar and spelling rules accurately and effectively.  Due to the extensive library provision, and carefully structured curriculum, pupils read skilfully and widely, demonstrating enjoyment. The pupils who read to inspectors did so accurately with correct comprehension and evident pleasure.  Pupils’ mathematical and scientific understanding is very strong. In science, pupils helpfully evaluate their own work specifically as biologists, chemists and physicists. A parent was understandably ‘impressed by the variety of science subjects covered, the depth of detail learned and the number of hands-on experiments’.  In the 2018 national assessments in English and mathematics, Year 6 pupils did very well. Most pupils achieved the expected standard and very many pupils exceeded this.

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Outcomes for pupils Outstanding

They made marked further progress, building on their prior high attainment in Year 2. This is the consistent pattern over several years for all groups of pupils.  Pupils generally attain highly in other subjects, in all year groups. For instance, pupils learn to make sophisticated and sensible deductions from historical evidence. They sing, compose and play instruments all to a high musical standard.  Many higher-attaining pupils benefit significantly from the selective ‘academy’ provision in sport, art, language, French, performing arts and music. The quality of their work is exceptional.  Pupils are very well prepared for their secondary education.

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School details

This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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School details

Website www.connectschoolsacademytrust.com

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School details

Email address headteacher@crofton-jun.bromley.sch.uk

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School details

Date of previous inspection 27 November 2013

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Information about this school

 This is very large junior school, with six classes in each year group, situated in the outer London suburb of Petts Wood.  Most pupils are White British, though the school has an ethnically very diverse population, with small numbers of pupils from many different heritages.  About one in every ten pupils receives pupil premium funding; this is below the national average.  The proportion of pupils who the school assesses to have special educational needs and/or disabilities is below average.  The school is within the Connect Schools Academy Trust. The trust also contains Crofton Infant School, with which the junior school works closely and has the same headteacher. The junior school also shares with the infant school some other staff members, policies and its local governing body. Governors carry out some functions on behalf of the trustees, especially holding the school leaders to account. The trust’s

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Information about this school

chief executive officer and an executive headteacher oversee both Crofton schools as well as others within the trust.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed lessons across the year groups and in several subjects, often jointly with senior leaders. They observed around the school before and after the school day, at playtimes and lunchtimes and during assemblies.  They sampled pupils’ work in many subjects, often alongside senior leaders.  They held discussions with the headteacher, executive headteacher, other senior and middle leaders, trustees, governors and many members of staff. They met with officers of the Connect Trust, including the chair and chief executive officer.  They met with several groups of pupils, formally and informally, and heard pupils from Years 3 and 5 read.  Inspectors evaluated documents, including the school strategic plans and evaluations, assessments of pupils, pupil premium information, records of attendance and behaviour, and minutes of meetings.  They noted the views of parents from the 255 recent responses, including over 100

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Information about this inspection

written comments, to Parent View, Ofsted’s online survey. They also met with parents formally and informally. They analysed the opinions of 60 pupils from confidential questionnaires.

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Inspection team

Robin Hammerton, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector

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Inspection team

Lando Du Plooy Ofsted Inspector guidance ‘Raising concerns and making a complaint about Ofsted’, which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.gov.uk/government/publications/complaints-about-ofsted . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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Inspection team

In the report, ‘disadvantaged pupils’ refers to those pupils who attract government pupil premium funding: pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years and pupils in care or who left care through adoption or another formal route. www.gov.uk/pupil-premium-information-for-schools-and- alternative-provision-settings .

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Inspection team

You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when and as part of the inspection.

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Inspection team

You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk , or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted .

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Inspection team

achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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