Tinsley Meadows Primary School

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

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Mrs Deborah Sanderson Principal Tinsley Meadows Primary School Norborough Road Tinsley Sheffield South Yorkshire S9 1SG

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Short inspection of Tinsley Meadows Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 9 April 2019 with Alison Ashworth, Ofsted Inspector, 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 previous junior school was judged to be good in April 2013 and the infant school was judged to be good in March 2014.

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Short inspection of Tinsley Meadows Primary School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Based on the evidence gathered during this short inspection, I am of the opinion that the school has demonstrated strong practice and marked improvement in specific areas. This may indicate that the school has improved significantly overall. Therefore, I am recommending that the school’s next inspection be a section 5 inspection.

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Short inspection of Tinsley Meadows Primary School

You are a dedicated and inspirational leader and you are supported effectively by an able leadership team and governing body. Together, you are relentless in your pursuit of high-quality teaching and support for all pupils to ensure that they get the very best educational start in life. You have very high expectations. There is no room for excuses or complacency and the school continues to move forward at a pace. Barriers and challenges, occurring as a result of some pupils’ backgrounds or circumstances, are tackled and overcome. As a result, pupils achieve well from their respective starting points.

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Short inspection of Tinsley Meadows Primary School

Senior leaders are enthusiastic and ambitious for the pupils in their school. They are firmly driven in ensuring that the pupils in this school receive the best education they can offer. You have ensured that the school’s reputation in the community has become strongly established. Relationships with families, local residents, the local mosque and other members of the community are strong. You have cleverly linked with community leaders, such as the local imam, to ensure that messages about the importance of education are consistent. As a result, families are highly supportive of school.

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Short inspection of Tinsley Meadows Primary School

You work with determination and passion to ensure that the school sustains several key strengths. From the moment children enter the school, they experience a rich curriculum that engages them and motivates them to work hard. The early years provision is stimulating. Adults are skilled in encouraging children to express their ideas and to use an increasingly wide vocabulary. High outcomes at the end of key stage 2 reflect the pupils’ successful progress from their lower than typical starting points.

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Short inspection of Tinsley Meadows Primary School

You ensure that children get off to a very strong start in early years. This is due to strong leadership and inspirational teaching and learning. A high proportion of children enter Nursery with knowledge, skills and understanding that are below those typical for their age. A higher than national proportion speak English as an additional language and, additionally, a significant number of children move in and out of the provision over time. Despite these challenges, children make substantial progress. The proportion achieving a good level of development by the end of the Reception Year has steadily increased over three years and is close to that seen nationally.

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Short inspection of Tinsley Meadows Primary School

The board of trustees is a strong, well-trained team and its members are experienced and skilled. Governors work effectively with you and the staff. They challenge and support you, while ensuring that they do not take information on face value; they dig deeper through asking incisive and challenging questions. Governors have an accurate understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses. When governors visit the school, they talk with pupils and staff and thus gain an informed understanding of pupils’ progress. Governors carefully check the spending of pupil premium grants and the funding provided for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The governing body ensures that pupils in the school are kept safe and are relentless in their drive to do so.

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Short inspection of Tinsley Meadows Primary School

Pupils’ behaviour and attitudes to learning are excellent and reflect the high quality of the relationships they share with each other and with staff. Pupils are articulate, polite and demonstrate good manners. They listen well and respect other people’s ideas. Their attitudes to learning are extremely positive. Pupils enjoy their learning and talk about their work with passion and enthusiasm. This was illustrated when a class of pupils, who were very new to English, spoke to the class teacher with pride, using some newly learned English words.

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Short inspection of Tinsley Meadows Primary School

Leaders have a very strong understanding of the strengths and areas for development of the school. They are aware of the need to improve presentation at key stage 2 and have already put actions in place to address this.

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Short inspection of Tinsley Meadows Primary School

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Together, you have established an exceptionally strong safeguarding culture within the school. This is because you and your staff care deeply about every individual. Recruitment checks on the suitability of staff working in the school are comprehensive. Frequent training updates, reflecting the latest guidance, are shared regularly with staff. This ensures that they know precisely what to do if they are concerned about a pupil. Systematic record-keeping, which is detailed and thorough, is in place. Swift and appropriate action is taken when incidents are reported, including referral to social services when necessary. Follow-up to these referrals is rigorous, as demonstrated by your determination to ‘not let things go’.

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Short inspection of Tinsley Meadows Primary School

Pupils are taught how to keep themselves safe and healthy through an effectively thought-out curriculum. Pupils, who I spoke with during the inspection, said that the school is a very safe place. They agreed that there is always someone to speak to or help them if they have concerns. Pupils know what bullying is and they said that it is extremely rare at the school. At lunchtime, the playground is supervised well and pupils know who to go to if they hurt themselves or have a worry.

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Short inspection of Tinsley Meadows Primary School

The pastoral team has an excellent understanding of the types of support available for families. They work closely with the designated safeguarding leaders, including the headteacher, to ensure that pupils and their families receive the support they need. The team knows its families very well and, as a result of these positive relationships, parents are engaging with school more frequently.

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Inspection findings

 The inspection focused on a number of key lines of enquiry. The first of these was to look at how leaders ensure that all groups of pupils are challenged, including pupils with SEND and disadvantaged pupils. You and your staff share an unremitting commitment to helping pupils achieve their best. Challenge was apparent in all classes. Pupils, across the range of ability, rose enthusiastically to the challenge of explaining their ideas in response to adults’ probing questioning.  You ensure that pupils with SEND are taught well by experienced professionals. The school’s nurture provision is a strength. Pupils in this class are exceedingly well supported through challenging and well thought-out activities. These allow them to flourish, for example, through weekly visits to the farm and forest schools. This has ensured that pupils who access this provision make very strong progress from their starting points. Pupils with SEND in classes throughout the

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Inspection findings

school are challenged well through well-planned activities that offer a structure of support to allow them to keep up with their peers. As a result, the majority of pupils with SEND are making progress similar to that of other pupils.  Disadvantaged pupils are supported effectively through the pupil premium funding. They receive a range of additional support, either individually or in small groups. These pupils perform as well as other pupils nationally and sometimes better.  Although the vast majority of pupils are well challenged across the school, some pupils, including pupils with SEND and disadvantaged pupils, do not always get the opportunity to attempt more complex mathematical challenges.  The second line of enquiry we focused on was how effectively phonics is being taught in the early years and key stage 1. This was because although Year 1 phonics results are improving, they are still below national averages.

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Inspection findings

 Evidence gathered during the inspection shows that phonics teaching in early years and key stage 1 is very strong. All teachers and teaching assistants have a good understanding of how to teach phonics and, as a result, they support pupils with their learning effectively. Learning is quickly reshaped to support and challenge pupils. The phonics leader has a detailed overview of the quality of phonics being taught in the school. This has ensured that all staff are very well trained to teach phonics to the highest standard.  Children get off to an excellent start in Nursery due to strong teaching of phonics and early reading. Effective teaching enables children to use their knowledge of letters and sounds to begin to read and write independently. As a result, children make excellent progress from their starting points.  I also looked at how leaders are ensuring a broad and balanced curriculum for pupils. The school’s exceedingly well-planned curriculum is structured to build

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Inspection findings

sequentially on pupils’ prior learning. Leaders have thought carefully about how to ensure depth of learning. For example, they have created topic knowledge- organisers. These carefully identify key aspects of learning, vocabulary and concepts that need to take place for pupils to deepen their knowledge. The curriculum provides opportunities for pupils to make connections between areas of their learning.  The sequence of learning is well thought out to ensure that complex learning is meaningful. For example, in Year 6, pupils were writing a diary entry based on a 16th-century text. Pupils could talk confidently about what features they needed to include in a diary, but also how this diary differs from previous ones they had written, due to the 16th-century language. Pupils explained how they had looked at different text styles from the 16th century and had a very secure understanding of the issues surrounding the plague. This meant that all pupils

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Inspection findings

were very well prepared to be successful.  The curriculum is rich and diverse and enthuses pupils with a love of learning. Pupils spoke with great passion about their topics and how these fit into their learning. Pupils in Year 5 talked confidently about their topic, the Early Islamic Empire. They shared information about different inventions from the period, including the camera and a flying machine. They discussed, with enthusiasm, why they had chosen a particular invention as the best one. They explained, with clarity, how this activity fitted in their prior learning and where they were moving to next.  My final line of enquiry considered how well leaders and trustees are improving pupils’ attendance. The attendance of the vast majority of pupils is good. You are diligent in applying your well-formulated procedures to tackle persistent absenteeism. You and your staff work closely with parents and outside agencies

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Inspection findings

to reduce absence. Although the number of pupils who are regularly absent is higher than you would like, there has been a notable improvement in the attendance of some pupils this year. This has resulted from the actions taken, and the support provided.

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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 continue to improve handwriting and presentation at key stage 2  all pupils get the opportunity to attempt some complex mathematical challenges  they continue to reduce the number of pupils who are persistently absent.

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Next steps for the school

I am copying this letter to the chair of the board of trustees and the chief executive officer (CEO), the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Sheffield. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, inspectors held meetings with you and other staff who have leadership responsibilities. I met with the members of the school’s board of trustees and the chief executive officer. We visited classrooms with leaders, and we collected and scrutinised samples of pupils’ work in books. Inspectors talked with individual pupils during visits to classrooms and observed them reading and checking their work. Inspectors heard selected pupils reading and talked to them about their reading at home and school. Inspectors checked a range of documents relating to safeguarding with you and your administrative staff. We also examined details of pupils’ attendance, pupils’ progress and the school’s self-evaluation and development plan. I took account of six responses to the Ofsted online survey, Parent View. I also took account of 26 responses to the staff survey and 16 responses to the pupil survey.

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