Rossett Acre Primary School

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

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Mrs Corrine Penhale Headteacher Rossett Acre Primary School Pannal Ash Road Harrogate North Yorkshire HG2 9PH

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Short inspection of Rossett Acre Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 11 June 2019, 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 your predecessor school was judged to be good in June 2016.

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Short inspection of Rossett Acre 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 Rossett Acre Primary School

Since the last inspection, you and your leaders have continued to focus on school improvement work. This has resulted in the attainment of pupils at the end of key stages 1 and 2 being consistently well above national averages over the last two years. Your actions since the last inspection have enabled you to create a culture of respect and teamwork across the whole school. Since 2016, the leader for early years and two deputy headteachers have left the school. Governors promoted internally your current and experienced deputy headteacher and appointed a new leader for early years. School leaders have invested heavily in the professional development of senior and middle leaders and have appointed knowledgeable staff in key subject leadership positions. As a result, this has strengthened the leadership and management of the school even further and there is great capacity to achieve your aspiration for the school to become outstanding.

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Short inspection of Rossett Acre Primary School

Together with the leaders of the Red Kite Learning Trust, you have ensured that governance is a real strength of the school. The knowledgeable chair of governors leads the governing body well. Following a comprehensive skills audit, new governors were recruited to strengthen the governing body. Governors have a wide range of skills and expertise and are routinely involved in school life. They provide very effective challenge and support to leaders and know the strengths and weaknesses of the school very well.

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Short inspection of Rossett Acre Primary School

You and your leadership team have successfully dealt with the areas for improvement identified in the last inspection report. At the last inspection, you were asked to develop further leaders’ skills in monitoring and evaluating the impact of improvement strategies. You were also asked to improve the quality of teaching so that all pupils meet the demands of a more challenging curriculum that stretches the most able pupils. You acted swiftly, reviewed the curriculum and raised the profile of teacher professional development across the school. You ensured that all leaders received appropriate training in using and analysing effectively school assessment information. You raised expectations about the quality of teaching and learning further. Leaders focused strongly on staff development and sharing good and outstanding practice, not only within your school, but also through effective collaborations with other schools in the trust and beyond. You and your senior

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Short inspection of Rossett Acre Primary School

leaders regularly monitor the quality of teaching. As a result, all teaching across the school is now strong or better and the proportion of pupils achieving the higher standards across key stages 1 and 2 in reading, writing and mathematics continues to increase.

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Short inspection of Rossett Acre Primary School

At the last inspection, you were also asked to improve communication with parents and carers. You and your leaders reviewed your systems of communication with parents. You increased the opportunities for parents to get involved in school events. You introduced new electronic systems that allow parents to access pupils’ progress information more readily and increased the frequency of parent information evenings. As a result, engagement with parents has improved and parents are better informed about the progress of their children.

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Short inspection of Rossett Acre Primary School

You and your leaders have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are very thorough and detailed. There is a strong safeguarding culture in the school. Staff know the pupils well and the monitoring of pupils’ welfare is meticulous and comprehensive. Together with your senior administration officer, you ensure that you carry out appropriate checks on the suitability of all staff who work with pupils. Your safeguarding governor monitors all areas of safeguarding thoroughly.

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Short inspection of Rossett Acre Primary School

All staff and governors receive appropriate and up-to-date training in child protection, including the dangers of radicalisation and female genital mutilation. Staff know what to do if they have any concerns about the children and pupils in your school. You and your staff responsible for safeguarding meet frequently and discuss all concerns raised about pupils. As a result, the school shares information with external agencies effectively, and leaders act swiftly and monitor the impact of actions closely. Pupils report that they feel safe in school and know whom to go to if they have any worries. They also say that bullying is very rare and when it does happen, teachers deal with it effectively. Inspection evidence and the views of parents and staff also support this. Pupils are very polite and respectful to each other, staff and visitors. The relationships between staff and pupils are very positive. As a result, behaviour

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Short inspection of Rossett Acre Primary School

in lessons and conduct around the school environment are exemplary.

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Inspection findings

 Since the last inspection, you and trust leaders have reviewed the senior leadership structure. Your current leadership team includes senior leaders for every phase of the school and you introduced separate leaders for upper and lower key stage 2. You ensured that every subject in the school’s rich, broad and balanced curriculum is led by a knowledgeable member of staff. You invested heavily in the professional development of teachers and provided appropriate training, including for middle leaders. With support from the trust, extensive collaboration with other schools provided the opportunity for staff to experience and share outstanding practice. Your leaders for early years and key stage 1 are also moderators for the local authority. As a result, senior and middle leaders are more confident, know the strengths and areas of development for their subjects very well, and are sharply focused on monitoring the progress pupils make at

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Inspection findings

each transition point.  You have reviewed the curriculum for mathematics and writing. Leaders have introduced a range of initiatives across the whole school, including the use of more challenging texts, including poetry in Year 6, to stretch the most able pupils and a mathematics mastery approach. Teachers focus heavily on challenging vocabulary development and this was evident in the pupils’ strong and skilful writing across key stages. You continually review the curriculum for writing to ensure that pupils, including the most able pupils, are inspired and write more creatively. Pupils now have a range of opportunities to write at length in English and other subjects, including science and topic. In mathematics, pupils, including the most able pupils, move on to reasoning and problem-solving tasks as soon as they are ready. During our joint visits to lessons and through the scrutiny of pupils’ books, you were able to demonstrate clearly the impact of your actions in

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Inspection findings

these areas.  Since 2016, you have reviewed the quality of teaching and learning across the school and acted swiftly to eradicate any weak teaching. Leaders have implemented thorough and very effective monitoring systems which show that the quality of teaching is consistently good or better. Our joint visits to classrooms, together with discussions and scrutiny of other evidence, confirm that you are skilled in accurately evaluating the quality of teaching. Staff work collaboratively to develop further areas of teaching and learning, as identified by leaders. Teachers use targeted questioning effectively to probe pupils’ deeper understanding and support their progress. As a result, all teachers challenge pupils more, including the most able pupils.  Over time, the attainment of pupils at the end of each key stage has been very strong and consistently above national averages. In 2018, the proportion of

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Inspection findings

pupils achieving the expected and higher standards in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of key stage 2 was well above national averages, following a similar trend in 2017. Similarly, the proportion of pupils achieving the expected and higher standards at the end of Year 2 in reading, writing and mathematics has been consistently well above national averages over the last two years. The proportion of pupils achieving the expected standards in science at the end of key stages 1 and 2 has been consistently well above national averages. Similarly, the proportion of pupils achieving the expected standards in the phonics screening checks at the end of Year 1 and the proportion of children achieving a good level of development at the end of Reception have been consistently above national averages.  In 2017, the progress of pupils at the end of key stage 2 in reading was above national averages. However, in 2018, a small number of pupils had a

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Inspection findings

disproportionate negative impact on the rate of progress of pupils in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of key stage 2, especially the most able pupils, which leaders expected. You acted quickly and decisively, and correctly identified specific areas that needed improvement. You swiftly implemented action plans to support pupils who needed it. As a result, the school’s assessment information, inspection evidence and scrutiny of pupils’ work indicate that the progress of most-able pupils in reading, writing and mathematics is rapidly improving. You agreed with me that this area should continue to be a focus of leaders’ work. The attainment of all pupils in reading, writing and mathematics across both key stages continues to be very strong.  Since the last inspection, you have reviewed school systems for monitoring the progress pupils make. Senior and middle leaders meet frequently with staff to

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Inspection findings

identify any pupils who underperform and put appropriate interventions in place. Senior leaders monitor the impact of these interventions closely. However, you agreed with me that more work is needed to further refine these systems, so that leaders can more accurately evaluate the impact of their actions on the progress of different groups of pupils, including the most able pupils.

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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

 school systems for monitoring pupils’ progress are refined further to ensure that leaders can accurately evaluate the impact of their actions on different groups of pupils  the progress most-able pupils make at the end of key stage 2 in reading and writing continues to improve.

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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 of the Red Kite Learning Trust, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for North Yorkshire. 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 deputy headteacher, your senior leaders, staff and governors. I also held discussions with the school improvement director from the trust with responsibility for primary education and the school improvement adviser. I spoke to a range of staff, pupils and parents. I listened to pupils read, and together, we conducted tours of the school and lessons, looking at pupils’ work and observing their learning. I also, alongside senior and middle leaders, conducted a scrutiny of pupils’ work in a range of subjects.

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Information about the inspection

I scrutinised and evaluated a range of documents relating to safeguarding, behaviour, attendance, school improvement and school’s own surveys of parents’ views. I took account of the 57 responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, including the 52 free-text responses from parents. I also took account of the 37 responses to the staff questionnaire and the 208 responses to the pupil questionnaire.

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