Bentley High Street Primary School

Bentley High Street Primary School High Street, Bentley, Doncaster, South Yorkshire DN5 0AA

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

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Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

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Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Not previously inspected

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 The highly skilled headteacher, alongside an effective senior and middle leadership team, has ensured that the school is improving at a rapid rate. Although outcomes have fallen in recent years and require improvement overall, they are now strengthening considerably.  Leaders have used their evaluations effectively to direct fast-paced improvements. Importantly, the quality of teaching and learning in reading, writing and mathematics has improved and is now typically good. As a result, pupils’ progress is strengthening.  Leaders are taking steps to make sure that the quality of teaching improves even further. They know that the new approaches to the teaching of writing, for example, still need to be fully embedded across the school.  In reading, most pupils, including children in early years, are making good progress. However, the achievement of lower-ability pupils in key stage 1 is sometimes held back

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

because the teaching of phonics is not consistently good. The books pupils read are sometimes not well matched to the sounds and letters they know.  Teaching in early years has improved considerably. Learning gets off to a good start because staff plan to meet the needs of the youngest children well. Children, including two- year-olds, make good progress.  Pupils’ behaviour is good in lessons and around the school. Incidents of poor behaviour, including bullying, have reduced substantially recently. Attendance has also improved and is now closer to the national average. However, too many pupils are still absent regularly.  Leaders have designed a curriculum that prepares pupils well for life in modern Britain. It supports pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development well. Pupils speak with confidence about their understanding of other faiths and cultures.  Pupils’ progress in subjects other than English

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

and mathematics is more variable. Sometimes, the most able pupils do not develop a deep enough understanding in some subject areas. Leaders’ plans to address this are well under way.  Governors provide effective challenge and support for the headteacher because they have a clear understanding of the needs of the school.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Further improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, so that pupils’ outcomes continue to rise, by ensuring that: – the teaching of phonics is consistently good – the books pupils use for reading are carefully matched to the sounds and letters that they know – the new approach to the teaching of writing is fully embedded – the plans to provide pupils, particularly the most able, with more challenging work to deepen their understanding are successfully implemented across all subjects.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

 The headteacher has built a united leadership team whose members share her passion for improving the school. Teachers at all levels told inspectors that they value the many professional development opportunities that leaders provide. Many staff now hold nationally recognised leadership qualifications; other staff are working towards them.  The headteacher is a specialist leader of education for teaching and learning with a specialism in English. Her excellent subject knowledge has helped her transform the school’s approach to the teaching of writing. She is the driving force of improvement across all aspects of the school’s work.  The multi-academy trust appointed a new special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) in September 2018. Parents told inspectors that since this happened, they are much more confident that their child’s additional needs are being met.  Leaders are determined to ensure that pupils’ outcomes improve urgently. They

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

analyse assessment information in great detail. This helps leaders identify pupils who have fallen behind and try new things to help them improve quickly. Leaders check carefully to make sure that the different strategies they have put in place are working effectively.  Leaders know that every class teacher needs to be doing a really good job in the first place, so that extra interventions are not needed. Monitoring records show that leaders are helping teachers to improve their teaching in the very small proportion of cases where this is necessary. Leaders’ actions have already helped many teachers to successfully improve the quality of their work.  Several teachers told inspectors that this challenge from leaders to improve is done in a very supportive way. Leaders give teachers targets for improvement, but they also provide lots of training and encouragement. For example, one middle leader is allocated the role of coach. Teachers say that they use their coach for advice and

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

support. This helps reduce teachers’ stress levels, ensuring good mental health and well-being in the workplace.  Leaders have used additional funding to help ensure that pupils’ mental health and well-being are also well supported. Additional staff have been appointed, including a mental health leader. A family support worker has also been recruited to work closely in partnership with parents and carers. The extra support provided for families is helping to reduce the number of pupils who are persistently absent.  The primary school physical education (PE) and sport funding is used well to promote pupils’ physical development. In addition to a wide range of successful school teams, the number of playground activities has been increased to keep all pupils moving at breaktime. Extra training has been given to help staff deliver a range of after-school activities.  Middle leaders have identified that some subjects are not being studied in enough

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

depth to prepare pupils well for secondary school. Leaders’ monitoring records show that there is insufficient challenge for the most able pupils across the wider curriculum. Leaders have already begun to review the wider curriculum to increase the depth of study, and level of challenge, from September.  Leaders have designed a curriculum that supports pupils’ good spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Pupils have a secure understanding of right and wrong.

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Governance of the school

 There are many loyal, long-serving governors within the multi-academy trust. However, governors undertook a skills audit and recruited new governors to make sure that the local governing body has the necessary balance of knowledge, skills and experience to challenge leaders effectively.  Governors effectively hold leaders to account. For example, they have challenged leaders over the need to improve provision within early years. This has contributed to the rapid improvements since September 2018.  Governors know the school well. They provide effective oversight of leaders’ work, for example around increasing the level of challenge across the wider curriculum. Subject leaders are invited to attend local governing body meetings. Leaders present evidence of their development work and share examples of pupils’ work. This enables governors to evaluate the impact of actions taken to improve subjects.

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Safeguarding

 The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.  The chair of the local governing body is a senior police officer with relevant professional experience of safeguarding. This strengthens the level of challenge governors provide for this aspect of the school’s work.  Staff at all levels are confident in identifying signs of potential harm or neglect. Leaders monitor closely the absences of pupils who may be vulnerable to check they are safe.  Leaders regularly review their safeguarding procedures and policies to ensure that these are fit for purpose. For example, a recent review of the safeguards put in place for those pupils with dietary intolerances has ensured that pupils with special dietary requirements are fully safe. Lunchtime and breakfast club staff are confident in explaining these protective steps.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

 Leaders have been successful in securing vital improvements to the quality of teaching. As a result, teaching is typically good.  Mathematics is taught well throughout the school. Teachers have good subject knowledge and work is pitched at the right level of difficulty for all pupils. Teachers and teaching assistants use questioning very effectively to probe pupils’ recall of earlier learning and build upon it successfully. Pupils are provided with frequent opportunities to apply their mathematical knowledge to reasoning and problem solving.  Leaders have taken effective action to improve the teaching of writing. In collaboration with other schools and led by the headteacher, approaches to the teaching of writing have been revised and strengthened considerably. As a result, pupils’ progress is now improving strongly. However, these approaches are still being embedded into teachers’ practice, so some inconsistencies still remain between classes.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

 In order to address the decline in standards in reading in key stage 2, leaders have taken swift and effective action to revise and improve the approaches to the teaching of reading. In key stage 2, the teaching of reading is now consistently good; all teachers adhere to the school’s agreed approach. Teaching assistants are well trained and skilful when they hear small groups of pupils read. As a result, key stage 2 pupils are becoming confident readers and their vocabulary is being extended successfully. Pupils’ progress is now much stronger.  In key stage 1, the teaching of reading, including phonics, has also been improved, although it is not consistently good. Pupils from Year 1 and Year 2 are now taught together in different ability sets for phonics sessions. This approach is working well for most pupils, as learning is more effectively tailored to reflect pupils’ varying abilities. Most pupils develop early reading skills well. However, the achievement of lower-

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

attaining pupils is sometimes hampered because the books they read are not well matched to the sounds and letters that they know. This is limiting pupils’ developing confidence and fluency as early readers.  Teaching is increasingly well adapted to meet the needs of different groups of pupils. Effective teaching and support mean that pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are now making good progress from their individual starting points. Teaching assistants provide very strong support. In mathematics, for example, they skilfully adapt resources or methods to help pupils solve calculations. Disadvantaged pupils are also benefiting from the improved quality of teaching. Most-able pupils are now making much better progress in English and mathematics. However, they do not always achieve their full potential in other curriculum subjects. Teachers’ expectations of what they can achieve are still sometimes too low.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

 Leaders have identified that some topics teachers have chosen to teach lend themselves better to some subjects than others. This means that some areas of the national curriculum are not studied in enough depth. Leaders’ plans to address this issue are well under way.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.  The school council was open and confident in its discussions with inspectors. School council members are clearly very proud of their school. Pupils say that staff make them feel safe and they like it that their school is so quiet and calm.  Leaders have threaded pupils’ good spiritual, moral, social and cultural development through all curriculum planning as one of the school’s ‘five drivers’. These are displayed in corridors around the school. Pupils who spoke to inspectors had much to say about self-esteem and why this is important. Generally, pupils present themselves as confident and self-assured. For example, pupils were able to discuss what constitutes good mental health and what this means to them. This age-appropriate understanding is helping to develop pupils’ welfare and resilience.  Pupils say that they enjoy the many after-school clubs and other opportunities that

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Personal development and welfare

help to build their teamwork skills. They enjoy the frequent chances they are given for volunteering, including helping at the church next door and visiting a local care home. Key stage 2 pupils regularly reflect on how they have made a positive personal contribution to the school and community, for example through volunteering.  Pupils have a good understanding of other faiths and cultures. Members of the local church are helping to enhance pupils’ knowledge. For example, pupils’ work shows progression from identification of parts of a church in Year 2 to an understanding of the religious symbolism on stained-glass windows in Year 6.  Pupils know how to stay safe online.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is good.  Pupils have positive attitudes to their learning and they behave well in lessons. Pupils are calm and courteous when they move around the school between lessons.  Attendance is improving, including for pupils who are persistently absent, although the rates of persistent absence remain high. While leaders’ efforts to reduce the number of frequently absent pupils are working, there is more work to be done to reduce the number of families who take term-time holidays.  Pupils say that there is some bullying, including racist and homophobic name-calling, from a few pupils. Some parents have expressed concern about this. Leaders have taken this matter very seriously and have taken prompt and effective action to ensure it does not happen. Consequently, the number of incidents has reduced rapidly. Leaders have adapted the curriculum to ensure that pupils’ understanding of, and

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Behaviour

respect for, rights, equalities and the rule of law, including protected characteristics, are strengthened.

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Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

 Pupils in key stage 2 have not achieved well over time. In 2018, the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics combined fell and was below average. This did not represent good progress from their Year 3 starting points.  However, the improvements leaders have secured to the quality of teaching have ensured that current pupils are now making much stronger progress in reading, writing and mathematics. Even so, many improvements are recent, and therefore, pupils’ much improved progress has not been sustained over time.  In 2018, at the end of key stage 1, the proportions of pupils reaching the expected standards in reading and mathematics improved and were broadly average. In writing, however, standards of attainment did not improve and remained much lower than average. Following the introduction of the new writing strategy, current Year 2 pupils are making better progress.

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Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

 In recent years, the proportion of pupils achieving the expected standard in the Year 1 phonics screening check has been below average. Leaders have already strengthened the quality of phonics teaching and this is now having a positive effect for many pupils. The teaching of phonics ensures that pupils typically acquire early reading skills well. However, lower-ability pupils are not making enough progress to help them to catch up. Approaches to the teaching of phonics remain inconsistent. Some pupils are given books to read that are not well matched to their phonics knowledge.  Over time, the most able pupils have not achieved well. In the last three years, a well- below average proportion of pupils have reached the higher standards by the end of key stage 2. In 2018, at the end of both key stage 1 and key stage 2, the proportions of pupils achieving greater depth or reaching the higher standards were below average

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Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

in reading and well below average in writing and mathematics. Too few pupils have reached the higher standards they are capable of in writing and mathematics. Although currently most-able pupils are making better progress in these subjects, in subjects across the wider curriculum their achievement is still held back because work lacks sufficient challenge. Teachers’ expectations of what the most able pupils can achieve are still not high enough, especially in subjects other than English and mathematics.  Pupils with SEND have not made good progress over time. Leaders have strengthened the quality of teaching for pupils with SEND effectively. Good leadership, along with effective teaching and support, mean that these pupils are now making good progress from their individual starting points.  Over time, disadvantaged pupils have not achieved well. Progress in key stage 2 in 2018 was similar to that of other pupils in the school; however, their attainment lagged

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Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

considerably behind that of other pupils nationally. As with other pupils in the school, disadvantaged pupils’ work now shows recent, stronger progress. Improvements to their progress during this year are supporting current pupils to catch up. Gaps in attainment are starting to close, but this is yet to be reflected in published outcomes.

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Early years provision Good

 Many children start school with knowledge, skills and abilities that are below those typical for their age. In recent years, the proportion of children reaching a good level of development by the end of Reception has also been below average. While this proportion improved in 2018, it remained below average and did not represent good progress overall. Leaders identified that early years provision required improvement, so, in September 2018, they completely overhauled all aspects of provision. The quality of teaching and the curriculum has improved markedly as a result. It is now securely good. Children are making good or better progress from their individual starting points. This is especially the case for those children who have attended throughout their early years.  Leaders have established strong links with pre-school providers. Teachers visit children in their pre-school settings and speak to the staff about the children in their care.

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Early years provision Good

Records of children’s learning are shared so that there is a smooth transition when children start school.  There is provision for two-year-old children on site. Two members of staff within the team hold specialist early years degree-level qualifications. They have adapted the curriculum well to meet the needs of such young children. Practitioners are skilfully helping children learn to manage their feelings and behaviour.  The teaching of phonics in Reception is effective. Teachers have secure subject knowledge and they use language precisely. Children are confidently learning letters and the sounds they represent because teaching is thorough and systematic. Children are becoming speedy readers, and this is helping to prepare them well for Year 1.  There are good relationships with parents. They are invited for visits with their children before they start school. Parents told inspectors they are ‘amazed’ how quickly their

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Early years provision Good

children are learning to read since starting school in September.  Teachers have high expectations of children’s independent writing. There are lots of opportunities for children’s mark-making in all areas of the classroom. Children are encouraged to ‘have a go’ at writing words during their learning and play. Children are proud to see their independent writing displayed around the room.  There is a good balance of adult-led teaching and child-initiated play. Children are encouraged to be independent and this is working. The outdoor classroom, particularly in Nursery, is enriching children’s learning. Leaders have plans to further develop the outdoor classroom in Reception.

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School details

This inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was also deemed a section 5 inspection under the same Act.

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School details

Email address admin@bentleyhighst.doncaster.sch.uk

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School details

Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

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Information about this school

 This school converted to academy status in May 2017. It belongs to the Inspiring Futures Academy Trust. The board of trustees has appointed a local governing body.  The chief executive was the headteacher at the time of the previous inspection, before the school became an academy. The current headteacher was the deputy headteacher at that time.  The headteacher was promoted from the role of deputy headteacher to become head of school in 2015. She was appointed as substantive headteacher in September 2018.  The scheme of delegation is published on the school’s website. There is clear separation of duties between the board of trustees and the chief executive. The chair of the local governing body is also a trustee.  The predecessor school was inspected on 18 March 2015 and was graded outstanding. This exempt school was selected for inspection because nationally published results of pupils’ achievement by the end of Year 6 had declined over time.

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Information about this school

 This school includes provision for two-year-olds.  This school is larger than typical. It includes pupils from 12 out of 17 possible ethnic groups. Most pupils, however, are of White British heritage.  Approximately one third of pupils are disadvantaged. This is slightly higher than the national average.  The proportion of pupils with SEND is above the national average.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed teaching and learning in all year groups, including the provision for two-year-olds. Most of these observations were undertaken alongside school leaders.  Inspectors reviewed children’s learning journeys and pupils’ written work across the curriculum. In most subjects, pupils’ learning was evaluated alongside subject leaders.  Inspectors held discussions with pupils throughout the inspection: at breakfast club, in lessons, during breaktime and in a more formal meeting.  Inspectors talked to parents before school to ask them their views. Inspectors also met with a group of staff.  A meeting was held with the chief executive, and representatives from the board of trustees and the local governing body.  Meetings were held with the headteacher and various senior and middle leaders.  Inspectors reviewed several documents, including the school improvement plan, monitoring records and curriculum planning documents. Inspectors also evaluated the

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Information about this inspection

school’s records of attendance, behaviour and exclusion records, minutes of meetings of the local governing body, and reports from Doncaster local authority challenge partners.

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Inspection team

Tracey Ralph, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

David Hodgkiss 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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