Caroline Haslett Primary School

Caroline Haslett Primary School Faraday Drive, Shenley Lodge, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire MK5 7DF

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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

 Through successful and well-structured professional development, the headteacher has ensured that leadership at all levels is highly effective. As a result, pupils benefit from outstanding provision and attain very well across the curriculum.  Governors, along with school leaders, are uncompromising in their determination that only the very best will do. They provide strong support and challenge for leaders.  A unifying focus on pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is woven through everyday interactions and the curriculum. As a result, the school is a harmonious and respectful place in which pupils thrive.  Pupils’ behaviour is exemplary. From the start of Reception Year to the end of Year 6, pupils are highly motivated, engaged and independent learners.  The highly effective teaching across the school is characterised by unrelentingly high standards. Teachers, kindly but insistently,

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

expect the very best and pupils rise to the challenge with enthusiasm and relish.  Teachers and teaching assistants work seamlessly together in well-informed partnerships. These help to ensure that all pupils get what they need to succeed. Disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) make strong progress in all aspects of their development because their needs are met very well.  Pupils make extremely good progress from their high starting points in all subjects to attain high and sometimes remarkably high standards.  Children get off to a very good start in the early years because provision is outstanding. Leaders ensure that children’s skills are built on very successfully. Children enjoy learning and playing together. As a result, they are very effectively prepared for success in Year 1 and beyond.  The curriculum inspires pupils. Subject-specific skills are developed very well through carefully

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

planned sequences. In key stage 1, standards across the wider curriculum are especially high. Standards in key stage 2, while also high, are not yet always as aspirational.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Develop the high-quality curriculum further, particularly in key stage 2, so that even larger proportions of pupils attain the higher standards in a wide range of subjects.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

 The headteacher and deputy headteacher, along with other leaders, are unwavering in their determination that provision for pupils reflects the school’s motto, ‘Nil satis nisi optimum – nothing but the best is good enough.’ To this end, they insist on the highest standards and consistent application of the school’s agreed policies and approaches. Staff and pupils relish and rise to this challenge. Consequently, united by this aim, everyone strives for the very best.  Leadership at all levels is well informed, sharply focused and highly effective. School improvement planning is well understood by staff at all levels. Leaders work very successfully in faculty groups to implement and monitor plans. Professional development is carefully aligned to current priorities. As a result, improvement across the school is rapid and linked so everyone moves forward together, and the provision for pupils is outstanding.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

 The special educational needs coordinator is highly effective. She knows the pupils extremely well and uses her wide-ranging professional knowledge to identify those who need extra support. Working with parents, carers and external agencies, she designs bespoke interventions to support pupils. As a result, pupils with SEND make substantial progress.  Leaders have ensured that pupils who speak English as an additional language have additional support if they need to acquire language skills. As a result of this and the highly inclusive ethos of the school, these pupils flourish alongside their peers. The whole community benefits from the rich cultural capital created by the diversity of the school’s population.  Leaders and governors are committed to ensuring that pupils develop a strong set of values, enabling them to make a positive contribution to their community and beyond. This is reflected in the emphasis placed on promoting pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

cultural (SMSC) development. It is not left to chance. Careful planning highlights opportunities for SMSC development in every subject. Assemblies reinforce key values well and staff model respectful relationships which pupils echo and enjoy. These qualities help pupils to make the most of school and become responsible members of British society.  Senior leaders have been innovative in their use of pupil premium funding to benefit disadvantaged pupils. It has had a positive impact. Funding is used to provide effective support, which includes bespoke responses to pupils’ individual needs. This includes supporting pupils’ attendance and their participation in extra-curricular activities. Because of this comprehensive provision, disadvantaged pupils make very good progress across the curriculum.  The primary physical education (PE) and sport premium is used effectively. Leaders use the funding to provide many varied sporting activities. Funding is used wisely to

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

promote pupils’ participation in sport so that they develop healthy habits and enjoy being active.  Leaders have developed the school’s high-quality before- and after-school provision to support pupils and families. Staff within the provision model the same warm attitudes and maintain the same high expectations as elsewhere in the school. The Faraday before-school club provides pupils with a lovely start to the day. Pupils enjoy sharing a healthy breakfast and socialising together, for instance through craft activities or playing chess.  Most parents who spoke to inspectors or completed the Ofsted online survey, Parent View, were highly supportive of the school and its leaders. Parents value the warm and welcoming greeting their children receive from staff at the start of the day and the high quality of education provided. One parent succinctly encapsulated the views of many, writing, ‘Great school … great team’.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Outstanding

 Leaders have ensured that the curriculum is inspiring and interesting. It offers something for everyone. Pupils are supported to make links and learn deeply, across a wide range of different subjects. Leaders carefully consider how the work is sequenced to develop pupils’ knowledge and skills successfully. For example, in geography, younger pupils learn their address, where to locate this on an online map, and then where it is on a map of the United Kingdom. Pupils in key stage 1 are attaining exceptionally well across all subjects. Pupils in key stage 2, while attaining well, have not benefited from having the revised curriculum over time. Consequently, sometimes, their wider curriculum work does not support progress as strongly as for younger pupils.

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Governance of the school

 Governors are highly effective, clearly focused and well informed. They exhibit high degrees of professionalism, skill and knowledge. Governors mirror the determination of leaders to secure the very best provision for pupils. They hold leaders rigorously to account in their ambition to achieve this.  Governors rightly make special efforts to be very well informed about the progress of vulnerable and disadvantaged pupils. They track the provision and outcomes to ensure that the care and support these pupils receive have a positive impact on their well- being and success.  Over time, governors have taken full advantage of the support offered by the local authority to help them hone their skills, and to ensure that their practice is of the highest calibre. There is further evidence of their outward-looking approach in their commitment to research and training. This ensures that they have up-to-date

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Governance of the school

information and an awareness of best practice in governance.  Governors make sure they are aware of the views and needs of the whole range of the school’s stakeholders. For example, they conduct ‘exit reviews’ with Year 6 pupils and their parents as they prepare to move on to their secondary schools. They also gather the views of staff so they can monitor teachers’ workload and morale.

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Safeguarding

 The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.  Staff are well trained in line with their responsibilities. They receive frequent updates from members of the safeguarding team. The result is that the culture within the school is one of well-informed vigilance.  The systems for maintaining safeguarding records are meticulous. All the necessary pre-employment and backgrounds checks on staff, and all adults who work with pupils, are carefully recorded on the school’s single central record. Governors and leaders ensure that regular checks and audits are completed on all aspects of safeguarding, including health and safety, to help keep pupils safe.  Leaders keep a watchful eye on vulnerable pupils. This includes regularly monitoring their attendance information. Staff ensure that they know pupils well and build good relationships. These help staff to identify quickly if things are not as they should be and

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Safeguarding

to take the right steps to secure additional support which helps to keep pupils safe. When necessary, staff work well with a range of agencies to safeguard pupils.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

 Teachers have high expectations of pupils. Throughout the school, classrooms and learning bases are places where everybody is engaged in the business of learning from the moment pupils enter. Adults kindly and warmly insist on extremely high standards of conduct and attention. Pupils respond well. As a result, levels of engagement, enjoyment and achievement are consistently high across the school.  Effective ongoing professional development ensures that teachers have strong subject knowledge. This enables them to use subject-specific technical vocabulary successfully to support pupils well. Even the youngest pupils are encouraged to write with an awareness of the aspects of grammar they are using. For instance, pupils in Year 1 were writing sentences that demonstrated their understanding of homophones. The teacher built on a sentence, suggested by one pupil, explaining that it needed a verb, which the pupil quickly added.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

 Planning is well matched to pupils’ needs. Teachers monitor pupils’ progress carefully. They use questioning very effectively to check pupils’ understanding and develop their thinking. As a result, any misunderstandings are quickly identified. Pupils who need a little extra help or can move on more quickly to develop their thinking have their needs met well. Pupils make very good progress from their starting points.  The provision for pupils with SEND and for those pupils who speak English as an additional language is strong. Teachers ensure that highly skilled teaching assistants provide carefully tailored support. With the specific needs of individuals in mind, they adapt the curriculum to ensure that pupils with SEND and those who speak English as an additional language access learning alongside their peers.  Teachers and teaching assistants work together very successfully. Their shared understanding of lesson objectives and pupils’ needs are used to ensure that all pupils

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

are focused and attain very well.  Learning is linked across the curriculum so that pupils build on a range of connected skills. For instance, during the inspection, pupils in Year 2 used their computing skills to create a graph to show the amount and variety of bugs they had collected. Both their computing and mathematical skills were developed effectively through this meaningful task.  In key stage 1, pupils have benefited from the well-thought-through connections in the carefully planned curriculum to achieve remarkably high standards. For example, pupils explore flight and its history, studying key figures such as the Wright brothers. They also read connected fables about flight, such as the tale of Icarus. In key stage 2, while pupils benefit from curriculum breadth and the sequential development of skills, learning in different subjects has not been connected or developed as effectively. As a

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding

result, pupils have not had such a secure platform on which to develop their linked understanding across the curriculum.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school's work to promote pupils' personal development and welfare is outstanding.  The school’s curriculum provides exceptionally well for pupils’ personal development. Through a multitude of experiences, both in school and through the many clubs and sporting teams, pupils are given a broad palette of skills and opportunities to help them define and achieve their dreams and ambitions. Staff consider carefully the interests, abilities and experiences of all pupils so that each has the chance to shine.  As a result of the strong emphasis on spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, pupils take great care of each other and their surroundings. They are aware of their responsibilities in school. For instance, during the inspection, a pupil returned to a room he had been working in to switch off the light.  Pupils have a very good understanding of the dangers of bullying, although they say

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Personal development and welfare

that it rarely happens. The school’s records support this. Pupils know that unkind behaviour of any sort is unacceptable. They are helped to recognise and celebrate differences and have secure strategies to solve friendship problems.  Leaders ensure that specific lessons and specialist assemblies help pupils to develop the skills and understanding to keep themselves safe, including when online. For instance, during the inspection, pupils listened carefully and responded with maturity to a session delivered by an outside provider, helping pupils to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate touching.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is outstanding.  Pupils are respectful, thoughtful and well-mannered. Even the youngest pupils move around the school sensibly. They greet visitors with curiosity and a warm welcome, contributing to the school’s happy, inclusive atmosphere.  Pupils have excellent attitudes to learning. They concentrate when the teacher is speaking, cooperate well with each other, take pride in their work, and are rightly proud of their many achievements. Pupils exhibit high levels of independence and resilience as learners. They are keen to use their considerable skills to solve any problems before asking for support from adults. They rise to the high expectations because they enjoy their learning.  Pupils respond keenly and carefully to the regular feedback given to them by their teachers, in line with the schools’ marking policy. They work diligently to improve their work. As a result, pupils make very good progress.

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Behaviour

 Pupils attend school regularly because they value the high-quality education they receive. Leaders monitor attendance systematically. They work hard to identify and understand any barriers to good attendance and provide timely support, particularly for disadvantaged pupils and pupils who speak English as an additional language.

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Outcomes for pupils Outstanding

 In each year group and across the curriculum, including in English and mathematics, current pupils make substantial progress from their starting points. Academic standards have risen over time and are very high. The school’s current progress information, coupled with the work in pupils’ books, shows strong and sustained progress in all year groups and in all subjects. As a result, pupils’ outcomes are outstanding.  Disadvantaged pupils, those with SEND and pupils who speak English as an additional language are all making strong progress from their starting points. This is because teaching is expertly tailored to meet their needs.  In pupils’ writing books, it is evident that clear planning has informed structured sequences of learning to support pupils extremely well in the development of their skills as writers. As a result, their progress is strong and pupils demonstrate considerable writing proficiency and flair. Pupils structure their writing very well, using

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Outcomes for pupils Outstanding

a range of grammatical and language features, accurate punctuation and rich, ambitious vocabulary.  Pupils like reading. Pupils who read to inspectors were confident and fluent. They could identify how the books they read have been carefully chosen to match to their growing abilities. Pupils are inspired by the school’s systems to read regularly at home for both pleasure and to find information.  Pupils are supported well in their reading by the early acquisition of phonics skills. A very high proportion of pupils attain the expected standard in the Year 1 national phonics screening check because pupils benefit from consistently high-quality phonics teaching. Pupils who speak English as an additional language benefit from careful additional teaching so that they catch up quickly if they need to.  Pupils’ strong outcomes in mathematics are a result of their confidence in using and applying their number skills. Pupils are required to demonstrate their understanding in

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Outcomes for pupils Outstanding

a variety of different ways, so teachers know they have a secure grasp of key concepts. Pupils benefit from having various opportunities to apply and extend their mathematical skills across the wider curriculum.  Pupils make substantial progress in subjects other than English and mathematics. The carefully planned and effectively taught curriculum ensures that pupils have deep and secure knowledge and understanding in a wide range of subjects. Nevertheless, outcomes for pupils in key stage 2 are not as exceptionally strong as those in key stage 1. By comparison, smaller proportions of key stage 2 pupils attain at the highest standards.

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Early years provision Outstanding

 The early years leader has a strong and ambitious vision for the children in her care. She leads a skilled team of adults and, together, they model exemplary practice. The early years team constantly strive to make all learning opportunities for children fun and meaningful.  Children get off to a flying start to their education. Most children start with skills that are typical for their age and make outstanding progress. By the time they leave the Reception class, they have achieved or exceeded a good level of development and are very well prepared to start Year 1 as confident learners.  Children, including disadvantaged children and those with SEND, have their needs met well. This is because adults assess children’s needs carefully and tailor their experiences accordingly. Children who speak English as an additional language benefit from the careful pre-teaching of vocabulary and specially selected resources so that

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Early years provision Outstanding

they are included fully and make strong progress.  High expectations and the consistent reinforcement of daily routines in a nurturing environment establish the firm base for children’s excellent behaviour. Children show high levels of concentration and perseverance in the tasks they do.  Teaching in the early years is excellent. Staff have high expectations of what children can achieve. For example, children involved in a group storyboard about a farmyard tale were encouraged to write in full sentences. They demonstrated appropriate use of exclamation marks and capital letters.  The early years environment is highly engaging and stimulating, both inside and out. No opportunities for learning are missed. During the inspection, children were observed investigating materials when making model instruments out of boxes, exploring the properties of ice and carefully measuring distances using their steps.

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Early years provision Outstanding

 Staff keep children safe and care for them well in the early years. Safeguarding is highly effective because the robust policy and procedures are well known and understood by all staff. Staff rightly encourage children to start to manage risks in their own play, for instance by assessing how far to take the paddleboards down the slope.  Exceptionally strong links with parents and pre-school providers help children to settle quickly when they enter the early years provision. Staff make every effort to get to know children and their families well when they start school. Parents are encouraged to play a full and active part in their children’s learning.

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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

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Email address schooloffice@carolinehaslett.milton- keynes.sch.uk

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School details

Date of previous inspection 6 February 2018

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Information about this school

 This is larger than the average-sized primary school.  The school has a specialist provision with five places for pupils with speech, language and communication difficulties. There are currently four pupils receiving additional support through this provision.  Breakfast and after-school clubs are provided each day and are run by the school.  The school is a diverse community, having 14 out of the 17 possible ethnic groups. The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is above the national average.  The proportions of disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND support needs are lower than the proportions seen nationally.

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Information about this inspection

 This inspection took place following a Section 8 inspection in February 2018 which noted that the school had demonstrated strong practice and marked improvement in certain areas.  Inspectors, accompanied by senior leaders, visited lessons across the school. Pupils’ behaviour was observed around the school, including during assembly and breaktimes.  Inspectors looked at pupils’ work in lessons and scrutinised a selection of pupils’ books with subject leaders.  Meetings were held with senior leaders, governors and staff.  The lead inspector met with a representative of the local authority.  Inspectors met formally with groups of pupils, and spoke informally to other pupils during lessons and as they moved around the school. A number of pupils read to an inspector.  A wide range of documentation was considered, including: the school’s self-evaluation; improvement plans; minutes of the governing body’s meetings; information on pupils’

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Information about this inspection

progress and attainment; and records of pupils’ behaviour and attendance. Inspectors scrutinised records relating to safeguarding.  Inspectors took account of parents’ views through the 70 responses to the Ofsted survey, Parent View, including 67 free-text comments. Inspectors also considered the seven responses to the staff survey.

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Inspection team

Deborah Gordon, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector

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Inspection team

Graham Marshall 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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