Ealing Primary Centre

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

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Mr Jon Hicks Headteacher Ealing Primary Centre 573 Greenford Road Greenford London UB6 8QJ

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Short inspection of Ealing Primary Centre

Following my visit to the school on 2 July 2019 with Charlotte Millward, 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 school was judged to be good in November 2015.

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Short inspection of Ealing Primary Centre

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Leaders at all levels have much to be proud of. They are ambitious for pupils and have a clear moral purpose. They are making a strong difference to the lives of the pupils who attend the centre and their families. The centre has grown since the previous inspection, with an increase in the number of pupils attending, including for those accessing dual roll placements and those children solely on the school’s roll. It is an exciting time for you and your staff as the roll is planned to rise further with the new building currently being constructed, planned for completion early next year. This will enable the centre to help even more pupils and their families in Ealing.

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Short inspection of Ealing Primary Centre

Pupils attend the centre often with increasingly complex social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs, including poor attendance and significant gaps in their learning. Staff have ensured that the school is a happy and safe place for pupils – they care about their pupils. Classrooms are colourful, vibrant and welcoming places. Overall, pupils settle into the centre quickly and make strong gains in improving their sense of self- awareness and self-esteem. Pupils take pride in their work and in their school. This was clearly seen in the assembly where teachers, adults and parents came together to recognise pupils’ achievements and to celebrate individual successes. These regular assemblies are just one example of an important part of your work in helping pupils to re-engage with their education and for them to feel that they can achieve.

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Short inspection of Ealing Primary Centre

Staff morale is high. Staff who completed Ofsted’s questionnaire and those who spoke to inspectors are proud to work at the centre. They feel well supported and that the centre is well led and managed. One member of staff’s views echoed with others when they said that the school was ‘the best place that [they had] worked’. The curriculum supports pupils particularly well in developing their literacy, numeracy and personal, social and health education (PSHE). Overall, pupils achieve good outcomes.

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Short inspection of Ealing Primary Centre

You have successfully addressed the areas for improvement from the previous inspection. The outreach service (where mainstream schools can access expert support from the centre) has been redesigned and relaunched as part of the local area’s work to better meet the needs of children and families with SEMH needs. The website has been redesigned and includes more information for parents such as online safety and access to some of the school’s policies. The management committee are clearly supportive of the school’s work. Sharing your ambition, they are keen for the centre to build on its strengths and to be the best it can be. They want to widen the outreach work and to do even more preventative work to help reduce exclusions in Ealing further. They are aware of the centre’s strengths and areas of improvement.

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Short inspection of Ealing Primary Centre

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. There are effective ways of gathering information about any safeguarding concerns, for example for pupils who join the school part-time from their mainstream school. Information is shared effectively with staff, who take the safeguarding of pupils seriously. Evidence shows that they report anything that they notice or hear quickly. A review of case studies also demonstrated that leaders deal with concerns effectively, seeking professional advice from external agencies when required.

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Short inspection of Ealing Primary Centre

Pupils feel safe at the school. They say that adults are supportive and listen to them. Leaders have put in place a clear anti-bullying approach. Pupils say that there is no bullying, and this is supported by school records. This is in part due to the vigilance of staff and how pupils are taught to socialise and interact with each other. Staff prepare detailed behaviour plans for pupils as required. These plans, alongside training for staff, help staff to spot changes in behaviour, enabling them to step in early to stop smaller behavioural issues from becoming more serious. As a result, pupils over time learn how to manage their own behaviour and to behave safely.

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Short inspection of Ealing Primary Centre

Adults take their responsibilities to be vigilant seriously. They monitor pupils well, for example at breaktime. Pupils are supported to play safely and responsibly. Parents, including those who spoke to inspectors, say that their children are kept safe. Staff are trained effectively in safeguarding, including the use of physical restraint. While records of restraint are recorded and kept, leaders’ analysis of these records to spot any trends and patterns is not as sharp as it could be.

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Inspection findings

 At the beginning of the inspection one of the key lines of enquiry we agreed to explore was how the curriculum helped pupils to achieve well, particularly in literacy, science and their SEMH needs. Your self-evaluation, for example, had highlighted that reading was a strength and that the school needed to continue to help pupils to improve their writing.  Leaders collect a range of information about pupils’ abilities when they start at the centre. This helps to identify pupils’ needs accurately and the gaps in their learning. The English curriculum meets pupils’ needs well. For example, the leader for literacy has put in place a systematic phonics programme to help pupils to read and this is implemented well by all staff. In English, pupils are supported to improve their handwriting and to develop accurate use of spelling, grammar and punctuation. As a result, they produce good-quality written work and show stamina by increasingly

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Inspection findings

writing at length.  Teachers and supporting adults know pupils well. They plan effectively and take opportunities to deepen pupils’ learning and their use of vocabulary, for example, in repeating sounds or understanding the meaning of new words. Teachers and adults clearly have high expectations and help pupils to take pride in themselves and their work. Overall, observations of teaching and a review of your assessment information shows that pupils make typically good progress in literacy and numeracy. However, leaders have correctly identified that writing could be improved further.  Leaders have a clear curriculum plan in place for science, linking to content from the national curriculum. Pupils also take part in practical work to engage their thinking. However, leaders’ focus on literacy, numeracy and PSHE has meant that full-time pupils do not have enough curriculum time to learn science to a deep enough level.

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Inspection findings

Also, a review of pupils’ books in English, compared to those of science, demonstrated that pupils are not writing enough in science. The impact of the current science curriculum is that pupils are not as well prepared for secondary school science as they are with English, for example. Further, the lack of writing in science is not giving pupils a wider range of contexts and vocabulary in which to develop their writing skills.  Pupils make strong gains in developing their social and emotional skills. The PSHE curriculum (as well as including content on staying safe) helps pupils to learn about how to socialise and to manage their own emotional well-being. Opportunities are routinely taken to help pupils to talk, listen and take turns. Staff have ensured that pupils have clear rules, expectations and personal strategies to help manage their behaviour. Pupils told inspectors that since starting at the school they feel better

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Inspection findings

about themselves and that both their behaviour and quality of work has improved. Your assessment information indicates the strong improvement that pupils make in their SEMH progress in improving their self-regulation and motivation.  We also agreed to evaluate how well leaders use additional funding for disadvantaged pupils and the sports premium. This is because the school receives funding for pupils who attend the centre full-time and are solely on the school’s roll.  Leaders can explain how this additional funding is spent, including to support trips and access to resources. The sports premium is used to fund the use of a sports coach to roll out lunchtime activities and to help pupils to participate in different physical activities. However, leaders’ review of the funding is not as sharp as it could be in helping them to evaluate precisely its impact on current pupils.  Last, we agreed to look at the impact of the school’s outreach service. This is an

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Inspection findings

essential element of the school’s work to help mainstream schools to be able to meet their own pupils’ SEMH needs.  Leaders, working with other leaders and stakeholders in the Ealing local area, have created a new menu of six options for school leaders to access, including a specialist SEMH teacher and/or a clinical psychologist. There is evidence of the impact of the service, for example through the reduction in exclusions in Ealing and from schools who have used one or more of the packages available. However, although leaders are currently carrying out a more detailed impact evaluation of the outreach work, they have not been sharp enough in evaluating its ongoing impact from its launch.  You have the ambition that all pupils solely on the school’s roll should return and be successful in a mainstream school. You have had some successes in helping pupils to do this. Your school improvement plan accurately captures the need to further

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Inspection findings

increase the number of full-time pupils who go back into and stay in mainstream schooling.

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Next steps for the school

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that they:

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Next steps for the school

 further increase the number of full-time pupils who successfully move back into and stay in mainstream schools  strengthen the curriculum in science, including reviewing the time pupils spend studying the subject and how pupils develop their writing in science  sharpen their monitoring and evaluation of the school’s work such as the use of additional funding and the outreach service, to review its impact and inform their decision-making.

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Next steps for the school

I am copying this letter to the chair of the management committee, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Ealing. 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, senior leaders, middle leaders and the management committee. I held a telephone call with an officer from the local authority. An inspector also held a telephone call with a school leader who had used the outreach service. Inspectors visited all classes and looked at a range of pupils’ work. You and senior leaders accompanied inspectors on lesson visits and/or the reviews of pupils’ work. Inspectors spoke to pupils of different ages, informally and formally during the inspection. We looked at a range of documents, including those related to safeguarding. We considered the seven replies to Ofsted’s pupil survey and the 16 responses to the staff survey. There were two responses to Parent View, Ofsted’s survey for parents, and so inspectors also reviewed the school’s survey of parents outlined in the school’s self- evaluation.

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