Hartburn Primary School

Inspection of a good school: Hartburn Primary School Adelaide Grove, Stockton-on-Tees TS18 5BS

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Inspection dates: 14 and 15 February 2023

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Outcome

Hartburn Primary School continues to be a good school.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Staff at Hartburn Primary School foster the ‘Hartburn Hopes’ of respect, honesty, resilience, compassion, ambition and courage. Pupils know that these values help them to make the right choices and to do the right thing.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils behave well. They move around school in a calm manner. They respond quickly to instructions from adults to maximise the time spent learning. Pupils understand the school’s behaviour policy. They know what bullying is. They trust that adults will sort it out if it happens.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Leaders nurture the talents and interests of pupils through an extensive range of extra- curricular activities. Pupils enjoy participating in the Friday ‘live lounge’, where they can practise and demonstrate their performance skills.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Leaders ensure that pupils have opportunities to take on roles such as a playground friend, sports leader, digital leader or eco-warrior to develop their leadership skills. Pupils can also be reading buddies or learning mentors to support younger pupils.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Leaders encourage pupils to be agents for change in school, in the locality and globally. For example, pupils learn about critical issues around the world, such as lack of access to clean water and what it means to be a refugee. Pupils confidently discuss equality and protected characteristics. They know it is important ‘to be whoever you want to be.’

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What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

There are three core principles that underpin Hartburn’s curriculum. These are resilience, high expectations and local and global responsibilities. Leaders have based the curriculum on important concepts or ‘big ideas’ to help pupils learn to connect their learning. In some 14 and 15 February 2023

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subjects, leaders have identified too many ‘big ideas’ to be taught in too little time. This means that pupils do not sufficiently deepen their learning. For example, in history, there are eight important concepts, but some are only taught on two occasions over a two-year cycle. This limits pupils’ ability to make connections and expand their historical understanding.

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Adults teach phonics effectively, and this helps pupils to learn to read well. Teachers make sure that the books pupils read match the sounds they know. Teachers encourage pupils to read at home with their parents. Pupils who find reading tricky read more often to adults in school.

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Leaders have identified communication and interaction as the most common need for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities. To address this, they use a programme in the early years to improve children’s vocabulary and listening skills at the earliest opportunity. This is reducing the number of children who need extra support. Leaders are introducing new approaches to assessment. They have begun to use direct, apply, reflection time (DART) to check what pupils can remember. Teachers use different DART tasks, such as quizzes or questions, to gather information on the progress that pupils are making through the curriculum. However, there is variability in how well staff use these approaches. Leaders recognise that the use of this aspect of assessment needs to be more consistent to gain a clearer picture of how well pupils are learning.

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Leaders have high ambitions for pupils in mathematics. Pupils are resilient, independent mathematicians. Children in early years start learning about number in Nursery. Mathematical resources are available in all areas of the early years provision to support and consolidate learning. Adults present information clearly in mathematics lessons. Teachers give pupils sufficient time to discuss the strategies they use to solve a problem.

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Leaders have introduced a well-ordered physical, social and health education curriculum. This means there is a whole-school approach to teaching topics such as healthy relationships. Leaders provide opportunities for key stage 2 pupils to take part in a residential visit. This helps pupils to build their resilience and teamwork skills by experiencing challenging outdoor adventure activities.

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Leaders support pupils to be active citizens. For example, adults helped pupils to organise a cake stall to raise funds for the local hospice. As eco-warriors, pupils pick up litter in and around the school site.

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Leaders are mindful of staff workload and well-being. Staff feel that senior leaders and the trust create a working environment that is supportive. Staff appreciate working together with other trust colleagues to share good practice. This helps them to improve their own performance.

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Governors are knowledgeable about the school’s strengths. Governors put the interests of pupils at Hartburn at the core of all their decision making. Through their link governor roles, they hold leaders to account. For example, governors with oversight for the physical education (PE) curriculum check whether high-quality vocabulary is used in PE lessons to support communication and interaction. 14 and 15 February 2023

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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Safeguarding

Leaders promote a culture of vigilance to ensure that pupils are safe. Adults look out for any pupils who show signs of vulnerability or subtle changes in behaviour, which might indicate that they need support.

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Safeguarding

Leaders keep comprehensive records of incidents, such as the use of inappropriate language. These logs always include a follow-up action. For example, if an incident of concern arises, adults discuss what has happened with all parties and agree how to resolve it. They call this ‘response time’.

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Safeguarding

Leaders have identified the increasing use of social media by pupils as a risk. As a result, leaders ensure that the curriculum includes online safety units. A police community support officer has also supported pupils to understand the dangers associated with technology.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 Leaders have identified too much content or ‘big ideas’ that they want pupils to access in some subjects in the wider curriculum. This means pupils do not have sufficient time to learn this knowledge in sufficient depth. Leaders need to prioritise the most important concepts they want pupils to learn, from the early years onwards, to help pupils build knowledge securely over time.  The system for checking pupils’ knowledge and understanding in the foundation subjects is not used to consistent effect. Leaders should ensure that the procedures for checking what pupils have learned are used well by all staff.

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Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good. This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which is carried out under section 5 of the Act. Usually, this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately. 14 and 15 February 2023

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This is the first ungraded inspection since we judged the predecessor school, of the same name, to be good in March 2018.

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How can I feed back my views?

find out what other parents and carers think. We use information from Ofsted Parent View when deciding which schools to inspect, when to inspect them and as part of their inspection.

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How can I feed back my views?

The Department for Education has further guidance on how to complain about a school.

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Further information

You can search for published performance information about the school.

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Further information

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. 14 and 15 February 2023

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School details

Inspection number 10255788 Type of school Primary

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School details

Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

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Information about this school

 The school is part of the Prince Regent Street Trust. It joined the trust in September 2018.  The school does not use any alternative provision.

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Information about this inspection

 This was the first routine inspection the school received since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The inspector discussed the impact of the pandemic with leaders and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school.  The inspector met with the headteacher, curriculum leaders, staff and pupils. Meetings were also held with representatives of the local governing board, trustees and the chief executive officer.  The inspector carried out deep dives in these subjects: early reading, mathematics and history. For each deep dive, the inspector met with curriculum leaders, spoke to pupils 14 and 15 February 2023

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and teachers, visited lessons and looked at samples of pupils’ work. The inspector heard pupils read.  The inspector examined safeguarding records, attendance figures, curriculum plans and policies.  The views of staff were considered through meetings with them and from their responses to Ofsted’s staff questionnaire.  The views of parents were considered through the responses to Ofsted’s parent questionnaire.  The views of pupils were considered through meetings with them and from their responses to Ofsted’s pupil questionnaire.

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Inspection team

Alison Stephenson, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector 14 and 15 February 2023

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regulates and inspects to 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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