Oaklands Primary Academy

Inspection of Oaklands Primary Academy Oaklands Lane, Biggin Hill, Westerham, Kent TN16 3DN

p.1

Inspection dates: 20 and 21 February 2024

p.1

Overall effectiveness Requires improvement

The quality of education Requires improvement Behaviour and attitudes Requires improvement Personal development Requires improvement Leadership and management Requires improvement Early years provision Requires improvement Previous inspection grade Good

p.1

Overall effectiveness Requires improvement

The headteacher of this school is Rebecca Sharp. This school is part of Chancery Education Trust, which means other people in the trust also have responsibility for running the school. The trust is run by the chief executive officer, Matt Rampton, and overseen by a board of trustees, chaired by Philip Jefferies. 20 and 21 February 2024

p.1

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils enjoy their time at this school where staff are approachable and kind. Pupils’ social and emotional development is supported from the early years onwards. Pupils are confident in this safe and nurturing school. Children settle well when they join the school. The school promotes its values of the ‘five Rs’ with pupils, using these to foster positive working relationships.

p.2

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are polite and friendly. They are keen to learn, and they typically respond well to teachers’ requests. However, when pupils have not been taught all they need to know to complete work set by their teachers, they can become distracted and disturb the learning of others. The school has not set out clearly how all staff should respond in such instances.

p.2

What is it like to attend this school?

Trust leaders, governors and the school are keen to strengthen the school’s work to benefit all of its pupils. In recent time, the school has taken steps to redesign its curriculum. However, the school has not identified specifically all that pupils need to know and remember in each subject and the order in which it should be taught. As a consequence, the curriculum does not support pupils to achieve as well as they should, including in the early years and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). This is reflected in national test results, the work pupils produce and in what pupils know and can do across the curriculum.

p.2

better?

The school has designed a curriculum that is broad for all pupils, including those with SEND. For each subject, the school has identified the important subject content pupils need to know and remember by the end of their primary school education. However, the curriculum is still in development. In some areas, including the early years, the order in which knowledge should be taught has not been sequenced to enable pupils to learn fundamental concepts before moving on to more complex ideas.

p.2

better?

Staff have received training and support to familiarise themselves with the new curriculum and the resources that are provided for them. Staff are motivated and committed. However, some curriculum thinking and training provide limited clarity for teachers about what should be taught and when to build pupils’ knowledge securely, including pupils with SEND. Without this clarity, leaders’ checks on the curriculum do not help them to identify what is working well and which areas of the curriculum require further refinement. This prevents the school from identifying the additional support and resources that staff need to deliver the curriculum effectively over time. As a result, pupils, including children with SEND and children in the early years, are not well supported to understand and remember all that they should.

p.2

better?

The school identifies the individual needs of pupils with SEND effectively. Additional support is carefully identified and shared with all staff. Teachers use a range of approaches to check pupils’ understanding, including pupils with SEND. However, 20 and 21 February 2024

p.2

3

the lack of clarity about the key knowledge that all pupils should learn and the order in which they should learn it means that checks on pupils’ learning are not routinely well focused. Sometimes, gaps in pupils’ knowledge are missed. Consequently, when pupils, including pupils with SEND, are moved on to new learning before they have mastered what they need to, it is difficult for them to understand new content.

p.3

3

The school places importance on reading. In the Nursery class, children enjoy rhymes, songs and stories. This prepares children for learning to read from Reception, where they are taught to recognise sounds and their corresponding letters. Training ensures that staff are familiar with the structured phonics curriculum. They follow the sequence of learning set out within the scheme. However, teaching does not ensure that pupils build up their knowledge of phonic sounds securely. Pupils do not routinely read books containing the sounds that they are learning. As a result, pupils do not recall some sounds accurately, and this prevents them from decoding unfamiliar words and reading fluently. Pupils who find reading more difficult receive support and additional opportunities to read with an adult, but this does not focus precisely on the key sounds they need to learn. In time, most pupils do learn to read. Older pupils enjoy reading independently and

p.3

3

discuss their class reading books with enthusiasm.

p.3

3

The school does not ensure that all staff have clear guidance to help them to respond in a consistent way when pupils’ behaviour does not meet the school’s high expectations. As a result, some pupils learn in settled and calm classrooms, while in others, pupils experience disruption to their learning of the curriculum. The school takes suitable action to support pupils to attend school regularly. Leaders are focused on improving attendance rates.

p.3

3

The school provides pupils with a wide range of interesting opportunities that include clubs, such as arts and crafts, gymnastics, coding, karate, piano and drama. Pupils are proud to showcase their talents and achievements, for example, in assembly and singing with the school’s choir. The school encourages pupils to take initiative and responsibility, for example, by running the school’s tuck shop and as members of the school council.

p.3

3

Through the curriculum and in assemblies, pupils are taught to keep themselves safe, especially online. However, encouragement to make healthy choices, to understand healthy relationships and to respect differences between people, including different faiths, cultures and backgrounds, is not taught as precisely. This is because the key content that the school intends pupils to learn is not set out as thoroughly.

p.3

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. 20 and 21 February 2024

p.3

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 In a number of subjects, the school’s curriculum sequencing does not set out clearly the key knowledge pupils need to know and understand at each stage, in order to achieve its ambitious end points, including in the early years. Without this guidance, teaching focuses on activities, rather than the important concepts pupils need to remember. Teaching does not check routinely that pupils have understood key concepts. As a result, pupils have gaps in their knowledge and struggle to recall key ideas when they move on to new learning. Leaders must ensure that the curriculum sets out a clear, logical sequence, in order to build knowledge cumulatively and securely over time and to ensure that teaching focuses on these key aims.  Teaching in phonics does not offer pupils regular practice in hearing and saying the target sounds they are learning. Pupils do not have routine opportunities to read books with the key sounds that they are learning in them. As a result, pupils

p.4

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

do not recall some sounds readily, and this prevents them from reading with fluency. Leaders must ensure that pupils practice phonic sounds regularly and read books that are matched to the sounds they are learning.  The school’s personal development curriculum does not detail what leaders intend all pupils to be taught. Leaders do not check carefully that pupils have been taught the things that they intend. As a result, pupils do not routinely receive a curriculum that matches leaders’ intentions. Leaders must provide clear guidance about what all pupils should be taught and check that teaching routinely delivers the content they intend.  The school does not make clear what common approaches it expects all staff to use to manage pupils’ behaviour and attitudes consistently and how leaders will support staff in doing so. As a result, the behaviour of pupils does not routinely reflect the school’s high expectations, and sometimes learning is interrupted in

p.4

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

lessons and occasionally poor behaviour persists. Leaders must ensure that all staff follow clear behaviour systems so that behaviour is dealt with effectively and consistently and is good across the school.

p.4

How can I feed back my views?

or to 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.

p.4

How can I feed back my views?

The Department for Education has further guidance on how to complain about a school. 20 and 21 February 2024

p.4

Further information

You can search for published performance information about the school.

p.5

Further information

In the report, ‘disadvantaged pupils’ is used to mean pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND); pupils who meet the definition of children in need of help and protection ; pupils receiving statutory local authority support from a social worker; and pupils who otherwise meet the criteria used for deciding the school’s pupil premium funding (this includes pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years, looked after children (children in local authority care) and/or children who left care through adoption or another formal route). 20 and 21 February 2024

p.5

School details

Website hwww.oaklandsprimarybromley.co.uk

p.6

School details

Dates of previous inspection 22 and 23 May 2018

p.6

Information about this school

 The school opened in September 2015.  The school joined the Chancery Education Trust in September 2023.  The school uses one registered alternative provider.

p.6

Information about this inspection

The inspectors carried out this graded inspection under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

p.6

Information about this inspection

 Inspections are a point-in-time judgement about the quality of a school’s education provision.  This was the first routine inspection the school received since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Inspectors discussed the impact of the pandemic with the school and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school.  Inspectors carried out deep dives in these subjects: early reading, mathematics, geography and art and design. 20 and 21 February 2024

p.6

7

 For each deep dive, inspectors discussed the curriculum with subject leaders, visited a sample of lessons, spoke to teachers, spoke to some pupils about their learning and looked at samples of pupils’ work.  Inspectors also looked at curriculum information in some other subjects.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, the inspectors: reviewed the single central record; took account of the views of leaders, staff and pupils; and considered the extent to which the school has created an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts pupils’ interests first.  Inspectors held meetings with the headteachers and other leaders, including leaders who work within the trust. Inspectors also met with leaders with responsibility for early years, SEND, behaviour and attendance and pupils’ personal development.  Inspectors met with representatives from the local governing body and the trust board.

p.7

7

 Inspectors considered responses to Ofsted’s online surveys for parents, staff and pupils.

p.7

Inspection team

Rebecca Iles-Smith, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector

p.7

Inspection team

Frances Hawkes Ofsted Inspector 20 and 21 February 2024

p.7

8

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.

p.8

8

If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

p.8

8

You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/ , write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

p.8

8

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

p.8

8

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

p.8