Green Oaks Primary Academy

Inspection of a school judged good for overall effectiveness before September 2024: Green Oaks Primary Academy Whiston Road, Kingsthorpe, Northampton, Northamptonshire NN2 7RR

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Inspection dates: 28 and 29 January 2025

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Outcome

Green Oaks Primary Academy has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.

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Outcome

The principal of this school is Madeline Dunckley. This school is part of Greenwood Academies Trust, which means other people in the trust also have responsibility for running the school. The trust is run by the chief executive officer (CEO), Wayne Norrie, and overseen by a board of trustees, chaired by Christine Joy Hall.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are happy and enjoy school. They like and respect their teachers, and listen to one another. Teachers engage pupils in learning successfully and develop their confidence.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school has high expectations of pupils, and pupils rise to meet these. Most pupils achieve well.

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What is it like to attend this school?

There is a range of clubs and activities available for pupils to attend. These include dance, gardening and construction clubs. Film club is popular, and staff lead mental health days for pupils throughout the year. Pupils choose to take part in singing concerts with other schools and sporting competitions across the trust.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils take on leadership responsibilities, including as members of the elected school council, to make decisions about school life. Play leaders in older year groups set up and organise sports equipment at breaktimes, and play with their younger peers. As part of the school’s house system, pupils keenly earn ‘house points’ for demonstrating positive behaviour. They then save up and use these points, known as GOPA, to purchase items from the pupil-led school shop, including books and sports equipment.

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Senior leaders have recently introduced a new and ambitious curriculum across many subjects. This broad curriculum outlines the knowledge pupils should know, and the order in which they should learn it. Pupils enjoy learning this new curriculum. They study subjects in depth and eagerly write at length in subjects outside of English. The school, supported by the trust, is providing effective support for teachers and subject leaders to improve the implementation of the new curriculum. In parts of the early years, however, curriculum thinking is less well-developed.

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Staff have appropriate subject knowledge that they use well to support pupils in their learning. For example, in mathematics new concepts are clearly explained and linked to pupils’ prior knowledge. Teaching often checks that pupils understand their learning and that they retain key knowledge. For example, pupils in Year 6 could explain many of the causes of the First World War.

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The school has implemented a new reading scheme which introduces pupils to new letters and sounds systematically. Staff have been fully trained in this, and receive helpful feedback on their teaching from senior leaders and colleagues. Pupils who require support to keep up with their peers receive this through regular one-to-one teaching. In the early years, children have fewer opportunities to prepare them for writing than they could. This means that some pupils struggle to write when they start Year 1.

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Pupils work sensibly in class and listen. They understand and adhere to the school’s clear behaviour system. They know that teachers act quickly on the rare occasions that pupils behave inappropriately. In the early years, the school has identified that children learn to share and to be kind to each other. The school has identified the need for more opportunities to develop children’s independence. For example, in the Nursery, resources are now designed and activities are organised so that children start to develop independence.

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The school has responded rapidly to the increasing proportion of pupils in the school who have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Identification of the emerging needs of pupils with SEND is particularly swift, including in the early years. The school is still working to adapt aspects of its new curriculum so that pupils with SEND fully understand what is taught. Sometimes, work provided for pupils with SEND is too challenging. This is because they do not have the prior knowledge and skills necessary to attempt more challenging work.

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The school has quickly improved the attendance of pupils who are persistently absent over the last year. As a result, more pupils now attend school regularly and the school’s overall attendance rates are in line with the national average.

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The trust checks that the school is doing what it should. When assistance is required, the trust provides the expertise and resources necessary for the school. Staff are very supportive of the actions that school leaders take and feel that their workload and well- being are at the forefront of leaders’ minds. The school is currently recruiting parent ambassadors to ensure that parents’ views are more systematically and readily communicated to the school. 28–29 January 2025

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The school organises educational outings that help pupils connect what they have learned in school to the world around them. For example, children in Reception go for a picnic and in Year 1, pupils learn about kings and queens during a visit to Warwick Castle. Year 4 go to a museum to learn about the Great Fire of Northampton and Year 6 visit Bletchley Park to explore code-breaking.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 Sometimes, teaching and resources are not successfully adapted for pupils with SEND. When this is the case, pupils with SEND find this work too hard, and struggle to build their curriculum knowledge as securely as they could. The school should ensure that previous gaps in learning are identified and remedied by staff so that new learning builds effectively on these foundations.  Some parts of the early years do not provide children with foundations that they need for future learning. For example, in Reception there are not sufficient opportunities for children to develop their early writing skills and to develop their independence. As a result, children in the early years are not as well prepared for Year 1 as they could be. The school should ensure that the key knowledge they want children to develop is clearly identified so that teaching and resources can be organised effectively to support children to achieve well.

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Background

Until September 2024, on a graded (section 5) inspection we gave schools an overall effectiveness grade, in addition to the key and provision judgements. Overall effectiveness grades given before September 2024 will continue to be visible on school inspection reports and on Ofsted's website. From September 2024 graded inspections will not include an overall effectiveness grade. This school was, before September 2024, judged to be good for its overall effectiveness.

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Background

We have now inspected the school to determine whether it has taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at that previous inspection. 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's work has improved significantly or that it may not be as strong as it was at the last inspection, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection. A graded inspection 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, 28–29 January 2025

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behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

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This is the first ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good for overall effectiveness in October 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' 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). 28–29 January 2025

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School details

Dates of previous inspection 30 and 31 October 2018, under section 5 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 The school has been part of the Greenwood Academies Trust since January 2015.  The school currently uses one registered alternative provider.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspections are a point-in-time evaluation about the quality of a school’s education provision.  This was the first routine inspection the school received since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The inspector discussed the impact of the pandemic with the school and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school.  During the inspection, the inspector met with the headteacher and other senior leaders. The inspector met with leaders with responsibility for pupils with SEND, safeguarding, attendance and pupils’ wider development.  The inspector met with representatives from the trust. 28–29 January 2025

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 The inspector visited a sample of lessons, spoke to some pupils about their learning and looked at samples of work.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, the inspector: 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.  The inspector considered the views of parents submitted via Ofsted Parent View, including the free-text comments. They reviewed the responses to Ofsted’s surveys for school staff and pupils.

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Inspection team

Guy Forbat, lead inspector His Majesty's Inspector 28–29 January 2025

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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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