Grove Road Primary School

Grove Road Primary School Inspection report

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102519 Unique Reference Number Hounslow Local Authority 286407 Inspection number 26 °27 November 2007 Inspection dates Nicola Davies Reporting inspector

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This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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Primary Type of school Community School category 3 °11 Age range of pupils Mixed Gender of pupils Number on roll 233 School The governing body Appropriate authority Mrs Prudence Lynch Chair Ms Boni Reeks Headteacher 24 June 2002 Date of previous school inspection Cromwell Road School address Hounslow TW3 3QQ 020 8570 6132 Telephone number 020 8230 4019 Fax number

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3-11 Age group 26 °27 November 2007 Inspection dates 286407 Inspection number .

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This document may be reproduced in whole or in part for non-commercial educational purposes, provided that the information quoted is reproduced without adaptation and the source and date of publication are stated.

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Further copies of this report are obtainable from the school. Under the Education Act 2005, the school must provide a copy of this report free of charge to certain categories of people. A charge not exceeding the full cost of reproduction may be made for any other copies supplied.

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Introduction

The inspection was carried out by three Additional Inspectors.

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Description of the school

This one form entry primary school serves a residential area of Hounslow. The school includes a nursery and a specialist unit for pupils with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). The school's intake is socially and ethnically mixed. Three quarters of pupils are bilingual and many children join the school in the early stages of learning English as an additional language. The proportion of pupils entitled to free school meals is higher than average, as is the proportion of pupils with a statement of special educational need. There are significantly more boys than girls in the school.

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Key for inspection grades

Outstanding Grade 1 Good Grade 2 Satisfactory Grade 3 Inadequate Grade 4 3 of 11 Inspection Report: Grove Road Primary School, 26 °27 November 2007

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Grade: 2

The mission statement that pupils wrote for the school is 'Our family school where all are equally valued'. This inclusive and friendly school fully lives up to this and provides a good education with areas of strength. Many parents commented very positively on the school's caring ethos and the support for themselves and their children at times of difficulty. Pupils' personal, spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is excellent and at the heart of what the school sets out to achieve. As they go through the school, pupils mix with and learn to respect others from a whole range of different backgrounds, religions, languages, ethnicities and abilities. They are considerate of people's differing needs and make an excellent contribution to the school community and the locality. Such experiences mean they leave the school well-equipped for the future. Pupils achieve well throughout the school. The exciting Foundation Stage means children enter

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Grade: 2

the school well prepared to learn, although their skills in English are below those expected for their age. Most catch up by the end of Year 2 and the standards which they reach by the end of Year 6 are generally above average. Added to this, pupils with a range of different skills and abilities experience a wide and interesting curriculum and are very well cared for and supported. Knowledgeable teaching and specialist staff collaborate well to meet their needs. For example, pupils with ASD benefit from a well planned blend of skilled support from specialist staff and inclusion in classroom activities. This is one example of how pupils with different strengths and difficulties work together happily, enjoy their time at school and do well. The school is well led and managed. The headteacher and her senior team share a passion for making all pupils feel valued and included. Clear areas for further improvement have been

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Grade: 2

identified well. Teaching across the school is good and there is much sharing of good and outstanding practice. However, in the recent past the more formal monitoring of teaching has not been sufficiently regular to help the school evaluate the success of its thoughtful plans for improvement. The school has identified the use of assessment in target setting as a weaker area and a useful new system for tracking progress and sharing feedback has recently been put in place. Such clear identification and action along with the school's successful record of continuing improvement illustrate its good capacity to improve further.

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Grade: 2

Children enter the Nursery with a range of knowledge and experiences. For many, the Nursery class is their first experience of an English-speaking environment. As a result, their English language skills are significantly below those expected for children of their age. They settle quickly into the daily routine and very much enjoy a good range of activities. A particularly good feature is the recently renovated outdoor area where younger and older children share activities during certain sessions. Children play productively alongside each other, are attentive to adults and enjoy both child led activities and focused sessions. Children make good progress overall across the Nursery and Reception classes, particularly in their personal, social and creative development and in their oral language. However, by the end of the Foundation Stage, only a few catch up with their peers nationally in the areas of early reading and writing. This is

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Grade: 2

particularly marked where, as is usually the case, classes contain many more boys than girls. 4 of 11 Inspection Report: Grove Road Primary School, 26 °27 November 2007

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What the school should do to improve further

■ Use the tracking of pupils' progress to set targets to raise standards further.

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What the school should do to improve further

■ Ensure that the monitoring of teaching is regular and informs the school's plans for improvement.

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Grade: 2

Pupils achieve well throughout the school. This includes pupils with learning difficulties and disabilities, and the achievements of pupils with ASD, who make very good progress. Standards are consistently average or above and results in 2007 in national tests at the end of Year 6 were average in English, above average in mathematics and particularly high in science where nearly all pupils exceeded their targets to reach higher levels in the subject. This represents good progress from pupils' starting points and is a successful outcome of school's recent focus on mathematics and science. Staff have now put in place a number of initiatives to further improve pupils' achievement in English. There are no significant differences in the achievement of different groups of pupils and the school has a policy and a plan for ensuring equality. However, it does not analyse the progress of girls and boys as well as it could.

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Grade: 1

Pupils' personal, spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is excellent. Pupils really enjoy opportunities to take on responsibilities and the school council in particular, makes an excellent contribution to the life of the school. For example, they chair and minute their meetings very effectively. In the words of their motto, they 'get things done' and are about to open their own bank account to make managing their funds even easier. Their current campaign is to ensure that local dog owners maintain the clean and pleasant environment in the streets around the school. Such activities and responsibilities, alongside pupils' good basic skills, means they are mature and well prepared for their secondary schools by the time they leave the school. Pupils enjoy school a good deal and are proud of the school's unique building and good local reputation. Behaviour around the school and in lessons is good. Attendance has improved

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Grade: 1

significantly since the previous inspection and is above average. Pupils are very clear about welcoming children with different needs, abilities, languages and ethnicities and are proud of the school's 'inclusivity'. As a result, bullying and name-calling incidents are rare. The school has worked very successfully to encourage pupils to adopt healthy lifestyles and pupils have an enthusiastic approach to physical exercise.

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Grade: 2

Pupils are taught well. Staff and pupils have good working relationships and pupils make good progress. Teachers prepare well and plan activities to meet the needs of different groups of pupils, for example, those learning English as an additional language. Lesson objectives are shared with the pupils so they are clear about what they are expected to achieve. In the best lessons, pupils are regularly encouraged to assess their own and their peers' work. On occasion, 5 of 11 Inspection Report: Grove Road Primary School, 26 °27 November 2007 there is too much focus on instruction and, as a result, opportunities are missed for pupils to participate more actively and independently. Teaching assistants are well deployed to support the learning of pupils experiencing difficulties with particular areas. The teaching and learning of pupils with ASD, in both the dedicated centre and when integrated into the mainstream, is

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Grade: 2

Basic skills are well taught within a varied and interesting curriculum. The recent investment in laptop computers and software means that pupils have good opportunities to use information and communication technology in their other subjects. Staff are beginning to use these aids, along with other strategies, to ensure that the curriculum is equally appealing to both boys and girls. Following wide consultation, staff have developed a new scheme of work for pupils' personal, social, health, and citizenship education (PSHCE). This excellent scheme links the development of pupils' personal, social and emotional skills with their work in literacy and other curriculum areas. At the beginning of this year, French was introduced to pupils in Years 3 to 6 and Spanish is offered as an after school option. Pupils engage enthusiastically in their art work as well as with music, where they develop good skills and an awareness of the rich diversity of musical

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Grade: 2

heritage. Pupils appreciate the extra-curricular activities, which range from sewing to many sporting options. The visits pupils make and the frequent visitors welcomed to the school add to pupils' enjoyment and learning.

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Grade: 2

The commitment of staff to pupils' care and support is excellent. The school has very good links with specialist services and agencies to help all its young people to achieve what they are capable of. Procedures to keep pupils safe and protected are well considered. The school encourages the involvement of parents well through activities such as curriculum workshops and through its enjoyable 'extended school' activities, such as the family computer club, which take place in school and in its on-site community centre. Parents greatly appreciate the school's attention to individual needs and express confidence in its ability to educate and care for their children. Academic guidance is provided through regular marking and targets which are shared with pupils and parents. This is followed through well in some classrooms, where pupils are regularly involved in assessing what they have learned and identifying what they need to do next.

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Grade: 2

However, this is not yet consistent across the school.

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Grade: 2

There is a very strong sense of collaboration across the school and staff turnover is very low. Staff have a good understanding of the school's strengths and weaknesses and are involved well in planning for improvement. In the past, senior staff have not always sufficiently monitored the quality of teaching to assess the impact of these plans on the classroom. However, the school's work on the introduction of its new PSHCE scheme includes very robust processes for 6 of 11 Inspection Report: Grove Road Primary School, 26 °27 November 2007 monitoring and evaluation. The school agrees challenging targets with the local authority but has invested in and designed a new system for tracking and sharing progress information to ensure that their target setting processes are fully robust. Resources are well managed and directed towards improvement. Two recent examples are the development of the outdoor areas for younger children and the investment in mobile computers.

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Grade: 2

The well informed governing body fulfils its statutory responsibilities and has produced a useful plan to raise its effectiveness in monitoring the work of the school and providing appropriate support and challenge. 7 of 11 Inspection Report: Grove Road Primary School, 26 °27 November 2007 .

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Grade: 2

in the guidance 'Complaints about school inspection', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk. 8 of 11 Inspection Report: Grove Road Primary School, 26 °27 November 2007

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Inspection judgements

School Overall Key to judgements: grade 1 is outstanding, grade 2 good, grade 3 satisfactory, and grade 4 inadequate

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Overall effectiveness

How effective, efficient and inclusive is the provision of education, integrated care and any extended services in meeting the needs of learners? Yes Effective steps have been taken to promote improvement since the last inspection How well does the school work in partnership with others to promote learners' well-being? 2 The effectiveness of the Foundation Stage 2 The capacity to make any necessary improvements

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Achievement and standards

2 How well do learners achieve? 2 The standards 1 reached by learners How well learners make progress, taking account of any significant variations between groups of learners 2 How well learners with learning difficulties and disabilities make progress

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learners?

1 The extent of learners' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development 1 The extent to which learners adopt healthy lifestyles 2 The extent to which learners adopt safe practices 2 How well learners enjoy their education 2 The attendance of learners 2 The behaviour of learners 1 The extent to which learners make a positive contribution to the community How well learners develop workplace and other skills that will contribute to their future economic well-being

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and interests of learners?

2 How well are learners cared for, guided and supported?

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and interests of learners?

Grade 1 - Exceptionally and consistently high; Grade 2 - Generally above average with none significantly below average; Grade 3 - Broadly average to below average; Grade 4 - Exceptionally low. 9 of 11 Inspection Report: Grove Road Primary School, 26 °27 November 2007

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and supporting all learners?

How effectively leaders and managers at all levels set clear direction leading to improvement and promote high quality of care and education 3 How effectively leaders and managers use challenging targets to raise standards 2 The effectiveness of the school's self-evaluation How well equality of opportunity is promoted and discrimination tackled so that all learners achieve as well as they can How effectively and efficiently resources, including staff, are deployed to achieve value for money The extent to which governors and other supervisory boards discharge their responsibilities Yes Do procedures for safeguarding learners meet current government requirements? No Does this school require special measures? No Does this school require a notice to improve? 10 of 11 Inspection Report: Grove Road Primary School, 26 °27 November 2007

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Text from letter to pupils explaining the findings of the inspection

6 December 2007 Dear Pupils Inspection of Grove Road Primary School,Hounslow,TW3 3QQ Thank you for helping us when we visited your lovely school. All the inspectors enjoyed meeting you and talking to you. We really enjoyed listening to the music you were making next to our room. We were pleased to hear how proud you and your parents are of your school and all the things you enjoy about school life. We judged that you go to a good school and that all of you make good progress. This is because your teachers do a good job. They make your lessons and your different subjects interesting, encourage you to work hard and care for you so that you can all care for each other. We were particularly impressed with how mature you become as you go through the school and were delighted to see all the things that you do to help the school and the local area. We judged that this was outstanding, so well done. One of the reasons you

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Text from letter to pupils explaining the findings of the inspection

become so mature is all the effort your teachers put in to valuing each of you as individuals with your own unique blend of strengths, challenges and backgrounds. Your headteacher and all the staff work hard to make sure that the school keeps on improving. Just one example is how your teachers have made the outdoor areas near the Nursery and Reception classes so much more interesting. We enjoyed reading your comments about this and it was good to see how pleased you were with the improvements, even though most of you are too old to play there now. Your teachers have spotted some other things they would like to improve too. One of these is the new system for tracking your progress which some of you have tried out. We have also asked your teachers to make sure that they visit different classes so that they can see how well some of their new ideas are working. They were planning to do some of this on the day after we visited to see how well you are enjoying the new work

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Text from letter to pupils explaining the findings of the inspection

to develop your personal, social and emotional skills. We're sure this will have been an interesting day. Thank you once again for your warm welcome. With best wishes Nicola Davies Lead Inspector 11 of 11 Inspection Report: Grove Road Primary School, 26 °27 November 2007

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