Setting

Mrs A Ball Headteacher Frogwell Primary School Derriads Lane Chippenham Wiltshire SN14 ODG

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Ofsted survey inspection programme - English

Thank you for your hospitality and co-operation, and that of your staff and the pupils, during my visit on 27 November 2006 to look at work in English.

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Ofsted survey inspection programme - English

As outlined in my initial letter, as well as looking at key areas of the subject, the visit had a particular focus on our current theme: the provision for poetry. The visit provided valuable information which will contribute to our national evaluation and reporting. Published reports are likely to list the names of the contributing institutions but individual institutions will not be identified in the main text.

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Ofsted survey inspection programme - English

The evidence used to inform the judgements made included: interviews with staff and pupils, scrutiny of relevant documentation, analysis of pupils’ work and observation of four lessons. The overall effectiveness of English was judged to be good.

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Achievement and standards in English

Achievement and standards are good overall because of recent improvements.

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Achievement and standards in English

 Pupils enter the school with below expected levels of attainment and make good progress in the Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1. Past underachievement in Key Stage 2 is being effectively resolved and the standard of writing seen during the inspection showed improvement since September. The results of the most recent national tests at the end of Key Stage 2 show considerable improvement in English.  The school has been proactive in identifying summer born boys as an underachieving group and have put in place effective strategies to tackle this issue, and standards are beginning to improve. Alexandra House 33 Kingsway London WC2B 6SE T 08456 404045 F 020 7421 6855 www.ofsted.gov.uk  The recent focus on the quality of handwriting and presentation is having a particularly positive impact on raising standards in writing as a whole.

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Quality of teaching and learning in English

The quality of teaching in English is good.

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Quality of teaching and learning in English

 The many strengths in teaching include consistently clear and progressive planning with interesting and well-differentiated activities which motivate pupils to do well; the enthusiasm and very good subject knowledge of teachers; high expectations of teachers; good pace and effective use of ICT to support both teaching and learning. In a few instances the pace of lessons is hindered by under-developed behaviour management strategies.  Assessment systems are very effective. The school has a very clear assessment policy which is consistently applied. As a result, pupils have a clear understanding of what they need to do to improve their work and their progress is very well tracked and analysed.  Pupils have a positive attitude towards English. They enjoy writing stories and make very good use of the library.

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Quality of the curriculum in English

 The school provides a wide and interesting curriculum which is well planned and fully meets statutory requirements. Progression in curriculum planning is a strength, for example in extended writing.  There is good cohesion between the English curriculum and other subject areas, particularly personal and social education and history.  Intervention strategies to address underachievement have been effective, but need to be developed further, for example through further developing the work that the school has done on story writing.

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Leadership and management in English

 The senior staff and subject leader have a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses in English. Very extensive data is rigorously scrutinised and very good documentary guidance and training helps to ensure a whole school approach towards improving standards.  Improvement planning is effective overall, but plans to improve some aspects of English, for example spelling, are not always sufficiently clear or linked to the outcomes of audits.  Monitoring is well established and effective but the monitoring of teaching is not sufficiently focussed on making clear judgements and identifying targets for improvement.

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Provision for poetry

 The teaching and learning of poetry is well planned and ensures progression in the pupils’ experience and understanding of poetry.  As a result, pupils are knowledgeable about the features of poetry. They talk with enthusiasm about the poems that they have written and use a wide range of poetic forms. They have plenty of opportunities to perform and publish their poetry and older pupils are developing good quality and well written poetry.

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Inclusion

 The school uses detailed data to identify underachieving groups and puts in place suitable strategies to ensure that the issues are addressed.  Well-planned differentiation and clear individual targets ensure that each pupil knows how they can improve their work.  The school ensures that all pupils feel valued and that their achievements are recognised and celebrated.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, included:

 continue to improve standards in writing  ensure that improvement plans reflect the outcomes of audits and have clearly measurable success criteria  develop further the monitoring of teaching to ensure that clear targets for improvement are identified.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, included:

As I explained in my previous letter, a copy of this letter will be sent to your local authority. All feedback letters will be published on the Ofsted website at the end of each half-term and made available to the team for the next institutional inspection.

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