Setting

School Workforce

Thank you for your co-operation and hospitality, and that of the staff, during my visit to East Farleigh Primary School on Monday 29 January 2007 to evaluate the impact of Reforming and Developing the Workforce.

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School Workforce

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. All feedback letters will be published on the Ofsted website at the end of each half-term.

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School Workforce

The evidence used to inform the judgements made included: interviews with staff and children, scrutiny of documentation, analysis of children’s work and observation of two lessons.

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School Workforce

The overall effectiveness of reforming and developing the workforce in your school was judged to be good.

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Impact on standards and the outcomes of Every Child Matters

Achievement and standards are very good.

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Impact on standards and the outcomes of Every Child Matters

 Standards are above average at the end of Key Stage 1 and 2. Results in Key Stage 2 in all core areas improved in 2006 from those in 2005. This is partly due to good and well-targeted levels of support for children and teachers from specialist teachers, teaching assistants and other adults working in most areas of the school. Alexandra House 33 Kingsway London WC2B 6SE T 08456 404045 F 020 7421 6855 www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Impact on standards and the outcomes of Every Child Matters

Mrs Valerie Ellis Headteacher East Farleigh Primary School Vicarage Lane East Farleigh Maidstone ME15 0LY  Children feel safe and happy. They are supported well in their learning by teachers and the wider workforce.  A range of excellent initiatives underpins the school’s success in providing an ethos in which pupils develop healthy life styles. Pupils are aware of the importance of diet and knowledgeable about ways in which they can enhance the quality of what they eat by growing their own food.  Excellent development of the school garden has encouraged pupil confidence, social skills in working in garden teams; led to the school winning significant funding through an eco-competition; and raised pupils’ economic awareness through the sales of its produce and the eggs produced by its chickens.  Pupils, teachers and the wider workforce have strong and mutually respectful relationships. This enhances pupils’ well-being and provision overall.

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Impact on standards and the outcomes of Every Child Matters

 Behaviour is very good. Children are considerate of each other, adults in the school and the wider community.  Time to enable teachers to plan, prepare and assess (PPA) is provided by specialist teachers for music and science and, in Reception, a Higher Level Teaching Assistant. The gives children good experience of working with staff other than their regular class teacher and prepares them well for secondary school transfer.

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Impact on the quality of teaching and learning

The impact of the strategy on the quality of teaching and learning is good.

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Impact on the quality of teaching and learning

 Teachers use PPA time to promote improvement well. This time, together with meetings after school including teaching assistants, enables shared planning that supports individual pupils to achieve well.  The deployment of teaching assistants to provide ‘booster’ support, enabling pupils to work at higher levels, has proved successful, with a significant number of pupils achieving above the targets initially set for them.

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Impact on the quality of the curriculum

The impact on the quality of the curriculum is very good.

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Impact on the quality of the curriculum

 Specialist input for science, music and French has enhanced expertise across the curriculum. The content of the curriculum has been enriched. In French, where the regular class teacher remains in the classroom, teachers’ knowledge and understanding has been enhanced. In science, teaching assistants have benefited from working with the specialist teacher and curriculum resources have improved considerably.  Teaching by specialists for science and music has also enabled clearer planning to ensure progression and continuity of learning for each pupil along with detailed feedback for the regular class teacher and parents alike.  The additional expertise has been used to enrich curriculum provision outside the classroom in extra-curricular clubs and whole school initiatives. Play time and after school clubs have been extended, including a range of sporting activities, the garden club and eco-clubs.  In recent years the school has also significantly improved its provision

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Impact on the quality of the curriculum

through a building programme. This has provided valuable additional classrooms, enhanced staff facilities, created a library which has been developed well, and provided an Information & Communication Technology (ICT) suite. With ICT equipment in each room linked to a network, laptops for all staff and the provision of a technician fortnightly, teaching skills and resources have been enhanced well.  The school values the expertise of the wider workforce in extending provision across the school. Parents are involved, for example, in supporting pupils’ reading on a regular basis, making an important contribution to learning overall.

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Pupil development and well-being

The impact on pupil development and well-being is very good.

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Pupil development and well-being

 The wider workforce and additional specialist staff have encouraged pupils to take individual and collective responsibilities for their own learning. This underpins their very good behaviour and sense of responsibility as citizens within the school and wider community.  The school council has elected pupil representatives from each year group, supported by a member of staff and a learning mentor. Meeting termly, its representatives have developed a clear understanding of their responsibilities, perform their roles maturely and are active in making thoughtful suggestions for future development.  In addition, pupils are given good opportunities to development financial understanding with responsibilities that include supporting the sale of produce from the garden and being involved in application for ecological developments led by pupils of the school’s “eco group”. This encourages good behaviour and an understanding of the responsibilities of being a good

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Leadership and Management

Leadership and management of the strategy are very good.

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Leadership and Management

 The headteacher and senior leaders understand the principles of workforce reform and development very well and are strongly committed to them.  Very good progress has been made in implementing all phases of the workforce agreement. There is a well defined and implemented strategy for PPA time.  There are good arrangements to provide management time for leaders to fulfil their responsibilities, including monitoring teaching and learning and tracking pupils’ performance. Procedures are in place to enable the headteacher and her deputy to have leadership and management time. The headteacher has also attended a recent training session that will enable her to develop strategies to ensure dedicated headship time and continue to encourage a balanced approach to work-life commitments for all staff.  The very good strategies developed and implemented by the headteacher and staff have supported the school in its success in gaining the Investors in

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Leadership and Management

People award as well as preparing well to achieve Healthy Schools and Eco- school awards.

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Impact on training and managing a reformed workforce

 The school has successfully developed an inclusive ethos. It has a pleasant and calm environment. Its atmosphere is welcoming and supportive. This is encouraged and supported by good systems to provide continuing professional development and the opportunity for performance management for all staff of the school.  Senior managers make every effort to involve all staff, and often pupils, in the process of informing and making decisions.

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Impact on inclusion

 Learning is supported well with teaching assistants in each classroom. Together with teachers they provide targeted help to enable pupils to achieve well. The school adopts various approaches to encourage pupils with particular needs in classroom and, particularly, extra-curricular activities.

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Areas for improvement

Areas for improvement, which we discussed, include the need to:

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Areas for improvement

 extend the use of the ICT facilities to share planning and networked resources to improve efficiency and effectiveness  more formally evaluate the impact of the initiatives linked to workforce remodelling on standards and quality, reporting them to governors in order to inform future planning. I hope these observations are useful as you continue to reform and develop the school workforce.

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Areas for improvement

As I explained in my previous letter, a copy of this letter will be sent to your local authority and will be published on Ofsted’s website. It will also be available to the team for your next institutional inspection.

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