Setting

Alexandra House 33 Kingsway London WC2B 6SE T 08456 404040 F 020 7421 6855 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Mrs Clark and Mr Helsby Co-Headteachers Brightwalton Church of England Aided Primary School Common Lane Brightwalton Newbury Berkshire RG20 7BN

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Ofsted survey inspection programme – Physical Education (PE)

Thank you for your hospitality and cooperation, and that of your staff, during my visit on 22 April 2009 to look at work in PE.

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Ofsted survey inspection programme – Physical Education (PE)

As outlined in my initial letter, as well as looking at key areas of the subject, the visit had a particular focus on assessing the PE contribution to the outcomes of Every Child Matters (ECM) particularly ‘being healthy’.

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Ofsted survey inspection programme – Physical Education (PE)

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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Ofsted survey inspection programme – Physical Education (PE)

The evidence used to inform the judgements made included interviews with you and pupils, scrutiny of relevant documentation, observation of two lessons and play opportunities during break and lunchtimes.

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Ofsted survey inspection programme – Physical Education (PE)

The overall effectiveness of physical education was judged to be good overall with some outstanding features.

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Achievement and standards

Achievement was good in the lessons observed.

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Achievement and standards

 Standards are above those expected. They are highest in swimming and Key Stage 2 games as a result of the time dedicated to teaching these activities within the PE curriculum. Girls and boys attained equally well in all the activities observed and as indicated in school swimming records. You make good use of certificates to reward and motivate pupils to achieve.  The school has been successful with several of their sports teams, most notably in football and athletics at both county and national level. For a small school this shows particularly remarkable success and achievement.  Achievement in lessons is at least good by all pupils and better when teachers and/or teaching assistants intervene with suggestions for improvement. Pupils with learning difficulties and/or disabilities make the same progress as others in their class because tasks are adapted well to suit their individual needs.  Pupils have good opportunities to acquire and develop their skills in a

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Achievement and standards

broad range of activities and also to develop their understanding and use of the ‘evaluate and improve’ strand of the PE National Curriculum. They have more limited opportunities to select and apply their learned skills in different situations including finding their own solutions to problems to help them better understand the connections between activities.  Pupils have good opportunities for personal development through PE, particularly those in Year 6 who act as sports leaders at break and lunch times. Pupils talked with enthusiasm about the sponsored run organised by the school council and acting as organisers, scorers and leaders during sports day.  Pupils enjoy their PE lessons and appreciate the range of extra curricular activities available to them throughout the year. They work cooperatively together in lessons and display very positive attitudes to their learning.

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Quality of teaching and learning of PE

The quality of teaching and learning is good.

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Quality of teaching and learning of PE

 Teachers have secure subject knowledge that they use well to observe and intervene to bring about improvements in pupils’ work and to adapt tasks to meet the needs of individual pupils. Teachers have high expectations of pupils listening, concentrating on their work and persevering to improve the quality of their performances.  Teachers use a good range of teaching strategies such as individual, paired and group work, demonstrations to help set expectations, peer observation and feedback. A strength of teaching is the use of open ended questions that enable pupils to think and respond in depth especially when evaluating their own or others work.  The pace of lessons is good overall with pupils being active for extended periods of time and working hard to the point of breathlessness. Occasionally the pace drops and children are inactive for too long when there is too much teacher input.  The deployment of teaching assistants is a strength in PE lessons

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Quality of teaching and learning of PE

particularly in the partnership created in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) lesson.  Good use is made of information and communication technology to record events and it is starting to be used to set expectations such analysing tactics of professional football teams. You miss the opportunity to display digital images on class interactive whiteboards when pupils are changing to help remind them of their previous learning, what they wanted to improve further and set new expectations of the lesson.

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Quality of the curriculum

The quality of the curriculum is good with outstanding features.

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Quality of the curriculum

 The curriculum meets the needs of mixed age classes well. It covers all activities in the PE National Curriculum although less time is given to dance and some games activities such as tennis. You have already identified this as an issue and have good plans in place to change provision.  All pupils have at least two hours of high quality PE each week that is further supplemented through the school’s activity week, an outdoor and adventurous activities residential experience for Year 6, sports days and extensive opportunities to be physically active at break and lunch times.  Good links are created between subjects where possible. For example, learning dances for different cultures or times when completing topics on India and the Tudors and with geography when looking at orienteering skills. Some links are in place to improve pupils’ literacy and numeracy skills through PE. For example, using the visiting

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Quality of the curriculum

professional sports people as a stimulus for research and writing.  The extra curricular programme is good and has been extended further through links with the school sports partnership. Pupils have outstanding opportunities to participate in a broad range of festivals and tournaments of sport. You make excellent use of external coaches, professional sports people, parents and other volunteers to ensure pupils have as many opportunities as possible to particulate. Take up of extra curricular activities is high. Many pupils said how much they appreciated the number of activities available for a small school and that teachers were always looking for new activities to get them involved. You have good plans in place to expand the provision for Key Stage 1 pupils.

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Leadership and management of PE

The quality of leadership and management is good overall with outstanding aspects.

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Leadership and management of PE

 You know the strengths and weaknesses of the subject thoroughly and have a clear view of the key priorities to bring about future improvements, based on the outcomes of monitoring and evaluation activities. Priorities are effectively translated into an action plan including realistic timescales for implementation. When previous weaknesses have been identified, they have been tackled robustly to bring about improvements in provision and/or achievements. You are always looking for the next challenge, are ambitious that all pupils experience high quality PE and act decisively to ensure this occurs. This indicates outstanding capacity for developing even further.  The use of formal assessment procedures in PE is being piloted through a school sports partnership initiative. Although the new procedures include details of the National Curriculum levels of attainment they miss the opportunity to assess pupils’ progress against

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Leadership and management of PE

the 10 outcomes of high quality PE, leadership skills or for self assessment activities.  As a staff you have undertaken a good range of professional development in PE that has helped to improve provision. For example, the multi skills training for EYFS and Key Stage 1, swimming safety and the primary link teacher courses.  You have an excellent range of resources and facilities for PE on the school site and make good use of other local facilities such as the village fields and cricket pitch.

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‘being healthy’

 Pupils have well developed understanding of being healthy and how to lead a healthy active life. They talk knowledgably about why it is important to eat healthy food, drink water and the amount of exercise to take each day. They have good understanding of why they warm up and cool down at the start and end of activities and older pupils relate this well to raising or lowering heart rates and blood flow.  Good attention is given to safety both in lessons and in the playground. For example pupils move safely on apparatus in gymnastics and are supervised when using the outdoor climbing and play equipment at break and lunch times.  Year 6 pupils in particular make a good contribution to the school community through their play leaders roles.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, included:

 increasing the opportunities for pupils to use problem solving tasks in lessons  extending the use of information and communications technology to remind pupils of their previous work and set expectations  finding ways to extend the pilot assessment procedures.

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Areas for improvement, which we discussed, included:

I hope these observations are useful as you continue to develop physical education in the school.

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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 and will be published on the Ofsted website. It will also be available to the team for your next institutional inspection.

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