Setting

Mr Rob Hart Headteacher Oakfield Junior School Bell Lane Fetcham Surrey KT22 9ND

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Special measures: monitoring inspection of Oakfield Junior School

Following my visit to your school on 22 and 23 June 2010, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to confirm the inspection findings.

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Special measures: monitoring inspection of Oakfield Junior School

The visit was the second monitoring inspection since the school became subject to special measures in October 2009. The monitoring inspection report is attached and the main judgements are set out below.

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Special measures: monitoring inspection of Oakfield Junior School

Progress since being subject to special measures – good

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Special measures: monitoring inspection of Oakfield Junior School

Progress since previous monitoring inspection – satisfactory

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Special measures: monitoring inspection of Oakfield Junior School

This letter and monitoring inspection report will be posted on the Ofsted website.

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Special measures: monitoring inspection of Oakfield Junior School

I am copying this letter and the monitoring inspection report to the Secretary of State for Education, the Chair of the Governing Body and the Director of Children’s Services for Surrey.

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Her Majesty’s Inspector

Tribal Education 1–4 Portland Square Bristol BS2 8RR T 0300 123 1231 Text Phone: 0161 6188524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Direct T 0845 1236001 Direct F 0845 1236002 email :sarah.cartlidge@tribalgroup.com

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Evidence

Inspectors observed the school’s work, scrutinised documents and met with the Chair of the Governing Body and the chair of the curriculum and pupil welfare committees, the headteacher, staff, the headteacher from the partner school, groups of pupils and a representative from the local authority.

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Context

The senior leadership team has now been finalised. The leadership team comprises of: the headteacher; a deputy headteacher; a senior teacher responsible for curriculum planning, assessment and timetabling; an English leader; a special educational needs co-ordinator; and a school business manager responsible for finance, health and safety and safeguarding. Two new teachers have been appointed for September 2010 to teach Years 3 and 5. The Year 5 teacher will become a member of the senior leadership team and will lead on curriculum development.

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Pupils’ achievement and the extent to which they enjoy their learning

Pupils’ achievement is set to rise in Year 6. The school’s data indicate that there will be good improvement in mathematics. Targets for students who achieve Level 4 in mathematics and reading are on track to be achieved. The school is set to exceed its target for pupils who achieve high levels in mathematics and reading. The attainment of pupils in science is set to remain high. However, the improvements in the proportion of pupils’ who will achieve Level 4 in writing will be modest; data suggest that the school will fall short of its challenging target. The school’s data indicate that at the end of Year 6, boys are set to achieve as well as girls in reading and mathematics, although in writing they are falling being. There has been a good improvement in writing in the lower years, especially Year 4 where the method of assessing pupils’ progress was introduced early. Year 5 pupils are not achieving as

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Pupils’ achievement and the extent to which they enjoy their learning

well as pupils lower down in the school. Leaders are taking good actions to address this.

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Pupils’ achievement and the extent to which they enjoy their learning

Pupils learn well when they are given a variety of tasks and the pace of lessons is fast. The inspector observed the good use of group and paired working which enabled pupils to encourage, support and learn from each other. Pupils enjoy their learning when they were challenged to do their best. In some weaker lessons, there are limited opportunities for pupils to contribute to the lesson and the work was not sufficiently engaging to enable them to learn effectively. Judgement Progress since the last inspection  Raise achievement and standards in writing and mathematics by using assessment information to plan work that continually builds on pupils’ prior learning and accurately matches their different learning needs – satisfactory

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Other relevant pupil outcomes

Pupils say they feel safe and have been supported well by teachers in lessons and around the school. The levels of pupils’ attendance have remained high. Pupils feel teachers address their concerns quickly. Year 6 pupils have welcomed the opportunity to develop good business and enterprise skills taking part in their topic of the ‘micro-society’. Pupils did raise a concern over the lack of pupil voice in the school. They feel that the pupil council does not always listen to their suggestions and their views are not passed on to the leaders in the school.

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The effectiveness of provision

All teachers were observed by the inspector; teaching remains broadly satisfactory, although many good lessons were seen. Effective, challenging tasks that teachers delivered at a good pace, enabled students to make good progress in their learning. In a few lesson observed, pupils were able to make good assessments of what they had learned. In an English lesson, pupils competently discussed adverbs, synonyms and substituting verbs and worked in pairs effectively to evaluate a piece of text. Teachers’ use of group and paired work is increasing and is enabling pupils to share their ideas well. Where teaching is not as effective, pupils’ pace of learning slows and they have limited opportunities to extend their learning. In one lesson observed some more able students were left with little to do as they had completed the task early. Pupils were also asked to repeat their learning instead of moving on to a new

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The effectiveness of provision

topic. The quality of marked work is still variable. Good quality marking was seen where pupils’ attainment was analysed well and they were given ‘next steps’ to undertake. Although many teachers are using this technique it is not as embedded in some teachers’ practice. Some marking seen was very minimal which did not enable pupils to know what they needed to do to improve their work. The use of teaching assistants in some lessons is not effective.

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The effectiveness of provision

The planned changes to the curriculum will enable the school to build on sound improvements in both English and mathematics. The school has introduced activities from the ‘Talk for Writing’ scheme as a way of making writing more engaging for pupils. Many measures have been implemented to support pupils who are underachieving and they have had good impact in Year 6. Individual support for students underachieving in mathematics and writing over the year has enabled those pupils to significantly improve their performance.

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The effectiveness of leadership and management

Leaders’ and managers’ actions have brought about improvement in some areas of the school’s work. There is closer scrutiny of the quality of teaching which has led to better consistency in the planning of lessons for the different needs of pupils. Lesson observations are not yet focusing sharply enough on what pupils have learned and the progress they have made. The interventions that have been rapidly put in place to improve the practice of weaker teachers are having some impact. The school has yet to closely monitor individual teachers’ areas for improvement resulting from these lesson observations. The coaching of weaker teachers is starting to make a difference. However, the full impact of these actions is yet to be realised. As a consequence the quality of teaching has not improved since the last monitoring visit. There is an improved use of data by all staff. Teachers’ assessment throughout the school is more thorough and assessing pupils’ progress is starting to

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The effectiveness of leadership and management

make a positive difference to the achievement of pupils especially in Year 4 where this method was piloted. Leaders in mathematics and English have made suitable progress in developing teachers’ use of assessment to enable them to become less reliant on formal testing. These senior leaders are undertaking effective monitoring of the quality of teachers’ performance in their subjects, the results of which become realistic action plans for improvement. Evaluation at the whole senior leadership level is not as rigorous and action planning for improvement in some areas has been slow. For example, the roles within the senior leadership team have been established although it is unclear as to who has overall responsibility and accountability for particular priorities within the school. The responsibilities of the new special educational needs and/or disabilities coordinator are yet to be finalised. The overall

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The effectiveness of leadership and management

strategy for special educational needs and/or disabilities within the school is still unclear. The school is working hard to address the underachievement in Year 5. However, leaders are yet to routinely analyse pupil performance data in relation to particular groups. As a result they do not have a clear understanding of how well boys are performing in relation to girls or if any groups of pupils are underachieving.

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The effectiveness of leadership and management

The governing body is improving it effectiveness to challenge the school’s work. Governors have undertaken appropriate training on analysing school performance data. Governors are monitoring the school’s work regularly. However, they recognise there is still more work to be done before they are able to sharply scrutinise the school’s performance. The governing body has not kept all the policies and procedures for safeguarding up to date. The provision to ensure that new members of staff have appropriate child protection training is not yet fully in place. Progress since the last inspection on the areas for improvement:  Improve leadership and management by: - ensuring that improvement planning clearly identifies and prioritises actions to raise achievement and standards in writing and mathematics that are then monitored and measured for their success. - rigorously monitoring the quality of teaching and learning, with a

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The effectiveness of leadership and management

strong focus on the progress pupils are making – satisfactory

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External support

The local authority continues to provide appropriate support to the school as well as a suitable level of challenge to leaders. Support has been given to improve many aspects of the school’s work including: the role of teaching assistants, governance, leadership, and teaching and assessment. Other support from the national strategies has had a positive impact on the quality of assessment particularly in English and mathematics. The support provided by the partner school has been effective in supporting the school to build its capacity in its leadership team and to develop outstanding teachers. Overall the level of external support continues to be high.

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Priorities for further improvement

 Improve the effectiveness of the governing body at scrutinising the school’s performance, updating safeguarding policies and ensuring that new staff receive training in child protection.  Improve the monitoring of the actions taken to improve the performance of individual teachers to ensure they are effective at raising the quality of teaching and learning.

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