OFSTED’S new category of “requires improvement” has claimed another “victim” as Stanford-le-Hope primary has been lambasted in a recent inspection.
The report, similar to the one, Aveley primary received last week, pulls no punches in pointing to a number of “deficiencies” at the Copland Road school, even going to the extent of disagreeing with parents, who thought teaching was good.
The report gives an impression that standards are not simply high enough and that students are not stretched. It points to teaching that is not strong enough and describes a maths lesson where the students were “confused’. Ofsted described the scenario as “typical”.
The headteacher, Linda Moore, and her senior managers, are also criticised for being “slow in addressing poor performance”.
There are numerous positive comments made by the watchdog but the predominance of the term: “Not good enough” will cast a long shadow over the school.
Amongst the criticisms are:
1. Pupils don’t make the required consistently good progress in their learning from the time that they join the school in the Early Years Foundation Stage to reach the standards they are capable of at the end of Year 6.
2. The quality of teaching is not strong enough to ensure good progress for all pupils, as some teachers’ expectations are too low especially for what more able pupils can achieve. In some classes, mainly in the lower years, the pace of learning is too slow and pupils only make adequate progress.
3. There are insufficient planned opportunities for pupils to practise their mathematical skills across other subjects.
4. School leaders do not use pupils’ performance information sharply enough to identify underperformance, especially for the more able and for ambitious improvement planning. Consequently, leaders have not ensured that all teachers take responsibility for ensuring that all their pupils make good progress.
5.The governing body has not challenged school leaders sharply enough to bring about more rapid improvements in the quality of teaching and pupils’ progress.
What Stanford-le-Hope primary does well.
1. Good teaching in Year 6 last year ensured attainment in English and mathematics met the government’s minimum expectations.
2.Pupils’ enjoy school, feel safe and their behaviour and attitudes to learning are good.
3. Improvements in the quality of teachers’ marking are helping pupils to know how well they are doing. Teachers help pupils to improve their work by setting additional follow-up exercises so that pupils learn from their mistakes.
4.Pupils in the visual impairment unit make good progress as they are taught well and receive good support.
5.The school has successfully improved the achievement of those groups of pupils who had been doing less well.
6.Recently introduced changes to self-evaluation processes have helped leaders to correctly identify the main priorities for improvement.
What does the school need to do to improve further?
1. Improve the quality of teaching across the school to good or better so that all pupils consistently make good progress.
2 Ensuring that leaders and teachers in the Early Years Foundation stage plan plentiful opportunities for both adult-led and child-initiated learning activities to develop language and number skills at a much faster rate.
3.Making sure that every teacher has high expectations of what every pupil can achieve planning activities that challenge all ability groups to reach their potential, especially the more able
4. Making sure that no time is wasted during lessons so that learning proceeds at a brisk pace.
5. Plan more opportunities for pupils to practise and extend their mathematical skills across the subjects.
6. Improve the effectiveness of the school’s leaders by: sharpening the quality of improvement planning so that the success of any planned actions are measured directly by the impact on pupils’ progress
7.Providing training for leaders on the use and interpretation of pupils’ performance data and how to use the information for holding colleagues to account for the quality of their teaching
8.Ensuring that the governing body challenges the senior leaders with more rigour to take decisive and timely action to improve the quality of teaching at a faster rate.
The head-teacher had not replied to a request for a statement at the time of publication.
Sadly the only part that comes as a surprise is that “behaviour and attitudes to learning are good”