Bishop Wilson Church of England Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Short inspection of Bishop Wilson Church of England Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 5 June 2019, I write on behalf of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. The visit was the first short inspection carried out since the school was judged to be good in April 2015.

This school continues to be good. The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You took up post as headteacher at the start of September 2018.

Since this time, you have restructured the leadership team and provided them with high expectations and clarity of their roles. Senior leaders have a clear u...nderstanding of what is expected of them and there is a strategic vision and direction to the school. You and your leaders have an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the school's strengths and weaknesses.

The school's own self-evaluation of its performance is accurate and fully informs school development plan priorities. You are using your experience and the skills of leaders to drive improvements. In a relatively short space of time, tangible improvements to both pastoral care and teaching and learning have been made.

Early on in your appointment, you recognised that there were concerns over the quality of education and systems and procedures for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), and you have been swift to address these. Effective actions have been put in place and these are recognised by many of the parents and carers of pupils with SEND that responded to Ofsted's messaging service. This is a happy school.

Pupils are polite and courteous. Overwhelmingly, they talk positively about their school and their teachers. A new pupil told me how the other children had welcomed him into school life and helped him make new friends.

Pupils say they enjoy their lessons and like their teachers. Relationships between staff and pupils are strong. Pupils behave well in lessons and follow instructions diligently.

They are proud of their work and are eager to talk about their learning. Pupils say they feel safe in school and know who they can talk to if they have a concern. Pupils can talk with a secure knowledge about online safety and are confident that any issues with bullying are dealt with effectively.

The teaching of phonics in the early years foundation stage is strong. This is reflected in the phonics screening check results at the end of Year 1, which have been above national average figures for the past three years. Across the early years, pupils make good progress based on their starting points.

For the past two years, children have left the Reception class with attainment that is just below national average figures. The school environment is attractive and purposeful. The wide, open corridor spaces are used well.

Classrooms are well organised and prompts for learning are used effectively by pupils. Displays throughout the school celebrate pupils' learning and achievements. The school's ethos and values are demonstrated in every aspect of school life.

Parents value the school's work and the communication they receive about their child's learning. The majority of the parents I spoke to in the playground and those that responded to Ofsted's online questionnaire Parent View are positive about the school and say they would recommend it to another parent. Parents commented on the approachable staff and happy children.

The governing body forms a highly effective team. Governors have a secure understanding of the school's strengths and weaknesses and provide support and appropriate challenge to leaders. Governors talk highly of you and your senior leaders and have high aspirations for school improvement.

Additionally, the local authority provides support for you as a new head to the authority and have allocated a mentor. The previous inspection report identified that the school needed to strengthen teaching and increase the proportion of pupils reaching higher levels in reading, writing and mathematics in key stages 1 and 2. This has been achieved in mathematics in key stage 2.

However, this is not the case for reading and writing. In key stage 1, this has not been achieved in reading, writing or mathematics. However, since your appointment, and with the structural changes that you have implemented, improvements in teaching and learning are evident.

The 'fresh pair of eyes' that you bring to strategic improvement is ensuring that the school is moving forward and the school's own assessment system shows that pupils are making strong progress. Safeguarding is effective. Safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are detailed and of high quality.

Safeguarding procedures are thorough and meet statutory requirements. Governors are fully aware of their roles and responsibilities in relation to safeguarding and talk with a great deal of knowledge about statutory procedures and how to keep children safe. Regular and appropriate training for staff is in place and there are clear procedures in place to report concerns.

Multi-agency meetings are well attended and minutes are recorded in child protection files. The child and family support team works closely with families and keeps safeguarding tracking sheets to keep track of vulnerable pupils. The vast majority of parents feel that you and the staff keep their children safe and well looked after.

Pupils also say they feel safe in school. Rates of absence have previously been below national average figures. The attendance team promotes good relationships with families and supports parents in promoting good attendance.

There are systems and procedures in place for pupils who are persistently absent. Current attendance figures are in line with national average figures. Inspection findings ? During the inspection, I focused on a number of key lines of enquiry.

The first was to establish if the teaching in key stage 2 was consistently effective in enabling pupils to make strong progress in writing. Attainment in mathematics at the end of Year 6 has been above national average figures for the past three years. Reading attainment, although previously not as strong, was in line with national figures in 2018.

However, attainment in writing has been well below national figures for the past three years, and progress in writing across key stage 2 has been well below the national average for the past two years. In order to tackle inconsistencies in writing across school, a writing project has been started and staff have received training on the teaching of writing skills. In a relatively short space of time, the impact of this can be seen in pupils' books.

The quality and quantity of pupils' writing are improving. Pupils are making more adventurous language choices and most pupils can talk about their learning. However, there are still improvements to be made, particularly in punctuation, spelling and handwriting.

• Next, I focused on how well leaders evaluate the performance and progress of pupils across key stage 1. Over the past three years, the good progress made in the early years has not been sustained. This has resulted in attainment at the end of Year 2 in reading, writing and mathematics being below national average figures for the past three years.

Since September, staff have received support with planning, marking and teaching. Teachers have received training in order to have a secure understanding of pitch, progression and basic skills. In the lessons I observed, questioning was effective and encouraged pupils to think about their learning.

Support staff are effectively deployed to ensure that pupils that need extra support can access the learning. As a result, a clear sequence of learning ensures that pupils have been taught the skills they need in order to successfully complete their independent task at the end of a unit of work. However, sometimes, pupils receive work that is not challenging enough.

• Next, I looked at how leaders ensure that additional funding for disadvantaged pupils is spent effectively and is making an impact on pupils' progress and well-being. Almost half of the pupils within school are eligible for the pupil premium funding. This is much higher than the national average.

Additionally, 56% of pupils eligible for pupil premium funding within school also have SEND. The majority of pupil premium funding is spent on employing additional staff to support learning and development, both inside and outside the classroom. Additional interventions in Years 2, 4 and 5 have resulted in disadvantaged pupils making accelerated progress across the year.

Across school, disadvantaged pupils are making as much, if not more, progress than other pupils. Additional funding is also spent on employing a play therapist and staffing for the nurture group. This specialist support is targeted towards supporting pupils with social and emotional needs and their families.

As a result, across the year, five of the pupils from the nurture group have been successfully reintegrated into class. ? Finally, I looked at how well leaders ensure that British values, particularly of tolerance and respect, are promoted in order to ensure that pupils are prepared to be responsible citizens in multicultural Britain. The school values are strongly emphasised throughout school.

Pupils can talk about these values and explain what they mean. Through personal, social, health and economic education, pupils learn about tolerance and equalities, and religious education books show evidence of learning across a range of religions. As a result, pupils can talk confidently about different religions and can give examples of practices from other faiths.

For example, one pupil told me about the Jewish new year festival of Rosh Hashanah and why apples are dipped in honey. Pupils understand that they should respect people of other faiths and of none. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: ? the proportions of pupils reaching age-related expectations at the end of Year 2 in reading, writing and mathematics increase in line with national figures ? the proportion of pupils reaching age-related expectations at the end of Year 6 in writing increases in line with national figures ? teachers raise their expectations and set work for the most able pupils that is carefully matched to their needs in order that pupils are appropriately challenged ? leaders continue to secure further improvement in the quality of teaching of writing across the school.

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the director of education for the Diocese of Birmingham, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children's services for Solihull. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Melonie Davies Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection, I held discussions with you and your deputy headteacher.

I met with leaders responsible for reading and writing. I also met members of the governing body and a representative from the local authority. I joined you and the deputy headteacher in short visits to classes to observe learning.

I spoke to pupils in the playground and in lessons. I looked through pupils' books and scrutinised documentation, including the school's own evaluation of its performance and its improvement plan. I scrutinised the school's safeguarding procedures, including policies.

I scrutinised checks made by the school on staff employed in school, and checked the school website. I spoke to parents in the playground and reviewed the 40 responses to Parent View and the messages on the free-text service. There were no responses to Ofsted's staff or pupil surveys.