Clifton Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Short inspection of Clifton Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 18 September 2018, 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 October 2014. This school continues to be good.

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Since your appointment as co-headteachers, you have brought stability to the leadership of the school and galvanised staff with a culture of ambition. You have introduced more rigorous and regular assessment procedures to measure the impact of te...aching in raising attainment and improving rates of pupils' progress across the school.

You have created a caring and inclusive ethos. Staff and governors share your high expectations and work effectively to continue to improve the school. There is a good team spirit, and one member of staff commented, 'Clifton Primary is a wonderful school with a real community feel.'

Pupils enjoy coming to school and are very proud to be part of the school community. They are polite and well behaved and show respect to other pupils and adults. Pupils' attitudes to learning are good and they work hard and apply themselves well in lessons.

They said that teachers support them well and make learning fun. One pupil stated, 'Teaching is amazing and teachers encourage us to do well.' The previous inspection report highlighted several strengths, such as the outstanding behaviour and attitudes of pupils and the rapid progress children make in their English development during the early years.

Efficient action has been taken to address the areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection. You have a good understanding of the strengths of Clifton Primary but are also aware of what still needs to improve. In 2018, pupils' attainment and progress in reading at the end of key stage 2 were below the national averages.

As a result, leaders have made changes to the teaching of reading but recognise that these need time to become embedded. There is still further work to do to improve the attainment and progress in reading of current pupils as they move through key stage 2. Children in the early years continue to achieve well and make a good start to their education.

The teaching of early reading is effective, and results in the Year 1 phonics screening check have been consistently high. Attainment at the end of key stage 1 is broadly in line with national levels in reading, writing and mathematics. Standards in mathematics at the end of key stage 2 have improved.

However, not enough pupils are attaining the higher standard in reading and writing. When we observed a range of lessons, we agreed that, sometimes, the most able pupils were not given work that stretched and challenged them. Safeguarding is effective.

Leaders have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements and procedures are fit for purpose. Detailed checks are carried out when recruiting staff, governors and volunteers. This is systematically recorded on the single central record, which is checked for compliance regularly by the chair of the governing body.

Staff are fully aware of the safeguarding policy and understand the procedures to follow to keep pupils safe. They are confident in sharing any concerns about pupils' well-being with the designated safeguarding leaders in school. Communication between safeguarding team members is effective.

Any necessary actions are taken promptly and are followed up in an efficient manner. The school works well with a range of external agencies. Regular staff training is provided to ensure that all staff are well informed about child protection matters and know how to keep children safe.

Pupils say the school is a safe place to be and know who they can talk to if they have any concerns. They demonstrate a good understanding of how to stay safe online, which is supported by 'cyber mentors' in each class. The majority of parents and carers responded that their children feel safe at school.

Pupils say that behaviour at school is good and has improved further with the introduction of report cards. Inspection findings ? In order to establish whether the school continues to provide a good standard of education, we agreed three key lines of enquiry to focus on during the inspection, as well as the effectiveness of safeguarding. ? In 2018, pupils' attainment and progress in reading were below national levels.

You have rightly identified this as a key area for improvement and implemented a new approach to the teaching of reading. ? The introduction of whole-class guided reading lessons that follow a consistent sequence of learning is beginning to have a positive impact. The focus on developing pupils' vocabulary and the teaching of the reading skills of inference and deduction are ensuring that current pupils are now making better progress in reading.

• However, in a minority of reading lessons, there was not enough opportunity for the most able readers to be challenged. In addition, teachers' encouragement of pupils to choose more challenging texts is not as strong as it could be. ? The second area of focus was how well pupils are achieving in mathematics.

In 2018, the proportion of Year 6 pupils working at the expected standard was above the national level for the third consecutive year. ? The mathematics leader has implemented several changes to the way mathematics is planned and taught across the school. As a result, pupils demonstrate a more secure grasp of mathematical knowledge and understanding.

• In most mathematics lessons, pupils were challenged with work matched to their abilities. ? The final focus of the inspection was to explore the effectiveness of leaders' actions in enabling pupils to attain the higher standards in reading and mathematics. In 2018, the proportion of pupils achieving the higher standard in reading was well below the national average, and just below the national average in mathematics.

• School leaders have identified this as an area for improvement and are monitoring the quality of teaching more rigorously to ensure improvement. There is now an expectation that all teachers use assessment information to ensure that planning meets all pupils' needs. ? In the majority of classes visited, the most able pupils were given work that had a good level of stretch and challenge.

However, in a few classes, the reading and mathematics tasks were too easy, which limited the progress of these pupils. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: ? the new approach to the teaching of reading has time to become embedded and is delivered consistently across the school ? the most able pupils are adequately challenged in reading and mathematics lessons so that more attain the higher standards and make the progress of which they are capable. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children's services for Ealing.

This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Nicholas Cornell Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection, I met with both of you to discuss the school's effectiveness. Together, we visited lessons to observe pupils' learning, to speak to pupils and to look at their work.

I also looked at a range of pupils' work in books. I met with the pastoral manager, the English and mathematics leaders, the chair and vice-chair of governors and a group of teachers and learning support assistants, and spoke to a group of pupils about their school. I reviewed a range of the school's documentation, including school leaders' self-evaluation document, the school development plan, assessment information and safeguarding information.

I considered the views of parents through the 15 responses to Ofsted's online survey, Parent View, as well as parents' written comments. I spoke to parents at the end of the school day to gather their views about the school. I took into account the 13 responses from the members of staff who completed Ofsted's staff survey.