Rosegrove Infant School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Short inspection of Rosegrove Infant School

Following my visit to the school on 9 October 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 promotion to the post of headteacher, in September 2016, you have worked effectively with the staff team to sustain and build on the school's strengths.

Standards remain high and staff and governors are fully supportive of your ...leadership. Pupils are proud to attend Rosegrove Infant School. They work hard in lessons and rarely miss a day at school.

They are polite, well behaved and develop into confident and competent learners. The pupils I spoke to told me how friendly everybody is, and that they always feel safe in school. They were keen to tell me about their learning and how they enjoy the school's grounds, which have many interesting features such as a trim trail and an outside learning area, known as 'The Grove'.

Older pupils enjoy acting as play leaders at dinner times and can participate in a wide range of competitive sports with local schools. Parents are overwhelmingly positive about the school. They told me how much they enjoy the regular opportunities to visit the school and find out about what pupils are learning.

For example, they have regular opportunities to attend workshops on different aspects of pupils' learning and are invited into school each week to choose a library book with their children. On the day of this inspection many parents were in school to watch a Year 2 family assembly, which was followed by drinks and a cake sale. One parent wrote on Parent View, 'All staff are extremely approachable, friendly and caring.

I think this is what makes Rosegrove Infants a great school.' At the previous inspection, you were asked to improve the progress that disadvantaged pupils make, so that the gaps between their achievement and that of other pupils continue to close. You have an excellent understanding of the barriers to learning that disadvantaged pupils face in your school.

You carefully allocate pupil premium funding to agreed priorities and regularly analyse the impact of any additional support that is provided. A balance of strong pastoral support and good teaching ensures that disadvantaged pupils do well at Rosegrove. Over the past two years, these pupils have generally made good progress and attained well at the end of Year 2.

You were also asked, at the previous inspection, to improve standards in writing, particularly for boys, whose attainment was generally much lower than that of girls. I saw evidence of pupils making good progress in all classes, and the provisional key stage 1 results for 2018 show a significant increase in the proportion of pupils achieving the expected level. Children get off to a good start in the early years and, by the time they start in Year 1, most can write simple sentences and use their knowledge of phonics to spell common words accurately.

In Year 1 and Year 2 pupils have regular opportunities to write for different purposes and to build their writing stamina. They make good progress and the proportion of pupils who were working at greater depth in writing, in 2017, was almost twice the national average. The school's focus on boys' writing has also been successful.

Over the past two years they have made strong progress, and a higher proportion of boys than girls have been working at greater depth at the end of Year 2. Safeguarding is effective. There is a strong culture of safeguarding at Rosegrove.

All members of staff are trained to an appropriate level and understand how to respond if they have a concern about a pupil's well-being. Staff are reminded about safeguarding issues and informed about any updates or changes to the school's policies or procedures, through regular '7-minute briefings' during staff meetings. The records that the school keeps are detailed and of high quality.

You ensure that appropriate checks are made, and recorded, on all adults who work with pupils at the school. You and your team also monitor pupils' safety and welfare closely. This helps leaders to build up an accurate picture of pupils' well-being over time.

The school works well with a range of external agencies, where necessary, to support vulnerable pupils. Parents and staff say that the school is a safe and caring place, and that pupils are well looked after. The pupils I spoke to told me that they feel safe in school.

These pupils showed a good understanding of bullying and said that it hadn't happened to them or any of their friends. Pupils also told me that they are taught about how to keep safe when using the internet, and the importance of sharing any concerns they might have with staff or parents. Inspection findings ? During this inspection I focused mainly on two lines of enquiry.

The first of these was reading, as the proportion of pupils passing the phonics check at the end of Year 1 fell in 2018. The proportion of pupils achieving the expected level in reading at the end of Year 2 was also lower in 2018. However, I found that there are many strengths in the teaching of reading at Rosegrove.

In the early years, and across key stage 1, phonics teaching remains strong. Adults have good subject knowledge and promote learning extremely well. The school's records show that pupils make good progress in phonics and, for most, this helps to ensure that they develop their early reading skills well.

• Pupils generally make good progress in reading as they move through key stage 1. The proportion of pupils judged to be working at greater depth in reading, at the end of key stage 1, was significantly above the national average in 2017. It remained at a similar level in 2018.

However, some pupils of lower ability do not make good progress. They find it difficult to develop their understanding of phonics fall behind and struggle to develop into successful, independent readers. More could be done to support the progress that these pupils make and encourage them to develop positive attitudes to reading.

• The second line of enquiry that I followed was the quality of teaching and learning in the wider curriculum. I found that pupils study a wide range of subjects at Rosegrove. During this inspection I saw many examples of pupils' artwork, attractively displayed in classrooms and the school hall.

I also saw pupils actively engaged in physical education lessons, learning the rules and skills associated with team games. I looked in detail at pupils' work from the last school year in science, history and geography. Although I saw some good pieces of writing, the work that teachers set in these subjects too often lacked challenge.

Teachers do not focus well enough on the specific skills and knowledge that pupils need to develop. For example, there was little evidence in science books of pupils performing tests or gathering and recording data. Pupils study topics, such as The Great Fire of London and the first aeroplane flight, in history.

However, the way in which these topics are taught does not help them to develop their understanding of chronology or the similarities and differences between life in those periods and life today. ? The school continues to have many strengths. Governance is particularly effective.

Governors bring a wide range of expertise and experience to their role. They visit the school regularly to gain an understanding of the quality of education that the school provides, and how different policies and procedures impact on pupils. They ask challenging questions of school leaders and play their part in ensuring that agreed safeguarding arrangements are in place.

Governors provide a good balance of challenge and support to the school. ? Children get off to a good start in the early years and are well prepared for the next stage of their education when they start in Year 1. The environment has been carefully developed to provide a range of engaging indoor and outdoor learning opportunities.

Staff use assessment well to monitor children's development and to ensure that they receive good levels of challenge to move them on in their learning. During my visits to the Reception classes, children were actively engaged in learning. A group of children were working with playdough, manipulating it to strengthen their hand muscles and develop control over their fingers.

Outside, children were collecting water in different sized containers, learning about volume and collaborating well with each other. Despite it being early in the school year, children showed a good understanding of the school's routines and very good levels of concentration. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: ? more effective support is provided to accelerate the progress of lower-ability pupils in reading ? improvements are made to teaching, learning and assessment in geography, history and science.

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children's services for Lancashire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Paul Tomkow Her Majesty's Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection I held meetings with the headteacher, the deputy headteacher and the teacher in charge of the early years.

I spoke with parents in the playground before school. I had a meeting with the pastoral manager and met with nine members of the governing body, including the chair. I also met with the local authority school improvement adviser.

I visited all classrooms, with the headteacher, to observe teaching and learning. I looked at the quality of work in pupils' books from the last school year, and also looked at pupils' current work in their books. I listened to pupils read and spoke with a group of Year 2 pupils about various aspects of school life.

I observed pupils' behaviour during lessons and at dinner time. I reviewed a range of documentation, including the single central record, the school's self-evaluation and the school's improvement plan. I took account of the 28 responses to Ofsted's online questionnaire, Parent View, and the 13 responses to the staff survey.

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