Asquith Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

There has been no change to this school's overall judgement of good as a result of this ungraded (section 8) inspection. However, the evidence gathered suggests that the inspection grade might not be as high if a graded (section 5) inspection were carried out now. The school's next inspection will be a graded inspection.

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils at Asquith Primary School are happy and safe. They enjoy coming to school. Relationships between adults and pupils are warm and respectful.

Pupils behave well. They are polite and courteous. A few pupils struggle to manage their own behaviour.

Adults help them to be calm and to focus on their learning. Pupils a...re very accepting of the differences between themselves and other pupils. Bullying is rare and pupils trust adults to sort out problems quickly.

Some pupils do not attend school regularly enough. This means they miss out on important learning opportunities and the social aspects of school. The school has begun to work with families to improve attendance, but there is more work to be done.

Pupils benefit from a range of experiences to support their personal development. They learn to work hard, to be resilient and to cooperate to solve problems. The school provides many opportunities for pupils to experience visits and events.

There are some opportunities for pupils to develop leadership skills, such as the school council and becoming anti-bullying ambassadors. Pupils enjoy sharing their work with parents at curriculum showcase events, stay-and-play sessions, and performances.

The school is emerging from a period of significant change, including leadership and staffing changes.

New leaders quickly identified the improvements they needed to make. Much has happened in a short period of time. Leaders at all levels are committed to providing the very best education for pupils at this school.

What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

The school has made many changes to ensure that the provision for all pupils is the best that it can be. Improvement work in some areas has been slowed due to changes in staffing and difficulties recruiting to some posts. However, the pace of curriculum change has been rapid.

Most staff are supportive of the changes leaders have made. They are happy with their workload and feel supported by leaders.

Pupils' achievement is stronger in some subjects than others.

For example, in mathematics, the school's carefully thought-out and sequenced curriculum helps pupils to build their mathematical knowledge well over time. In the early years, children make a strong start to learning to read. Leaders have implemented a sequenced approach to the teaching of phonics.

By the end of Year 1, pupils achieve a good understanding of letters and the sounds they represent and can apply this learning in their reading. However, for some pupils, good progress in learning to read is not maintained throughout the rest of the school. This is because the reading curriculum does not provide a coherent teaching sequence for fluency and comprehension.

Pupils struggle to read longer and more-complex texts with confidence. In writing, some pupils in key stage 2 struggle to write confidently for a range of purposes. They have not mastered the basic skills of letter formation and sentence structure taught across the early years and key stage 1.

The school has created and introduced a new curriculum for all foundation subjects this year. This has not had time to embed. Older pupils have many gaps in their knowledge from the previous curriculum.

Leaders have begun to identify the important knowledge pupils should learn over time. For example, in geography, the school has ensured that the breadth of the national curriculum is covered. However, the revised curriculum does not address important geographical concepts, such as settlements, in any depth.

As a result, pupils' knowledge is disjointed and superficial.

The school provides pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) with tailored support to help them achieve as well as other pupils. For example, visually impaired pupils use technology to magnify the classroom whiteboard.

This means they can participate fully in lessons.

Provision for children in the early years is effective. The school is currently developing the learning environment to provide rich and varied learning opportunities both indoors and outdoors.

Children learn the routines and expectations well. They play happily together. They cooperate and take turns.

The early years curriculum prepares children well for Year 1.

The school supports pupils' personal development well. Pupils enjoy clubs, such as choir and football, in addition to visits from the local farm and to the local park.

There are two residential visits for key stage 2 pupils when they can take part in adventurous and challenging activities. Pupils have an awareness of the fundamental British values and demonstrate respect and tolerance for everyone in the school community. They have a mature understanding about age-appropriate healthy relationships and know how to keep themselves safe, including online.

Governors support and challenge the school well. They are aware of the work needed to improve the quality of education. However, some parents say they do not feel welcome at school.

They would like to be more informed about the changes that are happening across the school. Leaders, including governors, recognise that they need to act quickly to strengthen their engagement and communication with parents.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Many aspects of the foundation curriculum are in the early stages of implementation. In some subjects, the school has not set out precisely the important knowledge that pupils should learn and remember. As a result, pupils' learning is sometimes superficial and older pupils have many gaps in their subject knowledge.

The school should ensure that it continues to develop and refine the curriculum in all subjects to deepen pupils' understanding of important knowledge over time and address gaps in knowledge for older pupils. ? Pupils do not master correct letter formation and basic sentence structure effectively during the early years and key stage 1. Too many pupils across key stage 2 are not fluent in basic writing transcription skills.

This hinders their ability to focus on the content of their writing. The school should ensure that all pupils have sufficient opportunities to practise and master basic transcription skills. ? The curriculum for reading, for those pupils who no longer need phonics teaching, does not give sufficient consideration to the teaching of fluency and comprehension.

The current approach is not coherent. Pupils struggle to read and understand longer and more-complex texts as they move through school. The school should ensure that it develops a coherent approach to the teaching of fluency and comprehension.

• Attendance is stubbornly low. The school has not developed effective strategies to improve this. Too many pupils are absent too often.

These pupils do not achieve as well as they should. The school should ensure that it improves attendance through well-thought-out, strategic actions that are applied with tenacity. ? A significant number of parents say they do not feel welcome in the school and their views are not heard.

The school has missed opportunities to communicate clearly about the reasons for change and the good work that is happening to make necessary improvements across all year groups. The school should take steps to increase the opportunities to engage positively and communicate clearly with parents.

Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good.

This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which is carried out under section 5 of the Act.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

This is the second ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in May 2015.