Glapthorn Church of England Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Short inspection of Glapthorn Church of England Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 5 December 2017, 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 2012. This school continues to be good.

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. The school has been through a time of significant change, which has included extending the age range of the school from 4 to 9 years of age to 4 to 11, as part of the local authority's restructuring of education provision in the... area. In June of this year, you took on the role of head of school, having served as associate headteacher alongside the previous headteacher.

At the start of this school year, there was also a considerable change of teaching staff. You and the governors actively sought external support to manage these changes. Rutland Learning Trust are providing bespoke mentoring, training and collaboration with other schools.

You have quickly established an excellent rapport with your headteacher mentor. This support has helped you to put in place effective plans confidently and quickly to keep the school moving forward. You are held in high regard by staff, pupils, parents and governors alike.

You have been highly successful in maintaining the community's confidence in the school. You have a clear understanding of effective teaching and learning. You have combined your expertise with guidance from your headteacher mentor to accurately interpret school performance and monitoring information to put in place effective actions for improvement.

You have been successful in uniting new and established staff into one cohesive team. Staff value your clear communication, approachability and guidance. They understand the key priorities for the school and have fully engaged in the concerted drive to improve achievement for all pupils.

You have ensured that governors continue to be well informed. They provide school leaders with an appropriate balance of support and challenge to improve pupils' outcomes. Leaders have had an ongoing focus to continually improve teaching since the last inspection.

Good teaching has been sustained during recent staffing changes, through careful recruitment and induction. The small and variable numbers of pupils in year groups reduces the reliability of trends from historical outcomes. However, outcomes in reading have been consistently strong across the school over time.

There has only been one set of results at key stage 2 since the school extended its provision to include Year 5 and Year 6. Progress for this first year was broadly in line with the national average, with very strong outcomes in writing. Outcomes in mathematics have been weaker over time in key stage 1 and also for key stage 2 in 2017.

This is a high priority on the school's improvement plan and effective actions are now leading to improvements for current pupils. Parents particularly value the welcoming family ethos of the school. They have a very high level of confidence in how well the school cares for and teaches their children.

Pupils are valued as important individuals. The inclusion leader works closely and effectively with pupils, parents, colleagues and external providers to ensure that barriers to learning are carefully addressed. Intervention plans are kept under continual review.

Pupils are proud of their school and enjoy the wide range of interesting opportunities that the school offers them. Pupils are diligent school councillors, and enjoy taking on responsibilities such as music, library, and play equipment helpers. They enjoy many sports opportunities, such as tag rugby, boccia and triathlon, along with extra-curricular clubs, including scratch coding, French, gardening and craft.

Pupils' behaviour and attitudes in lessons and across all times of the school day are a particular strength. They are respectful and courteous to each other and to visitors. They use their 'learning dinosaurs', for example 'Tryosaurus', to help them develop positive learning strategies.

Their enthusiasm for school is also reflected in attendance figures that are above national averages. Safeguarding is effective. Leaders have ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose.

Staff have a clear understanding of their responsibilities to safeguard and ensure the welfare of pupils. You have ensured appropriate training for all staff. Staff are confident to report any concerns they have about children.

Records are detailed and of a high quality. When appropriate, you work closely and constructively with outside agencies. You and your staff know the pupils and families well.

Staff are alert to changes and quick to make adaptions or offer support when needed. All parents I spoke with, and those who responded to the Ofsted online survey, agreed that their children are safe. Pupils say they feel safe and trust adults to act quickly to sort out any problems.

Inspection findings ? You have ensured that all staff, including those new to the school, have a consistent approach to routines and expectations. We saw this in our visits to all classrooms, when talking with pupils and looking in their books. Teachers and pupils have very positive relationships.

Classrooms and learning areas are attractive and well organised. Displays provide helpful prompts and guides that are consistently referred to by teachers. ? In mathematics, you have recently provided effective training for teachers and updated teaching materials and equipment.

As a result, staff now have a good understanding of what and how you want them to teach, such as ensuring that the pupils have access to practical materials to support their understanding of mathematical concepts. For example, we saw Reception children responding confidently to their teacher's clear, practical modelling of subtraction of single digit numbers within 10. There is a consistent school approach to providing challenge through three levels of learning goals, 'paddling', 'swimming' and 'diving'.

Teachers are developing their planning and questioning to provide more opportunities for pupils to reason, explain and prove their understanding. However, leaders recognise that there is still more work to do and there is further training planned. ? You have introduced a more robust system for assessing and tracking pupils' progress across the school as a result of your analysis of Year 6 test outcomes for 2017.

You have also introduced more frequent pupil progress meetings. Discussions with teachers, evidence in books and scrutiny of leaders' monitoring show that the precision of teachers' planning and feedback to pupils is improving. However, the new assessment system was only introduced in September and more time is needed to evaluate its impact fully.

• The school has sustained its approach to the curriculum that was highlighted as a strength at the last inspection. Pupils are enthusiastic about interesting topics that encompass skills across many areas of learning. For example, Year 2 pupils were developing their writing skills as historians, following their visit to a toy museum that enabled them to study and photograph 'primary sources'.

They were engrossed in typing their vivid descriptions, such as 'the old horse is worn and eaten away', in their museum booklets. ? The development of wider leadership roles was an area for improvement at the last inspection. The school's commitment to and success in developing staff talent is evident in your successful promotion to head of school, as well as internal development of the effective inclusion leader.

However, the considerable recent staffing changes have led to reorganisation of wider leadership responsibilities. These arrangements have a clear focus on pupils' progress and outcomes. My discussions with the core curriculum team showed there is a clear understanding of current priorities and commitment to identified wider school roles.

Leadership capacity is improving, but additional responsibilities are not fully implemented yet. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: ? teachers build on recent improvements in the teaching of mathematics to improve outcomes for pupils ? teachers use assessment and tracking information effectively to improve precision of planning for pupils' progress ? the work of new middle leaders contributes to improvements in the quality of teaching and outcomes for pupils. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the director of education for the Diocese of Peterborough, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children's services for Northamptonshire.

This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Mandy Wilding Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection, I met with you and your mentor headteacher and shared my key lines of enquiry. I also met with the inclusion leader and other teachers with leadership responsibilities.

I met with the chair of the governing body and other governors. I spoke with a representative of the local authority. You and I made two visits to lessons in each class.

We examined samples of pupils' work and talked with pupils to evaluate the quality of their learning. I listened to pupils read and spoke with a group of pupils. I observed pupils' behaviour at the breakfast club, breaktimes and during lessons.

In addition, I scrutinised a range of the school's documents, including those relating to pupils' progress, the school's improvement planning, its self-evaluation and documents relating to safeguarding. I spoke with 12 parents at the start of the school day and took account of the 21 responses to Parent View, Ofsted's online survey, and 21 responses to Ofsted's free-text service. I also considered the 12 responses to Ofsted's online staff survey and the 29 responses to Ofsted's online pupils' survey.