Joseph Turner Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

This is a time of change at Joseph Turner Primary School. An inspirational leadership team, caring staff and an exciting new curriculum are driving improvements.

Consequently, every day, more and more pupils are becoming 'eager to learn' and 'proud to achieve'.

Across this very caring school, leaders and staff seize every opportunity to enable every child to make the greatest progress they can, regardless of circumstances beyond the school gate. The school works tenaciously to overcome any barriers that pupils may face in learning and life.

Changes are happening quickly and making a positive difference.

Relationships are calm, positive and often resp...ectful. Pupils told inspectors that sometimes falling out or even bullying can happen.

However, they rightly believe that staff will be there for them to sort it out. Behaviour is generally positive across all lessons and at informal times. Staff quickly help pupils who need help staying focused in lessons or regulating their emotions.

A broad range of school clubs, such as coding, sports and arts and crafts, develop pupils' hobbies and interests. Pupils have opportunities such as becoming 'office angels' to offer staff that helping hand. Roles such as pupil governors develop that sense of responsibility.

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

When the new headteacher took up her post, she identified several things she felt needed to change quickly. The governors agreed these changes needed to happen. Since then, leaders, governors and staff have worked exceptionally hard to make the necessary changes.

As a result, outcomes across the curriculum are improving quickly, and pupils are increasingly well prepared for when they leave school.

Across subjects, there is a clear understanding of how learning will be built from lesson to lesson. In subjects such as religious education or science, there is a clear understanding of how learning builds from the early years up to Year 6.

However, in some subjects, it is unclear how learning should build on what has been taught in the early years. This can make it difficult for teachers to plan lessons that build on what happened previously.

Teaching staff work hard to ensure the curriculum comes to life in lessons.

For example, in computing, inspectors saw teachers bringing algorithms to life by asking pupils to provide instructions for navigating the room. Teachers usually check what pupils learn during lessons and adapt their approaches. However, in some cases, teachers do not routinely check on what pupils know and understand from that lesson.

This leads to an occasional reliance on interventions to help pupils catch up when they had not secured that learning in the first place.

Leaders have recently changed how they mark work and respond to what pupils have created in lessons. In most cases, teachers use these systems well.

Written feedback is precise, and pupils are given opportunities to correct mistakes and practise areas where they need more help. However, some teachers do not always use these systems correctly, meaning that mistakes in books are not always picked up, and some pupils do not have opportunities to correct their mistakes in subsequent lessons.

From the youngest years to the oldest, reading holds a high profile.

Well-trained staff quickly act and teach phonics from the earliest moments in school. There is a determination that pupils will not fall behind, so staff act quickly to support those pupils who might need more help. An exciting new reading curriculum for key stage 2 has recently been introduced, and already, the pupils are becoming more confident about talking about books and developing excitement in their love of reading.

Recently, there has been an increasing number of pupils with more complex special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). This means that staff have had to rethink how they support pupils. For example, the support for pupils with social, emotional and mental health is particularly strong.

A school counsellor and learning mentors work with staff to provide interventions such as nurture groups, social use of language and drawing and talking therapy.

In the past, attendance was low for too many pupils, which affected their progress and how much they got from school. However, this is changing, and pupils are attending more than ever.

At the heart of this success lies a strong partnership with families, social care and local authorities, as well as an even stronger expectation that pupils should no longer be away from school for increasing periods.

The school has carefully considered what it is like to grow up in Sandwell. All staff are fully alert to the local risks and challenges growing up in the local community.

Lessons in personal, social, health and economic education develop a strong sense of safety in the real world and online. Relationships and sex education focuses on developing healthy, respectful relationships at school and home.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Some teachers do not consistently and routinely check what pupils are learning in lessons. This means that sometimes pupils leave their lessons without having learned what was intended, and teachers are not always aware of this. The school needs to ensure that all teachers routinely and consistently check pupils' knowledge during lessons so that they know if pupils have not understood and adapt their teaching accordingly.

• Recent changes to how the impact of the curriculum is assessed across the school have not been fully implemented. This means that in some cases, although pupils' work is marked, pupils are not left clear about what they need to do to improve or given the chance to correct their errors or misconceptions. The school needs to ensure that its systems for assessment are consistently implemented so that all pupils know what they need to do to improve their work and have regular opportunities to practise the areas they need to develop further.

• In some subjects, the curriculum starts in Year 1 and does not build on what pupils have learned in the early years. In these instances, plans do not clearly define how learning links to and builds on learning from the early years. The school should ensure that in all subjects, the curriculum intent and implementation in Year 1 builds on what pupils have learned in the early years.

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