Newbury Park Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Short inspection of Newbury Park Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 12 June 2019 with Alison Martin, Ofsted Inspector, 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 November 2015.

This school continues to be good. The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. The strengths in leadership and management that were identified at the previous inspection have continued.

You and your team work well together. Staff spoken to commented on the good clear levels of ...communication that exist within school. All leaders want the best for each pupil academically, socially and personally.

You and your leaders have acted decisively to address the issues raised in the previous inspection to eliminate weak teaching across the school and ensure greater consistency in teaching and learning across Nursery and Reception. By the end of key stage 2, overall, pupils make good progress in reading and mathematics. You have rightly identified that the progress made by pupils in their oracy skills (the ability to speak fluently and grammatically) could be stronger, so that they sustain and enhance improvements in the standards of their reading and writing.

This is identified as a key priority in your school development plan. Staff understand the school's priorities and the actions leaders are taking to improve the quality of pupils' education further. Pupils enjoy coming to school and attend regularly.

Classroom visits show the school to be a happy and industrious place. Pupils' behaviour and attitudes to learning are very good in class and around the school. They want to make progress and talk enthusiastically about their work and achievements.

Pupils treat each other, staff and visitors with respect and care. They enjoy the range of roles and responsibilities that they are given. The school environment is orderly and stimulating and celebrates pupils' work and achievements in colourful displays.

Free-text comments left on Ofsted's online survey, Parent View, and conversations with parents at the school gate acknowledge that pupils make good progress because of the feedback they receive from teachers. As one parent commented: 'I am really impressed with the school, my daughter has really excelled.' Governors are supportive of the school and recognise that since your appointment you and your leadership team have enhanced the school.

They acknowledge that the quality of teaching, learning and assessment has improved significantly since the previous inspection. Governors are ambitious for the school. They have sought appropriate support to strengthen the governing body.

Governors recognise that the success criteria used in the school development plan are not able to be measured well enough. As a result, they cannot yet evaluate some aspects of school improvement effectively enough. Safeguarding is effective.

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. There is a positive culture for keeping pupils safe. Staff know that safeguarding is everyone's responsibility.

Staff and governors take their roles seriously and keep up to date with regular training. They actively fulfil their legal duties to ensure pupils are safe in school. Checks on the suitability of all those who work or volunteer in the school are carried out rigorously.

The school's single central record is accurate and contains all the relevant information. It is regularly checked by governors. Parents feel that their children are safe and well looked after.

Strong, trusting relationships between staff and pupils mean that they feel safe and happy at school. If pupils have a problem, they know that it will be dealt with quickly. Pupils have a good understanding of what bullying is.

They are confident that bullying is rare in their school. Pupils have a good understanding of how to keep themselves safe. They are well-aware of the dangers associated with internet use.

Pupil online safety ambassadors help classmates know how important it is to keep themselves safe online. They enjoy the sessions they receive on relevant issues such as gangs. They appreciate the sensitive delivery of these topics so the dangers they face are well understood, but they are not alarmed.

Inspection findings ? At the start of the inspection, we agreed on the key lines of enquiry we would follow during this inspection. The first line of enquiry looked at how effectively leaders are ensuring that writing at both Key Stage 1 and 2 improves across the school. At the time of the last inspection, the school was asked to eliminate all weaker teaching, particularly in writing.

• Leaders have quite rightly identified that improving writing outcomes remains a priority for the school. You have introduced new strategies for the teaching of writing and currently standards are improving rapidly. ? You have ensured that there is a strong ethos for teamwork among the staff.

They have high levels of commitment to improve writing. Teachers have strong subject knowledge in English, which they use effectively to implement a process for the teaching of writing. As a result, all pupils spoken to enjoy writing and list a range of strategies they use to support their work.

They are given lots of opportunities to write at length. ? Resources effectively enable pupils to improve the range of vocabulary they use. Pupils use this vocabulary well when they work with talk partners or group work.

In Year 4, pupils accurately use vocabulary to be able to describe digestion in the mouth and stomach. Younger pupils confidently use words such as magma when writing a piece of cross-curricular work on volcanoes. ? Teachers use high-quality texts to engage pupils in their writing.

In Year 6, pupils are able to build suspense in their writing as a result of effectively exploring the use of punctuation in Philip Pullman's book Clockwork. ? The work in pupils' books shows that strong progress is evident from the starting points for all groups of pupils. The writing development process has a clear focus and builds up effectively over time.

The process allows pupils to apply their new knowledge of vocabulary and punctuation in longer pieces of writing confidently. ? The second line of enquiry was to evaluate how leaders ensure that improvements in the early years foundation stage (EYFS) are in line with those seen across the school. ? Leaders took clear actions as a result of the previous Ofsted report to address inconsistencies in practice between Nursery and Reception.

These included the EYFS lead developing the Nursery to form a department to allow for greater communication and reorganisation of staffing. As a result, cooperative planning and provision now ensure that pupils settle more quickly into expected routines. The transition from Nursery to Reception is a much smoother process.

• There is greater consistency between indoor and outdoor provision and staff work closely with parents, including the weekly 'Family Friday' session. The proportion of children achieving a good level of development is in line with the national figure for 2018. Current evidence indicates that this will be similar in 2019.

Lessons observed show that there is consistency in the quality of provision for both Nursery and Reception. Pupils' progress is evident in profile books from their starting points and all children are attempting to write. ? The third line of enquiry looked at what action leaders have taken to ensure that consistent improvements in mathematics at key stages 1 and 2 have been sustained.

• This aspect of the school's work was chosen because progress in mathematics over time has been either above or well above national average. The school's own assessment information, and evidence in pupils' books, indicates that pupils of all abilities are making strong progress. There is an emphasis on developing the language of mathematics, as well as consistency in teaching and learning, using fluency, problem-solving and reasoning.

As a result, attainment over the last three years has been consistently above the national average. Another key contributory factor is the deployment of a teacher with strong subject knowledge in every year group. This enables staff to share experiences about closing gaps and helping pupils to address errors or misconceptions quickly.

Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: ? actions identified in the school development plan are accurately evaluated and measured so that all pupils make strong progress in all areas of the curriculum. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children's services for Redbridge. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

Yours sincerely Rebekah Iiyambo Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During this inspection, my colleague and I met with you, your deputy headteachers, assistant headteachers, leaders of the early years foundation stage, English, mathematics and class teachers. We spoke with two governors, a national leader of governance and a local authority representative. We spoke with pupils and heard them read.

We observed pupils' behaviour at breaktime and lunchtime and spoke informally to staff. We visited classrooms with your leaders, observing teaching and learning and looked at pupils' work in their exercise books. We studied a range of documentation covering different aspects of the school's work, including the school's evaluation of its own performance, the school development plan, safeguarding records and information about current pupils' achievement and attendance.

We considered the 56 responses to Parent View, which included free-text comments, and the views of parents to whom we spoke at the beginning of the school day. I also took account of the eight completed staff questionnaires. There were no responses to the pupils' survey.