School improvement plan - update February 2019

Dear Parents and Carers,

We are now six months on from our OFSTED inspection and the last Parent Survey.  In the subsequent meetings I held with parents, I committed to provide periodic updates on how the school was doing and to give parents and carers the opportunity to discuss this. 

I am pleased to report on behalf of the governing board that, whilst our improvement journey continues, we have seen significant progress and improvement since June 2017.

In summary, OFSTED asked us to improve by ensuring we strengthened leadership, brought consistency to behaviour management and strengthened teaching and learning.  The governing board has put in several measures to ensure that this happens as quickly as possible, for the benefit of all of our children.  We have also put in place some measures following your feedback from the parent survey. 

By the end of the summer term, we had appointed a new interim leadership team led by Mr Johnson to start in September 2018. The team immediately set about improving behaviour management with the introduction of a new behaviour policy and merit cards.  This, combined with the positive challenge the children are receiving in lessons, has meant that the low levels of disruption identified in the OFSTED report have significantly reduced.  To address the small pockets of more challenging behaviour, the school has partnered with the Hampshire Primary Behaviour Service to get the best advice and training, and has recruited new experienced staff to work with pupils to help them get ‘Ready to Learn’.  This facility will be available after February half term.

The team also introduced a new home learning policy to help to bring consistency on how and when homework was set, but also to ensure that the amount of homework per week was appropriate to the age of the child - this was one of the issues raised by parents and carers.  We are continuing to review the implementation of this to ensure that it is working as intended and having the desired outcomes.

Mrs Greenwood took the lead as Special Educational Needs and Disability Co-ordinator (SENDCo).  The processes used by the school were comprehensively reviewed and redrafted.  Each child on the SEND register had their specific needs reviewed. Meetings were then held with parents to discuss the nature of the need and the provision for their child.  A number of training and briefing sessions for staff were held during the term to ensure the provision for those children in class met their needs. The school also invested in new SEND screening tools to help accurately identify the needs and potential needs of pupils.

The autumn term also saw the external review of the school’s use of the Pupil Premium Grant (PPG) conducted by Hampshire County Council’s lead for PPG.  As a result of this review, more focus has been put on ensuring the provision for children on the PPG register is clear in both the planning and delivery of lessons.  There are ongoing external reviews across the year to ensure that the recommendations are having the desired impact on outcomes for our children.

Improvements in teaching and learning have been delivered through an enhanced process of lesson observation, feedback, coaching, training and development.  Work to accurately assess each child to ensure that teachers know exactly what the pupils need to learn was undertaken.  This helped to ensure that teaching could be more accurately and consistently matched to the needs of the children, and so accelerate their learning.  This is an ongoing, continual process of improvement which is increasingly embedded in the teaching practice in our school.

The visibility of the leadership team has improved, with senior leaders spending time in the playground before school and holding parent meetings across a range of topics and issues since September.

The governing body recruited a very experienced educational professional in Mrs Taylor as our new Headteacher during the autumn term, and were very pleased to be able to secure a start date of 1st December 2018, ahead of plan and allowing for a comprehensive handover with Mr Johnson. 

In Mrs Taylor’s own words, “My role is to bring some stability to the school, building on the improvements already underway. One of the differences that a permanent appointment brings, is that longer term decisions can be made. So, while I can’t promise you that there won’t be further changes, including to staffing, I can promise you that decisions are being made to secure better provision for your children in the longer term.”

At Christmas, the interim management team left us and Mrs Taylor announced a number of changes in staffing including Mrs Fenton taking over as SENDCo.  Through work led by Mr Read, the school now has a model for the ‘Stanmore Lesson’ and the Stanmore Keys for Success: confidence, resilience, organisation, persistence and co-operation.

Our improvement journey is a continuous ongoing process where, day by day we make sustainable enhancements to the processes, practice and experience of everyone in our school.  Our children are increasingly experiencing excellent opportunities to learn through a rich, varied and challenging curriculum. As a governing body, we are committed to ensuring that improvements continue to be made and we will continue to invest in our positive partnerships with parents, carers, education experts and the wider community to ensure that we are the BEST that we can be.

In the spirit of open communication, we are offering parents and carers the opportunity to meet with governors at 19:00 on Wednesday, 13th February 2019 or 09:00 on Thursday, 14th February 2019 and we hope to see as many of you as possible to discuss our progress and answer any questions you may have.

Yours faithfully,

Chris Lindsay
Chair of Governors

New Behaviour Reward System

We have introduced a new behaviour reward system this year which focuses on children’s individual behaviour both inside and outside the classroom. The system works on a 5 point scale ranging from Green to Black.

It works very simply with all the children starting the day in the ‘Orange’ section. For demonstrating good learning behaviours linked to the school rules children move up the scale into the Yellow section (Great Behaviour), if they continue to show the right learning behaviours they move onto the top section which is the ‘Green’ labelled Outstanding Behaviour. Every time a child reaches ‘Green’ they receive a Headteacher’s Merit Card from either Mr Johnson, Miss Norris or Mr Davies.

Consequently if a child demonstrates poor choices with behaviour, they are given chances to make amends before their name is moved down to the ‘Red’ section, which means 2 minutes loss of break time to explain to the class teacher why they chose to behave in this way. If the child continues to make poor choices despite being on ‘Red’ and having warnings, their name will be moved onto the ‘Black’ section where they will spend some time away from their class completing work or writing a letter of apology. Depending on the reason why the child’s name is on ‘Black’ they will either spend time in another class or with a member of the School’s Senior Leadership Team.

The system is reset at lunchtime, meaning that children have two opportunities to make it to the ‘Green’. This behaviour system is used by all members of staff across the school ensuring a consistency in approach to behaviour management, rewards and sanctions.

“Since introducing this system on Monday in our first assembly, 193 merit cards have been awarded to children across the school. When collecting their merit cards from my office at the end of the day, the children have been clear as to the reasons why they reached the ‘Green’ section and are extremely proud of themselves, hopefully they have shared their successes with you too.”

— Mr Johnson - 7th September 2018

Ofsted inspection - June 2018

Dear Parents and Carers,

As you will be aware, Ofsted inspected the school on the 12-13th June 2018.  They have now published their report which I have attached for your information.  This letter outlines the important messages from that report which will form the basis of the school improvement plan and strategic direction.    

We are pleased that Ofsted have recognised that:

• pupils feel safe and are kept safe by a strong safeguarding culture where staff take robust action to protect the children

• the school’s work to promote pupil’s personal development and welfare is good, pupils are proud of their school, enjoy coming to school and demonstrate respect and care for each other

• our early years provision (Year R) is good, adults take good care of the children, the children enjoy learning and make good progress.

It is also clear from the report that a significant number of improvements have been made since the end of January 2018 when Miss Wood joined the school including:

• more children making more progress than they were and catching up to where they should be

• pupils are now being taught phonics well across early years, key stage 1 and are making rapid progress

• the staff are more positive about the school leadership and the support they are getting, which was not the case before.

However, with an overall judgement of Requires Improvement, the school needs to continue to develop in a number of areas.  We need to continue to drive the improvements already put in place and embed them so that they are consistent across the school.  For example, ensuring that:

• teaching is effective everywhere across the school

• the most able pupils are always challenged to deepen their understanding

• consistent high standards of behaviour are upheld throughout the school

• the teaching of our disadvantaged and Special Educational Needs children is consistently good.

Governors have been and will continue to work closely with the school to achieve the high standards and consistency of approach we expect to see and the children deserve.  I know that the staff are committed to this journey too. 

I must also take this opportunity to share some news with regards to Miss Wood. Unfortunately I need to inform you that she has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.  She is currently awaiting surgery and will then have further treatment.  I am sure you will join me in wishing her all the best, and we will be keeping her in our thoughts in the weeks ahead. 

I understand that as parents and carers, you are as keen as we are to secure continuity of leadership for the school.  To that end I can confirm that:  

• this week the Governors begin the recruitment process for a new permanent headteacher. We expect to be in a position to interview and offer the post to the successful candidate in the Autumn term with a view to them starting at the start of the Spring or Summer term

• we are now working with Hampshire to find a suitable acting head to lead the school until Miss Wood is able to return, or the new headteacher is able to start. I will update you as soon as I have these arrangements confirmed.

We know from the parent survey that many of you care deeply about the school, and that your children are happy and enjoying their time here.  Stanmore Primary School has always been a community with a fighting spirit and a strong commitment to achieving more for our children.  As a governing body we are firmly committed to ensuring that improvements are made where they need to be and you can help us, as always, by supporting our teachers and their efforts to achieve high standards consistently for all pupils.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of this letter or the parent survey then please join us at a meeting at either 9:00am, 2:30pm or 6:00pm on Thursday 5th July 2018 at the school.  These sessions are open to all parents and carers.  Please sign in at the school office in time for your chosen session and you will be shown to the meeting room. I look forward to seeing and speaking to as many of you as possible.

Yours faithfully,

Chris Lindsay
Chair of Governors