Stanton St Quintin Primary and Nursery School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Short inspection of Stanton St Quintin Community Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 22 May 2018, 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 September 2014. This school continues to be good. The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection.

Despite a high turnover of staff in your small school, you have remained resolute and determined that pupils continue to receive a good standard of education. You know the school well and understand the school's strength...s and areas to improve. You have developed wider leadership capacity by delegating responsibilities to others such as your senior teacher, who has risen to the challenge.

Governors are equally unwavering in their commitment to improve pupil outcomes. They hold you to account to ensure that standards improve. A significant number of pupils join the school in different years other than Reception, often with additional needs.

You and your teachers ensure that these pupils' needs are swiftly identified as they arrive so they are challenged in lessons through tailored support. Consequently, these pupils achieve well as they move through school. Since the previous inspection, you have continued to improve many aspects of the school.

For example, you and your mathematics leader identified that the teaching of mathematics was not preparing pupils for the challenges of the revised curriculum. In particular, the most able pupils were not sufficiently challenged to reach the higher standards. New approaches to teaching were introduced which challenge pupils to think and reason through mathematical ideas and concepts.

Highly effective training ensures that teachers have the skills and resources they need to plan effective lessons. Pupils say they enjoy mathematics. Pupils' workbooks demonstrate that the most able pupils are working at higher standards.

As a result, 100% of pupils achieved the expected standard in mathematics in 2017 at the end of key stage 2 and standards for the most able pupils continue to rise. While you have high expectations for pupils' academic achievement, you do not lose sight of developing their other talents. For example, many pupils spoke with pride of their recent sporting successes.

Parents spoken with during the inspection talked of the stimulating curriculum and the nurturing and welcoming ethos that attracted them to the school. Pupils' behaviour is good in and around school. They are caring, courteous and polite to each other and other adults.

Pupils of all ages play together at breaktimes and lunchtimes and they enjoy using all the outside space. Behaviour in lessons is well managed so that there is a calm and purposeful working atmosphere throughout the school. Pupils are keen to learn in lessons and say they enjoy learning.

Safeguarding is effective. All staff have received appropriate safeguarding training and have undergone checks to ensure that they have retained and fully understood the content. Staff are aware of who to speak to and the procedures they should follow if they have a concern about a child.

You are not afraid to challenge outside agencies when they do not act swiftly or effectively enough to support your most vulnerable pupils. Checks to ensure that staff are suitable to work with pupils are up to date and regularly checked by governors. Procedures undertaken by the school when you employ new staff ensure that leaders recruit safely.

New staff induction is thorough. Pupils say that they feel safe in school. They say that bullying is not currently an issue and that it is dealt with well by teachers when it does occur.

They understand the need to be tolerant of other pupils who may need extra help. They know about the 'Tell, tell, tell' approach adopted by the school to deal with bullying. Pupils say that there are staff they would be happy to speak to if they are worried about anything.

A range of comprehensive risk assessments ensure that pupils remain safe, even when they visit places away from school. Inspection findings ? At the beginning of the inspection, we agreed on the lines of enquiry to consider during the day. We decided to look at the effectiveness of the teaching of phonics.

We also wanted to explore how well teaching supports pupils' writing and spelling, especially for middle prior attaining pupils. In addition, we decided to look at the actions leaders take to ensure that pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities achieve well. Also, we decided to focus on how effectively teaching challenges the most able pupils in the early years.

Finally, we considered the steps you have made to reduce persistent absence. ? Pupils' phonics skills have not been good enough over time. You and your governors are aware of this but recent staff changes have hindered your ability to tackle this effectively.

Despite this, you have taken the lead and implemented a new approach which is beginning to show improvements in pupils' phonics skills and ability to read fluently. Staff are effectively trained to deliver lessons that help pupils learn and blend sounds together to read unknown words. Pupils use these skills to read with improving fluency and to spell words accurately.

Teachers support those who struggle so they can catch up and this is beginning to have an impact. However, as this approach is relatively new, some pupils are still not able to read well enough. Also, on occasion, teachers and teaching assistants do not challenge pupils' mispronunciations of the sounds they are reading, leading to pupils struggling to blend sounds effectively.

• Pupils' writing outcomes have varied over time and have not been as strong as in other subjects, especially for middle prior-attaining pupils. In response to this, you have ensured that teachers use assessments to match pupils' learning well, particularly for significant numbers who arrive in school after Reception. Teachers set high expectations in lessons and pupils rise to meet them.

Teachers have good subject knowledge so they can explain difficult concepts to pupils well. Pupils' workbooks demonstrate that they use increasingly complex punctuation and vocabulary in their written work. Effective feedback ensures that pupils are clear about what they need to do to edit and improve their work.

Also, you were asked to improve pupils' spellings at the previous inspection. You have been particularly focused on improving pupils' spellings and this is having a strong impact on their writing. Pupils, including middle prior-attaining pupils, achieve well and make good progress.

Some middle prior-attaining pupils are being challenged to achieve even higher writing standards. ? The school's published assessment information shows that pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities make varying progress from their starting points. Often these pupils have joined the school in year groups after Reception.

You identify pupils' needs very effectively and get to know what support they need. Teachers plan well for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities. For example, in Year 2, the teacher provided structured support for pupils to write at length.

Additional support helps pupils who need to catch up. Teaching assistants support pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities to access the curriculum very well. You regularly meet with teachers to review and improve pupils' support.

Pupils' workbooks and the school's internal tracking show that these pupils make good progress across the school. ? In the early years, the most able children's outcomes have been below the national average, despite rising outcomes for pupils reaching the expected standard. This is particularly the case with mathematics.

The class teacher plans activities to challenge the most able children and this has been successful in reading and writing. The most able children are encouraged to write at length and achieve the standard they are capable of reaching. However, this is not always the case in mathematics where assessments are not used effectively to plan challenging activities.

As a result, the most able children in the Reception Year do not achieve as well as they could in mathematics. ? Attendance has been above the national average for the past three years, partly because pupils enjoy coming to school. However, you are rightly concerned with the number of pupils who are persistently absent.

Parents and carers understand the importance of regular attendance in school. They know what to do if their child is unwell and cannot come in. You have effective strategies to tackle poor attendance and are not afraid to address high absence with parents.

You are addressing the very small number of pupils with persistent absence with determination to ensure that their attendance improves. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: ? improvements in the teaching of phonics continue so that more pupils achieve the national expectations by the end of Year 1 ? teachers in the early years challenge the most able children to achieve well in mathematics. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children's services for Wiltshire.

This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Richard Lucas Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During this inspection, I met with you, your senior and middle leaders, governors, staff and pupils. We visited lessons jointly to observe learning alongside your senior teacher.

We looked at pupils' workbooks together. We considered documentary evidence relating to the impact of the school's work, including the school's self-evaluation document, safeguarding documents, attendance information and internal assessment information. I spoke with pupils about their work during lessons at breaktime and lunchtime.

I took into account 33 responses to the Ofsted online survey, Parent View. I received one letter from a parent, and I spoke with parents as they dropped off their children at the beginning of the school day. There were 39 pupil survey responses and I took into account 10 staff survey responses.