The Breakspear School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Short inspection of The Breakspear School

Following my visit to the school on 15 January 2019 with Jeremy Loukes, 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 December 2014.

This school continues to be good. The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have worked hard to ensure that the amalgamated school now operates as one school.

You continue to adapt and change the middle leadership structures to enable this. You are revising the curriculum a...nd one of your priorities has been to create opportunities for enrichment outside of the school day. This includes offering a range of clubs and activities to enhance the children's experiences.

This has been successful and a high number of children participate in, and say they enjoy, these opportunities. Governors are committed to making the school the best it can be so that all pupils achieve the best possible outcomes. They are supportive and knowledgeable and know their school and its strengths well.

Governors also know what the school needs to do to get better. They work closely with you and senior leaders to achieve this. Parents are very supportive of the school.

They typically describe it as nurturing and friendly, with approachable staff. One parent said that it is 'a super local school'. Pupils echo this and say they enjoy their learning and know that they are encouraged to do their best.

The behaviour of pupils is exemplary. They are well mannered, polite, enthusiastic and articulate learners. Their attendance is above average.

Safeguarding is effective. The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. There is a strong culture of safeguarding.

Staff have received up-to-date training. The impact of this is shown in their heightened awareness of potential risks to pupils, such as extremism and female genital mutilation. Staff know how to use the reporting systems to share any concerns about pupils.

Pupils say that they feel safe at school and know what to do if they have a problem. They give examples of how their teachers accompany them down the stairs and how they participate in assemblies and lessons on how to be kind and respectful to each other. Checks on the suitability of staff to work at the school are in line with statutory guidelines.

Inspection findings ? The first line of enquiry was to consider the progress made by pupils in writing. This was an area for development identified in the previous report and continues to be a focus for the school. You identified that the most able pupils did not make the progress of which they were capable by the end of key stage 2 in 2018.

You and your staff have worked hard to identify pupils who are not making strong progress and are now checking their progress closely. You have introduced writing interventions where necessary to support learning and these are having an impact. ? Writing in English books is generally of a good standard, but there are some inconsistencies in expectations.

You and your senior and middle leaders are keen to address this and have identified key elements that you expect to see across all English books. This is having an impact on achievement and progress. You also promote equally high expectations of writing across the curriculum.

An ongoing priority is to ensure that all writing is of a similar quality across all subjects taught. ? The second line of enquiry was to review pupils' progress in mathematics and reading in key stage 2. This is because outcomes are strong in these subjects at this school and we wanted to identify what the school is doing to secure this success.

• Children make a good start in the early years foundation stage. The use of questioning is a real strength and extends children's understanding of mathematics, mathematical vocabulary and reasoning skills. Further up the school, in key stage 2, pupils develop their reasoning skills through practical and investigative mathematics.

The quality of their work, taught through a broad range of mathematic topics, shows that they are maintaining high standards. ? In reading, parents praise the home reading expectations and pupils read regularly at home. Group reading is effective across the lower school.

As a result, reading outcomes are high. The school is now keen to embed whole-class reading in Years 5 and 6 to ensure that pupils understand challenging and complex plots and vocabulary more thoroughly and at a deeper level. ? This emphasis on progress means that pupils are on track for secure age-related outcomes by the end of the academic year.

The leaders are continuing to monitor this for all groups. ? The third line of enquiry was to explore how the curriculum enriches and deepens the learning of all groups of pupils. The curriculum is designed to be motivating and well matched to pupils' needs and interests.

Adults in the early years are highly effective in promoting children's thinking and creativity. They capitalise on children's interests, making the most of learning opportunities that arise. For example, conversations around the size of animal bones and comparisons with their own bone lengths enthused learners.

• Pupils in key stages 1 and 2 talk positively about lessons and learning that they enjoy. For example, in science lessons they have learned about teeth and looked in mouths, and in mathematics lessons they have learned the prime numbers. They find debates interesting and engaging during history and religious education lessons.

Experiments in science promote a depth of understanding and engagement. Scrutiny of their work indicates that they have many opportunities for practical learning. These include, for example, measuring shadows in the playground and designing and making pizza with ingredients with the lowest possible number of 'food miles'.

• Leaders keep the curriculum under review. You have audited the topic elements of the curriculum to ensure its relevance and interest. Leaders now need to monitor this closely and evaluate the impact of these changes.

You have also changed the way lessons are timetabled to ensure flexibility and the opportunity for extended learning. A wide variety of extra-curricular activities enriches the curricular provision, including orchestra, science club, netball, dance, cross country and basketball. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: ? staff share consistently high expectations of pupils' writing across all subjects as well as in English ? they continue to develop and embed the role of the subject leaders.

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children's services for Hillingdon. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Paula Craigie Ofsted Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection we held meetings with you and other senior and middle leaders and with the chair and three members of the governing body.

We also spoke to a representative from the local authority. We spoke briefly with parents when they arrived with their children in the morning and took account of the responses to the online Ofsted questionnaire completed by 229 parents. We spoke informally with staff and children and analysed the 48 staff survey responses to the online Ofsted questionnaire.

Together, we observed teaching and learning from Nursery to Year 6. We looked at samples of children's English, mathematics, science and topic books. We also reviewed a wide range of documents, including the school's self-evaluation and development plan, the single central record and other documentation relating to safeguarding.