pdf School inspection report - Ofsted

estricted linguistic skills. The school has adapted the National Literacy Strategy to
suit its needs effectively. This is already starting to impact on pupils’ standards, giving
them a good grounding in basic grammatical skills so that they understand the
structure of the language. This is particularly evident at Key Stage1. In one Year 2
lesson in which pupils recalled a walk in the park, they wrote down a list of suitable
words on the white board such as baby lamb and daffodils and put these into simple
sentences on a worksheet. In a Year 3/4 class after changing nouns to adjectives,
such as volcanic and angelic, some pupils complete a ‘cloze’ procedure (filling in
blanks in sentences) effectively, although many found this difficult because of lack of
understanding of the text. By the time pupils reach Year 6 many write pieces of
extended writing, although spelling is frequently weak. In one example, pupils wrote
about the advantages and disadvantages of the Saturday booster classes attended by
pupils. Some considerable thought had gone into these pieces which were displayed.
One boy mentioned humorously that attending these classes did not give him time to
rest. There are some examples of information technology being used to draft written
work, but computers are not fully utilised in English on a day-to-day basis.
95. The teaching of English across the school is consistently good and occasionally very
good. It is the consistency of teaching across the school which makes it so effective.
Teachers have sharpened their skills with the National Literacy Strategy training. The
commonality of approach to teaching literacy, which takes up a significant part of the
school day, has benefited the quality of teaching and increased pupils’ learning as
there is a precision in the teachers’ expectations of pupils across the school. This has
improved standards and is a significant improvement from the last inspection. The
features which are evident across all the teaching are the good use of probing openended
questions. In a Year 1 lesson for example the teacher gently insisted on verbal
responses to her questions about The Three Billy Goats Gruff. In a Year 3 lesson the
teacher told those who had been successful in answering questions about a rap poem
to give themselves a pat on the back. In all lessons a brisk pace was evident and
pupils were learning well. Teachers are sensitive and aware of pupils’ limited linguistic
skills and take many opportunities to correct their English and grammar.
96. Teachers manage pupils well and use a variety techniques to keep lessons
interesting, for example, encouraging pupils to clap and click their fingers to a rap
poem in a Year 3 lesson. Teachers’ knowledge of English is very good and this
combined with the strong relationships formed between the teachers and pupils
means that pupils progress well in this subject. Of particular note is the way that those
pupils whose language skills are well developed help those with weaker skills.
Lessons are well planned and organised, have a clear purpose and are designed to
match pupils’ needs. The school ‘sets’ older classes for literacy, splitting them into
groups according to attainment in language. This is effective in enabling pupils to
progress more rapidly especially those pupils whose language is better developed or
who are gifted and talented in the subject. Teachers use the generous number of
effective support staff very well so that those pupils who have special educational
needs or who are at the early stages of learning English are very well supported
97. There are good procedures for assessing pupils’ achievements based on the National
Literacy Strategy. These, together with summative records such as annotated pupil
achievement books and optional National Curriculum tests, mean that teachers know
their pupils very well and carefully track their language development to ensure work is
closely matched to pupils’ abilities. The effective introduction of the National Literacy
Strategy, the very good leadership and management of this subject, together with
grouping of pupils into sets, have had a positive effect on pupils’ achievements,
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