The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You have worked as Turnfurlong Infant’s co-headteachers since September 2015 and your shared ambition for the school is recognised and valued by staff. You have earned the confidence and respect of all staff, governors and the large majority of parents and carers. In view of your decision, Mrs Tyson, to retire and your decision, Mrs Glen, to return to the post of deputy headteacher, governors have appointed a new headteacher who takes up her post in September 2018. At the time of the last inspection, Turnfurlong Infant School had recently become a founder member of the Aylesbury Learning Partnership (ALPs), a cooperative trust. You are committed to working with other providers in the partnership to ensure the best opportunities and outcomes for all pupils. To date, your staff are benefiting from professional development opportunities and all providers are learning from each other’s best practice. Your school’s current focus on ensuring that assessment is accurate is the right one, and your assistant headteacher’s role as one of the local authority’s moderators ensures that you have considerable expertise. She is passionate about supporting staff to be accurate in their judgements of pupils’ attainment and progress. Closer partnership work, particularly with the local junior school, will also help. Since the last inspection, you have maintained the school’s high standard of attainment at the end of key stage 1 in reading, writing and mathematics for the majority of pupils, including those who are disadvantaged. However, you know there is further work to be done to ensure that more pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities make the progress expected of them across the school. You accurately identified that over the previous three years, not enough children had achieved a good level of development by the end of the early years. Working with staff and governors, you have taken positive action to ensure that the children currently in the school make much better progress. Your new Nursery, which opened in September 2017, is instrumental in giving children the very best start to their education. Parents are complimentary about how well their children are helped to settle into the Nursery and Reception classes and the progress they make. There are clear routines in place and children’s behaviour is good. Children get along well with each other and enjoy learning in vibrant and exciting spaces, both indoors and out. For example, while learning about minibeasts, some children enjoyed reading and writing about ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, while others searched outside for the real thing. The vast majority of parents who completed Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, said they would recommend the school to others. Many commented enthusiastically about the nurturing ethos the school provides and the good teaching their children receive. One parent wrote, ‘My child has flourished while at school and has grown in confidence every year.’ However, a number of parents’ free-text responses indicate that communication between school and home could be improved. Governors know their school well. They use this knowledge to challenge leaders effectively. The information about governors on the school’s website is limited. Governors acknowledge that this needs to be enhanced to improve parents’ understanding of governors’ roles. In addition, governors would benefit from talking to more pupils and parents to get first-hand information about what is working well and what could be even better. Governors seek to develop stronger links across the Aylesbury Learning Partnership as they can see this will be beneficial for their school and the other partners. You have developed a curriculum based on the school’s ‘Annual Initiative’, which has a different focus each year. This year, it is ‘Celebrations’. This approach offers broad and interesting learning opportunities. The pupils I spoke to were looking forward to their visit to Warwick Castle, and a display evidenced the enthusiasm of parents following a visit to learn how their children are taught mathematics. A selection of inspirational artwork adorns the walls, including a three-dimensional sculpture made by pupils with a local artist, using waste materials. Pupils are enthusiastic and confident readers because teachers celebrate literature and choose texts that present challenge and ensure pupils’ interest. They make good use of the range of books in school, and the pupils who read to me did so very well. Pupils were keen to show me their favourite books and talk about them. 2 However, some Year 1 pupils are not able to use their knowledge of phonics to help them decipher unfamiliar words. Over the past three years, too few pupils have achieved the expected level in the Year 1 phonics screening check. At the time of the previous inspection, school leaders were asked to improve aspects of teaching and provide pupils with more challenge, particularly the most able. In the lessons I visited and from my scrutiny of pupils’ work, it is evident that, in the majority of lessons, teachers have high expectations of all pupils and set appropriate learning challenges. Teachers’ helpful comments and feedback support pupils to know what they need to do next, helping them to become more independent learners. Safeguarding is effective. Pupils feel safe in school and know that if they have a problem, an adult will help them. Pupils are very clear about how to stay safe online. The mantra, ‘Zip it! Block it! Flag it!’ was one that pupils were keen to share. Leaders have ensured that thorough procedures are in place for appointing new staff. The school’s single central record of vetting and checks on all adults who have contact with pupils meets requirements and is maintained effectively by the school administrator. Staff demonstrate a clear understanding of safeguarding legislation and guidance and know what to do if they have concerns about a pupil. Regular staff meetings ensure that all staff are kept up to date with current and pertinent information. Governors have made appropriate improvements to the school’s site and its security in recent years to ensure safety. Leaders are currently considering further improvements to the signing-in-and-out procedures. The safeguarding governor regularly checks that the safeguarding policy is followed, and that all governors are updated with the latest training and information. The school works effectively with external agencies to support vulnerable pupils and their families. Leaders are tenacious in ensuring that pupils are kept safe. When necessary, leaders challenge external agencies to ensure that pupils receive the support needed. Inspection findings During this inspection, I looked at: the effectiveness of safeguarding; the progress made by pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities; the teaching of reading across the school, including its impact on pupils’ outcomes in phonics. Children are coming into the new Nursery from the age of two. The high-quality leadership, provision and teaching they receive will ensure that children join the Reception Year with skills and abilities that equip them to be school-ready. Over the past three years, an increasing number of children have achieved a good level of development (GLD). However, the proportion of children achieving a GLD 3 in 2017 remained just below the national average. You predict that the proportion in 2018 will be at least in line with the national figure. In 2017, the proportions of pupils attaining at least the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of key stage 1 were well above the national averages. Work in the books of current Year 2 pupils shows that a large majority of pupils are working at least at the expected standard and indicates that the end key stage 1 attainment in 2018 will remain high. You have introduced much tighter systems for tracking pupils’ progress. This is systematically recorded on pupils’ ‘learning ladders’. This tracking shows that progress for most groups of pupils, including disadvantaged pupils, is good. You know that pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities do not make the rate of progress expected. Leaders have accurately identified the gaps in pupils’ learning but need to look at the overall provision for this group to check that teaching is meeting pupils’ specific needs. Your commitment to developing reading for all pupils is a real strength. Children in Nursery get off to an excellent start because a wide range of experiences are provided to develop their spoken and written language. During my visit, ‘Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose’ was a firm favourite and was helping children identify new rhyming words. Staff take every opportunity to use rich vocabulary across the curriculum and provide high-quality texts for pupils to enjoy. Pupils enjoy reading and most read keenly and with expression. You are aware that a number of younger pupils are unable to use their knowledge of phonics, when reading, to help them decipher unknown words, and this can be frustrating for them. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: phonics is taught well across the school so that more pupils achieve the expected standard in the phonics screening check at the end of Year 1 pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities are on track to make stronger progress across key stage 1 more opportunities are taken to work in partnership with schools in the cooperative trust. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Buckinghamshire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Sarah Varnom Ofsted Inspector 4 Information about the inspection I met with one of you (Mrs Glen), the assistant headteachers, the English working group, four governors, the special educational needs coordinator and the assessment coordinator to review your evaluation of the school’s effectiveness. I also had meetings with staff from the breakfast club and the school administrator. I visited the new Nursery and spoke to staff. Together with an assistant headteacher, I walked around the school to observe learning in a number of classrooms. I spoke to parents and pupils and heard three pupils read. I scrutinised learning in a number of pupils’ books alongside your assessment information. I reviewed a range of documents, including: the school’s self-evaluation and improvement plan; leaders’ progress reports to governors; records of pupils’ behaviour and attendance; information about the school’s annual curriculum initiatives; and recent documents developed by the Aylesbury Learning Partnership. I looked at 105 responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, and 28 staff survey returns. I also considered the responses of 55 pupils to Ofsted’s pupil survey. I checked the effectiveness of your safeguarding arrangements, including those related to recruitment.