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Twenty outstanding primary schools Excelling against the odds This report was produced by Ofsted with Dr Peter Matthews, consultant and former Her Majesty’s Inspector. © Crown copyright 2009 Contents Foreword 2 Pictures of success: the outstanding schools 59 Ash Green Primary School, Calderdale 60 Summary 3Banks Road Primary School, Liverpool 61 Berrymede Junior School, Ealing 62 Characteristics of outstanding primary Bonner Primary School, Tower Hamlets 63 schools in challenging circumstances 5 Cotmanhay Infant School, Derbyshire 64 Introduction 6 Cubitt Town Junior School, Tower Hamlets 65 Selecting the schools 6 Gateway Primary School, Westminster 66 Primary schools in challenging circumstances 8 John Burns Primary School, Wandsworth 67 Unearthing the secrets of success 9 Michael Faraday School, Southwark 68 Ramsden Infant School, Cumbria 69 St John the Divine Church of England Primary School, 11 Achieving excellence Lambeth 70 Raising attainment and achievement 12 St Monica’s Catholic Primary School, Sefton 71 Making teaching and learning consistently effective 13 St Paul’s Peel Church of England Primary School, Providing a broad, balanced, relevant and stimulating Salford 72 curriculum 15 St Sebastian’s Catholic Primary School and Nursery, Assessing and tracking progress 18 Liverpool 73 Attracting and appointing effective staff 20 Shiremoor Primary School, North Tyneside 74 Transformational leadership 20 Simonswood Primary School, Knowsley 75 From good to great 25 The Orion Primary School, Barnet 76 Welbeck Primary School, City of Nottingham 77 Sustaining excellence 27 William Ford Church of England Junior School, The challenge of remaining outstanding 28 Barking and Dagenham 78 Focusing on children, parents and the community 32 World’s End Infant and Nursery School, Birmingham 79 Investing in staff 37 Sustaining excellent provision 40 Further reading 81 Monitoring, evaluating and planning for the future 44 Where next? 48 Sharing excellence 49 System leadership 50 Sustaining improvement in very challenging circumstances and sharing best practice 50 Leading collaborative innovations 52 Leading and brokering extended services 53 Leading improvement across a formal partnership of schools 53 Leadership as an external agent of improvement in other schools 55 From school to system leadership: the scaling up issue 57 1 www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications Foreword In February 2009, I introduced the first of three Primary schools, many of which have nurseries, reviews of highly successful schools in very have the dual advantage of receiving children at an challenging circumstances. The synthesis of the age when their drive to learn, expressed through evidence from the 12 secondary schools featured curiosity, engagement and creativity, is commonly in the first review laid down the challenge for less more acute than when they get older, and of having successful schools to emulate them and showed how daily contact with parents or carers. The stories of it could be done. many of these schools are inspiring, but what comes Twenty outstanding primary schools: excelling against across most strongly is the passion of all who work the odds examines a sample of primary schools, in them for improving the chances and well-being of including infant and junior schools, which provide individual children. Staff spare no effort to give them great service to highly disadvantaged communities a foundation of stability, skills and opportunities with in different parts of the country. As in the previous which to make something of their lives; the chance to report, patterns emerge which indicate how these escape the corrosive cycle of deprivation into which consistently outstanding schools achieved success, many were born. how they sustain it, and the extent to which they The schools described here show what can be done share their expertise with other schools or with the when dedicated professional teams place children system at large. at the centre of their vocation. They ensure that Many of the characteristics of successful practice every child matters. They succeed better than most are common to schools in all phases. These include in reducing the achievement gap between children appointing staff of the highest quality, investing from different backgrounds. The challenge for other in and developing them. Children are treated as schools is to do the same. individuals; they are supported well and expected to achieve well. Staff are passionate about finding ways of doing things better. This requires an unremitting focus on learning, development and progress. High-quality leadership is essential to promote, support and sustain the drive to perfect teaching and maximise learning in schools which face Christine Gilbert tough challenges. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector 2 Twenty outstanding primary schools – Excelling against the odds Summary This report is written, in a sense, for the schools’ approach to the curriculum and the importance of assessment and using data analytically to track pupils’ schools by schools. It reports and progress. The section highlights the importance of appointing interprets what highly effective primary and developing staff that have the qualities and skills to schools give as reasons for their produce consistently outstanding teaching and learning. It concludes by analysing some of the factors associated with ongoing success. It aims to help all the transformational leadership that is a feature these schools primary schools to become excellent. It have in common. It is not only the vision, values and very high expectations which shine through in these school leaders but does this by showing something of the also the extent to which they demonstrate and apply them by principles and practice of schools which personal example. They ‘walk the talk’. are not only consistently outstanding Sustaining excellence is about more than icing the cake of good but which also serve some of the most practice. It emphasises the centrality of the child in everything these schools do and their approaches to inclusion. Some disadvantaged communities in important strategies which involve gaining the trust of parents the country. and the support of the community are not achieved overnight. They require skilled, perceptive and persistent work in order to An analysis of consistently outstanding schools raises three open the gates to children’s learning and ensure their well- questions. being. The section is about not resting on laurels. It describes the constant development of staff, the honing of teaching n How did they become outstanding? and the enrichment of the curriculum which together sustain n How do they remain outstanding? the excitement and challenge of learning, and stresses the importance of relentless monitoring and evaluation. n Where do they go from here? Sharing excellence is a characteristic of most of the schools For schools that are not yet outstanding, there is a fourth although they do it in different ways and to different degrees. question which supplements the three above. This section illustrates some of these practices and shows n How can we do it too? how the schools benefit from outreach interactions and partnerships with other educators and their schools. The This publication is arranged to explore and provide some willingness to share outstanding practice with other schools answers to the first three questions, using specific examples and help them raise their performance must be one of the drawn from the 20 schools to illustrate wider generalisations. indicators of a great school. The main sections explore the three themes of achieving excellence, sustaining excellence and sharing excellence. Brief portraits of the 20 outstanding schools can be found at the end of the report. These are intended to represent the Achieving excellence is concerned with some of the most character of the schools, a little of their history and some important factors associated with school improvement. It striking features, as well as giving their key statistics, including draws particularly from those schools in the group that have 2008 test and assessment results. They do not supplant the emerged from an Ofsted category of concern. The section most recent inspection reports on the schools, which are focuses on the goal of raising attainment and achievement. readily available on Ofsted’s website.1 It shows the lengths to which the schools go to make teaching and learning consistently effective. It describes 1 www.ofsted.gov.uk 3 www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications Summary continued How to use this report This report is intended as a discussion document for n that the school has not asked pupils how it could do a leaders in all primary schools in England. better job for them? Almost two thirds of primary schools are now at least n that the school has limited ambitions and needs an good.2 For these many good schools, some already injection of leadership? with outstanding features, the aim must be to enable The challenge for school leaders is to be not only every pupil to succeed. Schools which do this are great curious about the schools featured here, but also to schools. The obstacles on the journey to becoming give their own practice and approaches more reflective outstanding are not insuperable for good schools. consideration, or critical analysis, perhaps starting with Those who work in such schools now will identify with the questions above. The text might be considered in many of the approaches featured here. sections, through a structured approach, possibly as This document, however, is also meant to challenge themes for leadership team meetings. New members those who work in less effective schools to improve of staff could be asked to audit the school in terms of them urgently. The fact that 37% of primary schools this report. It could be reproduced for governors and inspected in 2007/08 were judged to be no better key staff and the elements used to inform or support than satisfactory, although a marked reduction on the the school’s improvement programme. Schools are previous year, shows there is still much to be done.

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