On Tuesday, a Local Authority advisor (who happens to also be an Ofsted inspector) visited Moortown. We invited him in because we’re always keen to get a second opinion on our practice and to be offered any suggestions to keep getting more and more effective. The visit involved visiting four classes in school (Y1, Y2, Y3 and Y5) and looking at Writing and Maths books in Y2, Y4 and Y6. The advisor’s report is really positive. Here are some comments from it.
The lesson observations evidence that without exception, teachers have high expectations of the children in their care. They each demonstrated good subject knowledge and an age appropriate awareness. Subsequently, children across the four observed year groups behave well and were attentive and responsive to the teacher.
Teacher pupil relationships in this classroom are secure. Children responded to the ‘3,2,1 stop’ command with immediacy and it is clear that the children are happy and comfortable in the teacher’s care.
…the… teacher’s enthusiasm was infectious… The [reading] lesson, led from the hall… was managed well… All pupils engaged with the activity well and competent questioning from the teacher enabled pupils to demonstrate their understanding. At a later visit to the classroom where children were completing a summary paragraph about a web page, the same teacher zest was evident. The children were entirely focused on the learning and when challenged could explain the purpose of the exercise and the learning. The use of an ‘erm’ game engendered a great deal of controlled exuberance from the children who are clearly enjoying this style of teaching.
Outcomes had been clearly modelled and when asked, the children were able to explain their learning. The use of mood photographs had been neatly aligned with the school’s current Living and Learning statement and was effective in providing the children with a purpose to write.
Looking at books from alternate years clearly evidenced the impact of teaching on progress with work becoming more sophisticated as they advance through the school. Without exception and in both English and maths books, the work is aligned to the age related requirements of the national curriculum.
In each year group, high demands in productivity and neatness are evident in English books. Opportunities to write at length are particularly impressive in Y4 and Y6. In Y4 for example, pupils are given the freedom to change characters or settings based on their reading, researching and planning from high quality texts. These opportunities allow the most able to demonstrate their flair for language whilst even the lowest ability perform well in advance of what would have been expected… Such challenge is ensuring this group in particular are making excellent progress. The same can be echoed in Y6 where exercises are planned to add value to learning. The complexity of sentence structure and use of evocative vocabulary for the middle and higher ability Y6 pupils is extremely impressive. Meanwhile, through the demand and expectation to keep up with their peers, the progress of the lower ability pupil was equally impressive.
Without being overly demanding of teacher’s time, marking and feedback is of the highest quality. The use of symbols to indicate where pupils should edit or improve their work is met with purple pen action that clearly has an impact on learning over time.
In Maths, the pace of teaching is effective in embedding learning. Positively, the demand for even the least able to access the same body of learning as their more able peers is having a definite impact on their progress over time.
…there is evidence to show that even the most able are challenged to their limits. And without exception, the requirement for pupils to correct errors or respond via same day intervention is another positive driver for accelerating the progress of the many rather than the few.
The report also contains three useful, but quite specific, recommendations which we’ll work on.