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Year 5 children have all had at great time and are due back at school for 5.30  

10th May 2012

Dear Parents/Carers,

Today you will have received our Ofsted Report either by Parentmail or a paper copy. The children have also received a letter addressed to them from the team. There are a few things I would like to say in response to the report. Firstly you will see that our overall grade is still Satisfactory. This is very disappointing but there are some very positive aspects of the report that I would like to bring to your attention.

•  The judgement on Behaviour and Safety is good.
•  The judgement on Leadership and Management is good.
•  Achievement of pupils was judged as Satisfactory which    means that it is the same as the National Average but Ofsted    think we could do  better! What they actually said was that   they  wanted the teachers to work less and the pupils to work   more!

We are asked to increase the PACE of lessons so that it is less teacher led and the children increase their PRODUCTIVITY which will lead to faster rates of progress within lessons and over time.

Quality of teaching was judged to be Satisfactory. The Inspection Team reported verbally that ‘teaching was largely good with lots of outstanding features’. Again they suggested we look at the PACE of the progress of all learners within lessons which will be helped by ensuring the maximum PRODUCTIVITY possible.

The Ofsted Team were fair and could see how much progress the school had made in the last 3 years. The 3 M’s they left us with last time,

•  Maths

•  Marking

•  Monitoring

have all been dealt with very effectively, for example, “Marking and feedback are strengths of the teaching”.( Quality of teaching, page 6)

The team could see how much progress had been made in ensuring progress towards consistently good teaching and how difficult it is to raise standards above the National Average.

They loved the atmosphere and ethos of our school and thought the children were brilliant.

Quotes from Ofsted:

1. “Good leadership has ensured that standards and provision

    have improved since the last inspection through a period of

    significant staffing and other changes”.

2. “The senior leadership team provides a positive role model for

     effective teaching”.

3. “The headteacher provides a clear vision and is well supported

    by the senior leadership team and good governing body”.

4. “Pupils behave well and feel safe because they are well cared

     for”.

The judgements on Behaviour and Safety are, in my opinion, the most important.  This is best summed up in this quote from the report by one of our children:

“A bully is someone who feels small inside. At this school, the teachers look at you and tell you that you are really good at things. So you feel big inside and don’t want to be a bully”.

We are going to replace our 3 M’s with 3 P’s! Pace + Productivity = Progress.

I would like to reassure Parents/Carers that all the staff at Dowson will continue to do their very best to provide our children with the care and education they deserve. I would like to thank our staff, governors and families but most of all our children for making Dowson a very special place to be.