Huge school failure - poor teaching

[11oclockrock]

Can any teachers or school staff help me understand what has gone wrong here? DD's school just had an interim OFSTED and it was really scathing about the teaching.

For background, the school has had a turbulent time since it opened in 2016.
Jan 2020 - Headteacher #1 (who was also head of the MAT) left abruptly with no warning
July 2020 - New headteacher #2 in place (also takes role of Head of MAT)
Jan 2022 - New headteacher finds that joint Headteacher and MAT role isn't working and moves sideways into MAT role. Headteacher role advertised.
April 2022 - New headteacher #3 in role (no additional MAT responsibility)
March 2023 - Ofsted interim inspection (non graded) - headteacher #2 has been lobbying hard to have this inspection.

Excerpt from this inspection -

Many pupils have gaps in their knowledge. This is because leaders have not set out the most important knowledge pupils need to learn.
Due to weaknesses in the previous curriculum, pupils struggle to recall their prior learning. Currently, the precise knowledge that pupils need to learn from early years to Year 6 is not clear enough. Some teachers do not know exactly what to teach and when. Therefore, pupils develop gaps in their knowledge. In some subjects, teachers’ checks on pupils’ learning are not matched to what has been taught. Consequently, leaders do not have an accurate picture of what pupils know and remember.
Pupils do not move on to new learning as soon as they could. As a result, too many pupils cannot read at an age-appropriate level.

Can anyone advise me where the school and leadership go from here? What might we as parents expect to see? Concerned for DD.

It seems like they haven’t mapped their curriculum adequately (knowledge and skills). There should be a curriculum map for every subject to ensure that pupils receive a coherent and progressive coverage in all curriculum areas. These documents should be accessible to parents on the school’s website.

Bump

This is more a problem with the mapping of the curriculum, poor assessment techniques and the SLT rather than the actual teaching by classroom teachers. It seems like teachers don't have a clear understanding of what has been previously taught so are then not able to build on it. Some of the curriculum is vague as to when to teach a certain skill or knowledge. For example, the history curriculum states what to cover in KS2 but doesn't stipulate which year group should focus on which skill. This is the job of the SLT. The school needs to properly map out the whole curriculum so each year group knows what skills/knowledge they are responsible for teaching. It also needs to assess to work out what gaps there are and plan on how to fill them.

Absolutely this! It sounds like there are deep-rooted problems in the SLT and they aren't planning the learning properly.

I would add that unless someone is coming in with the skills to turn it around, I would consider moving your DD.

As others have said, the new curriculum has not been planned and implemented correctly so the children aren't building on existing skills and knowledge. It also sounds like tge principles of assessments aren't correctly aligned to the curriculum for each year group.
The school needs a school improvement adviser to help them sort it out. The MAT should be providing that support.

If you read through recent OFSTED reports, this is one of the, if not the most common reason for primary schools becoming graded as requires improvement.