Holy Family Catholic Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

In accordance with section 44(1) of the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Urgently strengthen leadership capacity by:
  • ensuring that all leaders and governors have the necessary support, skills and attitudes to enable them to carry out their specific roles
  • ensuring that leaders and governors develop clear plans for improvement that identify barriers to pupils’ learning, the intended impact of any actions and how they will monitor and evaluate the impact of their actions
  • developing the role of governors and leaders across the school so that they are fully able to support the headteacher in bringing about significant and rapid improvement
  • ensuring that the pupil premium funding is used effectively to help disadvantaged pupils to achieve well
  • ensuring that all leaders and governors are held to account in their respective roles.
• Rapidly improve the quality of teaching and learning by ensuring that teachers make effective use of what they know about pupils’ abilities and interests so that teachers can:
  • plan tasks that help pupils to make rapid progress across a range of subjects and especially in mathematics
  • plan activities that engage and motivate pupils in different subjects.
• Significantly improve outcomes for all pupils, across the curriculum, by ensuring that:
  • all staff demonstrate high levels of aspiration for their own performance and that of the pupils
  • teachers challenge pupils so that their rates of progress increase and they have the necessary skills to achieve well in different subjects
  • the activities planned to support disadvantaged pupils or other pupils who need support are based on reducing their specific barriers to learning
  • the teaching of phonics is better matched to pupils’ needs so that a greater proportion reach the expected standard in the Year 1 phonics check.
• Improve pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare by ensuring that:
  • all pupils, but particularly disadvantaged pupils and other identified groups, attend school regularly
  • teachers and leaders follow the school’s policy for managing behaviour and insist that pupils behave well in lessons and engage in their learning.
• Build on recent improvements in the early years so that:
  • a greater proportion of children have the skills and knowledge to make a successful start when they enter Year 1
  • the quality of the outdoor provision improves so that it meets children’s learning needs more effectively. A review of the spending of the pupil premium should be undertaken to ensure that disadvantaged pupils are given the support that they need to achieve as well as they can.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

• Leaders, including governors, have not taken effective action to address weaknesses identified in the previous inspection report. They have not increased the rate of improvement despite the recommendations of the monitoring inspection that took place in May 2017.
• Leaders, including governors, do not ensure that pupils make the rapid progress they need to, particularly in mathematics.
• Some leaders do not have the skills needed to bring about the necessary improvements to the quality of teaching and learning. Some leaders have not developed the skills to lead others effectively as they are too focused on developing teaching and learning in their own classes. Some leaders do not demonstrate the determination required to tackle the school’s major shortcomings.
• Leadership is in a fragile state. Leaders who demonstrate the capacity to bring about the necessary rapid and significant improvement are spread too thinly. They are overwhelmed by the enormity of the task ahead.
• Leaders and governors have not developed a culture of aspiration throughout the school. Too many teaching staff do not demonstrate a strong desire to improve.
• Plans drawn up to raise pupils’ achievement after the previous inspection lack focus. They do not have specific, measurable targets. The impact of leaders’ actions is not evident. Plans also lack analysis of how different groups of pupils are progressing, or what is preventing them from doing better. This lack of analysis has meant that leaders’ work is not focused on the areas of greatest need in the school. Leaders and governors say that they are disappointed that pupils’ outcomes are not better. They do not understand the reasons why this is the case because they are not critically evaluating the impact of their own work.
• The local authority has monitored the impact of the work that leaders are doing to improve standards. Despite this, support from the local authority has not been effective as the capacity of leaders is overestimated by local authority officers.
• The headteacher has focused on managing underperformance in teaching and learning. She has tried to instil in staff the passion she demonstrates herself. This has not been successful for all members of staff.
• The quality of teaching and learning are monitored regularly. The headteacher gives teachers unambiguous feedback about strengths and weaknesses. However, this feedback has not ensured that standards of teaching and learning are at an acceptable level.
• Leaders are aware of the challenges that they face in engaging with parents and carers. They invite parents into the school in an attempt to develop these relationships. This is not effective as levels of attendance have declined significantly, especially for disadvantaged pupils and for White British boys. A high proportion of the parents invited to attend meetings about the poor attendance of their children do not attend. Leaders are not addressing this issue quickly enough. They have only recently increased capacity to monitor emerging patterns of pupils’ poor attendance.
• The special educational needs leader ensures that pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities are supported and that their achievement is tracked. Poor teaching sometimes limits the effectiveness of this support.
• Ineffective use is made of the pupil premium funding. Leaders do not identify the barriers to learning faced by disadvantaged pupils. Disadvantaged pupils in every key stage across the school underachieved in 2017. The attendance rates of disadvantaged pupils are well below those of other pupils nationally. Rates of persistent absence for this group are very high.
• Leaders have ensured that the curriculum pupils experience has breadth and balance. Teachers plan activities that enable pupils to develop a wide range of skills and attitudes. This work is supported well by activities for pupils at lunchtime and after school.
• Leaders make use of visits to develop pupils’ understanding of the modern world around them. An example of this is a visit that took place during the inspection. Pupils in key stage 2 visited a local digital application store to develop an understanding of coding.
• Leaders ensure that pupils are offered opportunities to make a positive contribution to their community. Pupils enjoy taking on roles of responsibility such as being language ambassadors, eco-councillors, sports leaders and school council members. School councillors are elected by other pupils. This helps pupils to understand democratic processes.
• Leaders may not appoint newly qualified teachers to the school.

Governance of the school

• Governance is beginning to develop. However, a lack of monitoring of what has been completed indicates that the same fragility of capacity is evident in governance as it is in other areas of leadership across the school.
• The governing body has undergone significant changes since the previous inspection. A number of members have stood down following a review of governance and new ones have been appointed. A new, but experienced, chair of the governing body has been appointed. This is giving other governors the confidence to move forward.
• Records of meetings demonstrate that governors are regularly provided with detailed information by the headteacher. They are beginning to receive reports from other leaders. However, some information from some leaders has been inaccurate.
• Governors have an inconsistent understanding of school performance compared to other schools. They are clear about what the priorities are for the school in relation to pupils’ outcomes. They are not clear about other priorities, such as attendance.
• Governors do not complete the tasks required by their role. Records show that they have not fully acted on the recommendations from the review of governance carried out after the previous inspection.
• Similarly, governors have not ensured that the school’s website meets requirements. Despite action taken during the inspection, there are still items missing which inspectors identified during the monitoring inspection in May 2017. These include evaluations of the impact of the pupil premium and the sports premium spending.
• Governors do not ensure that pupil premium funding is used effectively to support disadvantaged pupils’ academic outcomes or to improve their poor rates of attendance.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Procedures for ensuring that pupils are safe are clear and understood by all.
• Leaders have taken effective action in the past to improve the security of the site. Pupils say that they feel safe. Parents and careers agree that pupils are safe at school.
• Staff keep appropriate records about pupils and families who need additional support. These records demonstrate that leaders monitor pupils and families carefully, referring them to the appropriate agencies when needed.
• The pastoral care leader liaises with senior leaders who are the designated safeguarding leads. They ensure that staff quickly pick up emerging concerns about pupils’ welfare and act on them swiftly.
• The leaders for safeguarding are appropriately trained and understand their roles. Other staff and governors have had appropriate training apart from ‘Prevent’ training about how to protect pupils from the risk of experiencing extremism. There is little understanding of the signs and dangers of extremism although staff are aware of lockdown procedures.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

• The quality of teaching over time has been very inconsistent. This continues to be the case. Some groups of pupils have had a number of teachers who were not able to provide tasks that enabled them to make adequate progress.
• Some teachers do not promote pupils’ enthusiasm for learning. They fail to inspire and motivate their pupils.
• Too often, teachers do not use agreed behaviour management strategies effectively. As a result, they do not support pupils in developing positive attitudes to learning.
• The teaching of phonics is uninspiring and is not consistently well matched to pupils’ needs. Teachers are in the early stages of understanding the need to tailor the phonics programmes to the specific needs of pupils.
• Teachers do not have a clear understanding of what the pupils in their class know and can do. Consequently, they do not plan the most suitable tasks that will help pupils to make the rapid progress that is needed to help them catch up. In addition, they are not able to help pupils understand what they need to do next to improve.
• Mathematics teaching is particularly weak. Due to inconsistent teaching, pupils have many misconceptions and gaps in their knowledge. Teachers do not make effective use of assessment to identify what these gaps or misconceptions are. Tasks are often not well matched to pupils’ capabilities and are either too hard or too easy for them. Pupils quickly become disengaged and their progress is slowed further. Pupils’ mathematics workbooks show that there are insufficient opportunities for them to develop reasoning skills.
• Teachers have completed training to improve their skills in teaching mathematics. Pupils enjoy increased opportunities to take part in activities which involve physical movement and working with their peers. However, when staff make ineffective use of behaviour management strategies in these types of activities, learning is limited.
• The majority of teachers do not take into account the types of tasks or resources that will appeal to, or inspire and motivate, their pupils. When this happens, pupils quickly become disengaged. When tasks are better matched to pupils’ needs, as was the case in a Spanish session during the inspection, pupils engage well and respond with enthusiasm.
• Teachers plan tasks that enable pupils to develop a range of skills across the curriculum. Links are made between reading and writing and subjects such as history and geography. However, tasks provided for pupils in the foundation subjects and in science do not challenge them sufficiently. This limits the progress that pupils make across a broad range of subjects.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.
• Pupils are reluctant to take an active part in their learning. This has led to the development of a culture of apathy that pervades the school, which leaders have not been able to eradicate.
• Significant numbers of pupils look bored and unhappy in lessons. They are quick to respond enthusiastically when given challenges, especially if encouraged to work on practical tasks or to discuss their work with their peers. Learning activities too rarely inspire and motivate pupils.
• Staff ensure that they effectively meet the physical needs of pupils. They also demonstrate care when pupils need additional emotional support. They ensure that pupils stay safe as they move around the classroom, school building and playground. Pupils respond well to this and demonstrate that they have a good understanding of how to keep themselves and each other safe. They learn about how to be safe online.
• Pupils know about bullying although they are not confident about talking about its different forms. They say that bullying does sometimes happen in the school but are confident that staff will deal with it. Their parents agree with this. A small minority of pupils say they might still be hurt by a bully even after they had reported the bullying.
• The popular free breakfast club offers the opportunity for pupils to chat, have breakfast and develop a routine of attending school regularly and on time. However, this initiative is not effective in reducing absence rates.
• While attending the breakfast club, pupils demonstrate a caring and protective attitude towards each other. Pupils talking to inspectors about incidents of bullying in the past were hugged and reassured by other pupils.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.
• The management of behaviour is ineffective as not all staff members follow the school’s policy.
• Parents and staff share concerns that staff do not deal with behaviour consistently. Pupils say that poor behaviour hinders their learning and that pupils behave differently for different members of staff.
• Significant numbers of pupils across the school are disruptive in lessons. They speak when the teacher is talking and ignore instructions. Inspectors observed that, on occasions, pupils’ behaviour is much better. Pupils respond well when teachers provide positive feedback and make clear the high expectations that they have of the pupils in their care.
• The poorest behaviour is evident when pupils are in lessons. Pupils are sensible and polite as they move around the school, holding doors open for visitors. Behaviour is generally good at breaktimes and in the dining room.
• Pupils’ attendance is declining and is below the national average, especially for disadvantaged pupils and for White British boys. A very high percentage of pupils in these groups are persistently absent.

Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

• Pupils across the school have been significantly underachieving for too long in the basic skills of reading, writing and mathematics. This limits their ability to benefit from the curriculum on offer and to reach their potential.
• Pupils are not adequately prepared for moving on to the next stage in their learning in either key stage 1 or key stage 2. In 2017, nearly six out of 10 Year 6 pupils did not meet the expected combined standard in reading, writing and mathematics. In key stage 1, pupils’ attainment placed the school in the bottom 10% of schools nationally.
• Current school assessment information shows that despite some improvements, the standards pupils are achieving by the end of key stage 1 and key stage 2 remain significantly below the national averages. This underachievement is most notable in mathematics in key stage 2. A long and persistent legacy of poor teaching means that pupils have many misconceptions and gaps in their knowledge.
• In 2017, the progress Year 6 pupils made in mathematics from their starting points was well below that of other pupils nationally. It was also below the progress made in reading and writing. The progress made by most pupils currently in the school in mathematics is still significantly below the progress that they make in reading and writing. This is not rapid enough to make up for learning pupils have missed in previous years.
• Rates of progress and standards of presentation in pupils’ English and mathematics workbooks are variable. This clearly reflects the periods of poor teaching that pupils have experienced.
• The standard of presentation is more consistent in subjects other than reading, writing and mathematics. However, the failure of teachers to challenge pupils enough in science and the foundation subjects means that they also make slow rates of progress across the curriculum.
• The most able pupils are achieving only the expected standard by the end of each key stage in combined reading, writing and mathematics assessments. Very few pupils in either key stage 1 or key stage 2 achieve higher standards in reading, writing or mathematics. This indicates that the most able pupils do not make the progress that they should.
• The progress and attainment of disadvantaged pupils are unacceptably low. The attainment of disadvantaged pupils in 2017 was lower than other pupils nationally in combined reading, writing and mathematics assessments. The lack of analysis of the barriers these pupils face means that leaders are not able to provide tailored support for these pupils to achieve as well as other pupils. Moreover, the high level of absence for this group of pupils contributes to their poor rates of progress.
• Pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities make variable progress across the school. There are signs of improvement in some classes, but overall the inconsistent support and poor teaching that some of these pupils receive means that not enough of them make the progress that they should.
• Pupils do not get a secure enough grounding in early reading. The proportion of pupils achieving the expected standard in the Year 1 phonics check has been consistently below average for a number of years.

Early years provision Requires improvement

• The standard of education children in the early years receive is better than that in the rest of the school because the early years leader has ensured that the quality of teaching and learning are more consistent. As a result, children make steady progress from a range of starting points.
• The early years leader carefully analyses how well different groups of children are achieving. She ensures that teachers use this information to plan appropriate tasks that enable children to make progress. This information is also used to ensure that the most suitable tasks are provided for any groups of children that are not doing as well as they should be. This enables them to make faster progress.
• The proportion of children who achieve a good level of development has improved significantly since she took over the leadership of the early years when it was at an unacceptably low level. In 2015, only 21% of children achieved a good level of development. By 2017, this figure had risen to 47%. This demonstrates clear capacity for the early years to improve further. However, a significant amount of further work needs to be done to ensure that a greater proportion of children have the skills that they need to benefit from the key stage 1 curriculum.
• The outdoor provision does not meet the children’s needs well enough. It provides insufficient opportunities for children to develop their understanding of the world, their problem-solving skills or their creativity.
• Teachers usually plan activities well to capture children’s interest. Some children were keen to talk to inspectors about what they were engrossed in, including building a cage for dinosaurs and colouring underwear for work related to keeping safe. At these times, they developed a wide range of skills. At other times, such as during some phonic sessions, children displayed lower levels of engagement.
• Safeguarding procedures are effective and reflect those in the rest of the school. Staff ensure that all children’s welfare needs are met.
• Children behave well when staff make clear their expectations and reward ‘good choices’ with frequent and positive verbal feedback. Most children are able to choose and carry out tasks independently when given the opportunity to do so. At these times, they demonstrate focus and resilience in the tasks that they are engaged in. They cooperate well with each other.
• Relationships between children and staff are strong. Staff care well for children and demonstrate a consistently warm and positive manner.
• Staff support children who have SEN and/or disabilities effectively and understand their particular needs.
• Staff have taken action to encourage parents to become involved with the school. This is a priority for the school, especially for parents who do not speak English as their first language. A ‘parent club’ is becoming established to try and raise parents’ aspirations, and particularly those of parents who have come from countries where parents are often less engaged in working directly with their children’s schools. Staff say that parents’ attendance at school meetings and events is increasing.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 136062 Liverpool 10046553 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Primary School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Voluntary aided 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 291 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Mr Ian Beck Mrs Rachel Davidson Telephone number 01517 093 672 Website Email address www.holy-family.co.uk holyfamily-ao@holyfamily.liverpool.sch.uk Date of previous inspection June 2016

Information about this school

• The school is larger than primary schools typically.
• There is a Nursery that has a morning and afternoon intake. The Nursery and Reception class work as a unit and children are in mixed-age groups.
• The school is situated in an inner-city area.
• The mobility of pupils is high and the size of cohorts varies.
• The school has a higher-than-average proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is slightly higher than in other schools nationally.
• Pupils come from a wide range of heritages. The largest ethnic group is White British.
• There is a high proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language. There is a wide range of languages used by pupils and their parents as their first language.
• There has been an increase in the number of exclusions in the current academic year.
• The school does not meet the current government floor targets for the minimum expectations for progress and attainment at key stage 2.
• There has been a change of leadership since the previous full inspection, although the present headteacher was in post during the monitoring visit.
• There have been a significant number of staffing changes since the previous inspection.
• The school has received support from the local authority since the previous inspection.
• There is a breakfast club on site that is managed by the governing body.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors considered a wide range of evidence throughout the inspection. This included observing teaching and learning in all classes. Some of this was carried out jointly with the headteacher.
• Inspectors looked at pupils’ work in lessons and on display around the school. They sampled pupils’ written work across different areas of the curriculum including English and mathematics. Senior leaders took part in some of this work.
• Inspectors held discussions with the headteacher and the special educational needs coordinator. They talked with leaders of English, mathematics and the early years. Inspectors also met with staff responsible for monitoring attendance. The lead inspector held meetings with the chair of governors and four other governors. The lead inspector also met with representatives from the local authority, the Archdiocese of Liverpool and the school improvement officer.
• Inspectors listened to pupils read and held discussions with groups of pupils. They also talked informally with pupils around the school, in the dining room and in the playground.
• Inspectors took account of the views of parents by reviewing 10 responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View, and free-text comments. They also held discussions with parents as they brought their children to and picked them up from school.
• Inspectors considered 16 responses to the staff questionnaire.
• Inspectors examined a range of documentation, including the school’s website, information about pupils’ attainment and progress, leaders’ review of current school performance, records of meetings and reports from governors. They examined safeguarding documentation and records of behaviour, bullying and attendance.

Inspection team

Claire Cropper, lead inspector Sue Dymond Adrian Martin

Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector