Our Lady and St Brendan's Catholic Primary School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the effectiveness of leaders and managers by:
  • continuing to rigorously address inconsistencies in teaching and learning
  • checking that planned actions for school improvement are sharply focused and are monitored and evaluated regularly
  • developing the skills of subject leaders in delivering a broad and rich curriculum that meets the needs of all pupils
  • ensuring that the early years outdoor environment offers high-quality learning experiences for children.
• Improve the quality and consistency of teaching by:
  • developing greater challenge and pace in learning for all pupils, including for most-able and most-able disadvantaged pupils
  • raising teachers’ expectations of pupils’ attitudes to learning and the quality of work they produce
  • raising teachers’ expectations of pupils’ engagement in lessons to make sure that pupils do not lose concentration and distract others
  • checking that all teachers follow the agreed school policy to promote good behaviour around school and address low-level disruption in lessons.
• Improve outcomes for pupils by:
  • ensuring that pupils’ accelerating progress in learning results in a larger proportion of pupils reaching standards expected for their age, especially in key stage 2
  • ensuring that a greater proportion of pupils work at a greater depth in all subjects
  • continuing to diminish the difference between the achievement of disadvantaged pupils and other pupils nationally.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management

Requires improvement

• Over time, the leadership and governors have been successful in bringing about some small improvements in the quality of teaching, but until recently the pace of change has been slow. Inconsistencies in the quality of teaching still remain in school, leading to pupils’ attainment and progress being below that found nationally.
• The school has taken decisive action to arrest the decline in the quality of teaching that it offered, and has recently appointed an executive headteacher. She is well supported by the new head of school. The executive headteacher has provided a new focus and energy to school improvement since her appointment, acting as a catalyst for recent significant change.
• Working alongside an invigorated and strengthened governing body, the executive headteacher and head of school are taking very effective action to eliminate underperformance and quickly improve the quality of teaching. Solid foundations for future success are being built, and the impact of their work is beginning to emerge.
• The ambition and drive to improve all aspects of school life include actions to tackle previous weaknesses, eradicate underperformance and improve the quality of teaching and learning. Current pupils are now starting to make strong progress in their learning in most year groups in school. There has been too little time to see improved outcomes for pupils in published statutory data.
• Leaders and governors have an accurate view of what the school does well, and what it needs to do to consolidate recent improvements and be even more successful. Procedures to monitor and evaluate the school’s performance through checking the quality of teaching and learning are incisive and detailed. Leaders hold teachers stringently to account for pupils’ progress in learning.
• Leaders’ plans for further improvements are based on a clear view of the school’s strengths and weaknesses and are detailed in the school development plan. Planned actions are not always outlined clearly and in detail, and lack a planned system of rigorous monitoring and evaluation.
• Leaders carefully consider how best to spend the school’s pupil premium funding and carefully evaluate its impact on the progress and achievement of disadvantaged pupils. Over time, the support and resources secured have not had the maximum impact on quickly diminishing the differences between disadvantaged pupils and other pupils nationally with the same starting points, across subjects.
• The school’s curriculum is broad and balanced, and is currently under review to ensure that it meets pupils’ needs and interests. Leaders have not yet ensured that skills and knowledge in foundation subjects are planned well across the curriculum. Subject leaders’ skills are under development and review. Some links are made to allow pupils to develop skills across the curriculum, such as interrogating data as part of a topic on rainforests, or budgeting when studying world war rationing.
• The curriculum allows pupils to visit places of interest, such as a local Victorian schoolroom, trips to the theatre or residential visits by older pupils. Topics are linked to a particular text, and shared with parents and carers who participate in some activities in school. The curriculum is enhanced by a range of after-school clubs, such as dance, craft, modelling or outdoor learning.
• Pupils’ good personal development is in part due to a curriculum and school ethos that strongly contributes to their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. In lessons and in assemblies, the promotion of British values, such as democracy and the rule of law, prepare pupils well for life in modern Britain. Pupils reported their interest in exploring other faiths and cultures and visiting local places of worship from different religions.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported well. Their needs are identified early and their progress, which is mainly good, is tracked accurately. Consequently, the special educational needs funding is used effectively.
• The physical education and sport funding for schools has been used well. The school’s sports coach delivers lessons in school, organises and delivers sports’ festivals and holiday sports’ camps. The number of pupils participating in school-based sports’ clubs has risen significantly year on year, and participation in inter-school competitive events has also increased.
• The local authority and diocese have responded promptly to the school’s underperformance over time and weaker outcomes for pupils in 2016, and visit regularly to provide support. Governors, the senior leaders and subject leaders have access to specific training and guidance. Links with other schools have been established.

Governance of the school

• Governors bring a range of appropriate professional skills and experience to the school, enhancing their effectiveness and impact. The governor scrutiny committee meets every half term to drive forward further actions to eradicate underperformance. It challenges and questions school leaders well. Leaders are held to account for the quality of teaching, learning and assessment, as well as for the outcomes for pupils seen in statutory tests and school data.
• Governors have an accurate and incisive view of the school’s strengths and weaknesses, participating in monitoring activities, such as analysing work in pupils’ books, alongside senior leaders. Rigorous steps are being taken to tackle weaknesses seen in the behaviour of some pupils and in the school’s low attendance rates. Governors share senior leaders’ ambition to eradicate underperformance and know the school inside out.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• The school has a tangible ethos that is positive and caring, putting the welfare and well-being of each pupil at the heart of all that it does. This is clearly seen in the friendly, happy and confident manner of the pupils in school.
• Policies, procedures and records are of good quality and up to date. All staff are appropriately trained, and registers of staff training complete. Staff have access to well-written policies and guidance and, as a result, have a secure understanding of their individual responsibilities for safeguarding.
• The long-established culture of keeping pupils safe remains very evident. Leaders ensure that a culture of safeguarding is embedded among all staff, and leave no stone unturned in their duty to keep pupils safe.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• The quality of teaching over time has been weak. It has resulted in pupils not reaching the standards of which they are capable or fulfilling their true potential. There are still variations in the quality of teaching across school, and examples of both strong teaching and some teaching still not up to scratch.
• Teaching requires improvement because in some lessons expectations of pupils’ attitudes to learning and behaviour are not high enough. On some occasions, a minority of pupils lose concentration and distract other pupils’ learning.
• Some pupils show little pride in their work, resulting in poorly presented and sub-standard work. The school’s behaviour policy is not always consistently applied by adults, and some teachers can be too slow to address low-level disruption.
• Work is now usually pitched well according to pupils’ abilities, and the pace of learning allows pupils to be engaged in lessons and productive, but on some occasions this is not the case. Over time, teaching has lacked sufficient challenge, especially for most-able and most-able disadvantaged pupils, preventing them from developing their ability to work at a greater depth in their skills and knowledge in all subjects.
• As a result of the recent rigorous and systematic teaching of phonics, current pupils are now getting off to a fast start in their reading skills. Teachers and teaching assistants are skilled at delivering well-structured reading lessons. Pupils who read to an inspector used their phonics skills well to read unfamiliar words.
• Pupils are given regular opportunities to write at length, such as in Year 2 where pupils used the class text, ‘Tunnel’ by Anthony Brown, to describe their feelings entering the tunnel itself. Pupils confidently used conjunctions and noun phrases to enhance the quality of their work. Pupils in Year 5 drafted a descriptive setting for a piece of creative writing on Anderson shelters used in the Second World War. Their sound subject knowledge allowed them to accurately use alliteration and emotive language.
• In mathematics, basic skills of number and calculation are taught well and consolidated regularly. Teachers make good use of practical resources to allow pupils to grasp patterns and relationships in number. Teachers are becoming skilled at developing pupils’ reasoning skills, such as in Year 6 where pupils were challenged to devise a rule to test whether any given number is divisible by nine.
• Teaching assistants are becoming increasingly skilled and adept at questioning pupils, taking initiatives in lessons, and now form part of an improving teaching team. They are having an increasingly positive impact on pupils’ learning.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Requires improvement

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Pupils show respect and care for each other. They value their classmates’ opinions, and are used to working happily and cooperatively in lessons. Pupils’ skills in speaking and listening in paired and group discussions are good. Pupils’ attitudes to learning are mostly positive, and most are very keen to succeed and to always produce their very best work.
• Pupils thrive in the well-ordered, positive school environment. Displays are bright and attractive, supporting learning well. The school’s work to ensure that pupils’ physical and emotional well-being are valued and promoted is very effective, and is being further enhanced by the school’s parental involvement officer’s work with pupils and families.
• Pupils reported that they feel safe at all times, including when working online. Their knowledge of internet safety is good and they know how to keep themselves safe inside and out of school.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils requires improvement.
• In some lessons, a minority of pupils quickly lose concentration and engagement in learning, produce too little work and can chatter and distract others. This low-level disruption is not consistently addressed by teaching staff swiftly enough. A small minority of pupils can easily lose their tempers, and are very slow to respond to instructions from adults.
• On the whole, strong relationships are nurtured in school, and most pupils conduct themselves well in lessons and around school. Pupils are polite and friendly and have good manners. Playtimes are generally harmonious occasions when pupils play happily together and no one is left out.
• Pupils clearly now enjoy school, demonstrated by their improving rates of attendance, which are now broadly in line with those found nationally.

Outcomes for pupils

Requires improvement

• Over time, pupils’ achievements in reading, writing and mathematics have been below those found nationally in published statutory data. As a result of historically weaker teaching, there is a legacy of inconsistent achievement in all key stages, and variability still exists within upper key stage 2.
• Although a majority of pupils in Year 1 met the expected standard in the 2016 national phonics screening check, it was well below that found nationally. The school’s own data and evidence from the inspection indicate that it will rise this year.
• The progress and attainment of current pupils in nearly every year group are improving rapidly. Evidence from work in books, which matches the school’s own tracking data, clearly shows that current pupils are starting to make stronger progress in English and mathematics, as well as other subjects across the curriculum.
• Pupils’ accelerating rates of progress are enabling those that had fallen behind to catch up quickly. The proportion of pupils reaching standards for their age in English and mathematics in most year groups has risen significantly over the year.
• The progress of current most-able and most-able disadvantaged pupils largely matches that of their classmates and has accelerated since the start of the year. A larger proportion of pupils than previously are on track to achieve a high score in statutory assessments.
• Currently, an increasing proportion of pupils across school are working at greater depth in their learning than previously was the case. Weaker teaching that lacked challenge or pace in learning restricted pupils from deepening their skills and knowledge in English and mathematics.
• Disadvantaged pupils in each year group are starting to make good progress in English and mathematics. Although the difference between the achievement of disadvantaged pupils and other pupils nationally with the same starting points appears to be diminishing, it is still significant.
• The school is now quick to identify any pupils who are at risk of falling behind. Staff make effective provision for these pupils through activities that are well matched to their individual needs and abilities, skilfully delivered by teaching assistants. This includes pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. As a result, the progress made by these pupils from their individual starting points is good.

Early years provision Good

• Children in the early years provision are eager to learn and explore. They enjoy opportunities provided to investigate and learn happily together. Their behaviour is consistently good. Progress in personal, social and emotional development is good, and this accounts for the strengths seen in children’s behaviour and in their relationships with adults. They are encouraged to take turns and to consider others.
• The vast majority of children start in the early years with skills and knowledge below those typical for their age. As a result of good teaching and provision, careful observation and good questioning, children make good progress and are well prepared to start Year 1.
• Although not all children are making consistently high rates of progress across the early years, and the proportion reaching a good level of development is just below that found nationally, it is increasing year on year.
• Every opportunity is taken to enhance children’s learning. Adults are skilled at questioning and prompting during children’s exploration and creative play to develop their thinking and understanding. A good range of child-initiated and teacher-led activities are available for pupils.
• Adults ensure that there are a wide range of interesting and exciting learning opportunities for children to investigate and explore available in the indoor learning environment. However, the quality of these opportunities is not matched by those found outside.
• Basic skills in reading, writing and number are promoted very effectively. For example, a group of Reception children proudly showed an inspector their correctly punctuated writing about a hungry caterpillar. Other pupils kept a written score of an ongoing hockey game, while other children counted carefully the number of beanbags thrown into a hoop.
• The skilled and effective early years leader understands the learning needs of young children. She has successfully created an effective team of adults who share the same passion and drive to see children thrive. She has a clear understanding of the strengths in early years and has accurately identified key areas for improvement.
• Leaders are vigilant in all aspects of safety and safeguarding children’s welfare. Judging by the confidence and sense of fun with which they play and learn, children here clearly feel very safe, secure and happy.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 107334 Bradford 10031018 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 Maintained 4 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 206 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Executive Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address M Hippey Maureen Cairns 01274 611992 www.ourladyandstbrendans.co.uk/ office@olsb.bradford.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 9 June 2015

Information about this school

• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• The school is smaller than the average-sized primary school.
• The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for support through the pupil premium is well above the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is below average.
• The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic groups and who speak English as an additional language is average.
• The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which are the government’s minimum expectation for attainment and progress in English and mathematics.
• Early years provision is full time in the Reception class.
• The school meets the Department for Education’s definition of a coasting school based on key stage 2 academic performance results in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
• The school has recently appointed an executive headteacher and a head of school.
• The school has experienced a number of changes to staffing since the previous inspection.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning in lessons, including a number of visits to lessons observed jointly with the executive headteacher and head of school. In addition, inspectors listened to some pupils from Years 1 and 2 read, and inspectors reviewed a sample of pupils’ work alongside the executive headteacher and head of school.
• Inspectors held meetings with governors, the executive headteacher, head of school and members of the teaching staff. Inspectors also met the parental involvement officer, and spoke to some parents and the school’s local authority improvement partner. They also held meetings with pupils from the school council.
• Inspectors viewed a range of documents, including information relating to pupils’ achievements over time, the school’s data on recent and current progress of pupils and the school’s view on how well it is doing. Inspectors also reviewed the school development plan, documents relating to safeguarding and records of behaviour and attendance.
• Inspectors took account of the 12 responses to the online questionnaire, Parent View. There were no responses to the online questionnaire for staff or pupils. The school’s website was also scrutinised.

Inspection team

Phil Scott, lead inspector Linda Collier Christine Turner

Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector