Boothroyd Primary Academy Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the quality of teaching so that by the time pupils leave the school they have the skills they need to read and write confidently and communicate effectively, by:
  • ensuring that teachers and other adults accurately identify and quickly address any remaining gaps in pupils’ knowledge, understanding or skills
  • providing more effective support for the youngest pupils and those in key stage 2
  • to develop their phonics skills increasing the opportunities for pupils to use and apply their phonics skills in their reading and spelling
  • ensuring that all staff make use of every opportunity to develop pupils’ use of the English language, particularly the spoken language, and provide the good models pupils need
  • developing pupils’ love of reading, their understanding of what they read and how to articulate this improving the quality of pupils’ handwriting.
• Ensure that the most able pupils make at least good progress by providing learning opportunities with the right degree of stretch and challenge.
• Improve pupils’ attendance further so that it reaches the national average.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• The principal has facilitated improvements in leadership and teaching through her high expectations of pupils and staff. She has identified and has begun to systematically tackle some significant underlying weaknesses in teaching. As a result, the quality of teaching is improving and pupils’ progress has accelerated over the last academic year.
• There has been a complete overhaul of many aspects of the school’s work. Staff say that the principal has ‘empowered’ them and they now expect much more of themselves and pupils, and ‘it is wonderful to see’. They say that they are proud to work in this school.
• There is a strong and effective senior leadership team who lead and manage subject teams. This means that all staff contribute to school improvement and, as a result, the school’s capacity to improve further is stronger. Staff new to the school, including newly qualified teachers, are being helped to develop and improve their teaching quickly.
• Leaders have an honest and accurate view of the school. This means that they are addressing the right areas for development and improvement.
• Leaders use funding, such as the pupil premium funding, to address barriers to learning with increasing effectiveness. Careful research has informed their decisions about which strategies will give the most impact. Leaders and the trust acknowledge that more could be done to identify and address pupils’ individual barriers to learning to enable disadvantaged pupils to make more rapid progress.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities are carefully identified and appropriate provision is put in place to accelerate their learning. Leaders’ actions to improve classroom teaching and the work of support staff means that these pupils are making better progress that they have in the past.
• The curriculum is broad and balanced and contributes significantly to pupils’ physical, spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. The curriculum excites and motivates pupils and the homework strategy was very positively received by parents.
• Through the curriculum, leaders seek to prepare pupils for life in modern Britain by taking them beyond the boundaries of their own cultures and immediate experiences. Despite some parental concerns about the content of the curriculum, the principal has been resolute in ensuring that pupils have the opportunities to deepen their understanding about a range of issues that will help them to make positive contributions to society in later life. Respect, tolerance and the right to democracy are at the heart of the school’s work and staff model these qualities to pupils exceptionally well.
• Extra-curricular activities give pupils valuable opportunities to learn across a range of topics such as enterprise, art, sport and drama and also to support improvements in reading. These activities are very well attended, sometimes with parents. Pupils expressed how much they valued these wider experiences the school has afforded them.
• The sports funding has been used effectively to enhance provision. This has had a positive impact on pupils’ fitness and their understanding of the links with healthy lifestyles. Pupils are very well motivated and rise to the challenges set for them to increase their fitness.
• Leaders have worked tirelessly to secure positive relationships with parents and, on the whole, most parents spoken with were happy with the school. Attendance at events such as the reading café and toast club is helping to build trust and respect among the school and the community it serves.
• The chief executive officer of the trust and the academy improvement partner know the school well. They use this knowledge to provide effective support and hold school leaders to account robustly for the impact of their actions.

Governance of the school

• Governance arrangements are effective.
• The trust took decisive action to tackle the weaknesses it found in governance. After an initial period of support and training, it was agreed to disband the local governing body and set up an interim task group.
• The members of this group have the necessary experience and skills to provide the challenge and support that the school needs, particularly in relation to standards, and also in human resources, safeguarding and finance.
• Through its work, this group has made a notable contribution to school improvement, the school buildings and the environment.
• The task group is now well placed to transfer powers to a local governing body and is already taking steps to do so.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. There are exemplary features in this aspect of the school’s work.
• The pastoral manager ensures that the safeguarding of pupils is kept high on the school’s agenda. Staff are well trained, knowledgeable and vigilant. Careful record is kept of any concerns and these are acted on in a timely and appropriate manner to reduce any escalation. Leaders work very closely with a number of agencies and follow up any referrals tenaciously.
• The principal is resolute in not shying away from covering sensitive issues with pupils to ensure that they fully understand how to keep safe.
• The school has an effective system in place to track and monitor internet use. Pupils know all about this child-friendly system and why it is necessary. Parents have access to a weekly drop-in to support them to keep their children safe online.
• The task group, school business manager and principal ensure that the school keeps pupils, staff and visitors safe on-site and when on visits outside of school.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• Teachers do not identify and meet the needs of the most able pupils well enough to ensure that they reach their full potential. Some activities lack the stretch and challenge needed to deepen pupils’ understanding and extend their thinking.
• Previous historic weaknesses in teaching have left gaps in pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills. Although teachers are now identifying and addressing these gaps more effectively these improvements are too recent to have enabled pupils to fully make up lost ground.
• Staff do not always model good English or take the time to correct pupils’ spoken English to help them improve.
• There are some weaknesses in marking and feedback. Some staff do not provide the best models of handwriting and spelling. Some pupils’ handwriting is poor; this is not addressed by all teachers.
• The daily, systematic teaching of phonics is supporting younger pupils to read and spell with increasing accuracy. However, older pupils have not had the same early opportunities to develop their phonics skills and this is slowing their progress in reading and spelling. The choice of reading material does not always ensure that pupils have sufficient opportunities to practise using and applying their phonics skills.
• Training for staff has brought about improvements in the way guided reading is taught. Teachers and teaching assistants are spending time developing pupils’ vocabulary so that pupils can express themselves more clearly. Questioning is more effective so that pupils’ understanding is being probed more deeply. These improvements are contributing to better pupil progress.
• In mathematics, teachers address any gaps in learning and make effective use of practical apparatus to secure pupils’ understanding. Pupils’ work shows that teachers focus on the basics such as number facts, and provide pupils with tricky problems to solve. This has led to stronger progress and higher attainment. However, there is still scope to ensure that the most able pupils reach their full potential in this subject.
• Specialist teachers, such as those teaching physical education and modern languages, make an effective contribution to pupils’ learning, development and progress in the curriculum. Better-quality teaching of science has enabled pupils to develop key skills in investigating and testing out hypotheses.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Pupils are happy at the school and are warm and welcoming to visitors, showing courtesy and respect for adults and each other.
• Daily lessons and the work of the forest school are helping pupils to develop the life skills they need to aid their learning. These activities are helping to broaden pupils’ horizons as well as helping them value each other and their world.
• Pupils have a good understanding of how to keep safe, including online safety. They are taught about all forms of bullying and discrimination in an age-appropriate manner. School behaviour logs show that incidents of bullying and poor behaviour are now very rare.
• The highly effective pastoral manager and her team ensure that pupils’ needs are well met. She works closely with a number of agencies to ensure that pupils get the help and support they need.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Pupils behave well in the classroom and other areas of the school. They have responded well to the school’s behaviour system and understand what is expected of them.
• A ‘can do’ attitude to teaching and learning means that pupils are self-motivated and keen to learn. They relish the opportunity to take responsibility for their learning. For example, they fully understand the need for the ‘non-negotiables’ that are helping them to grasp the basics in reading, writing and mathematics well.
• The poor attendance of pupils is an ongoing issue. Leaders continually strive to improve it and pupils know how important good attendance is. Absences are pursued with the utmost rigour to ensure that pupils are safe and attend. Effective use is made of agencies, such as health and the children missing from education team, to ensure this.
• Leaders have adopted a ‘zero-tolerance’ approach to absences which, in the main, are due to the relatively large number of parents who take their children on extended visits abroad. In 2015–2016, the school was hit badly with an outbreak of chickenpox, particularly in key stage 1. This means that absence is much higher than that seen nationally.

Outcomes for pupils Require improvement

• Unvalidated results in 2016 show that pupils’ progress improved compared with previous years and is broadly in line with other pupils with similar starting points. However, there is still more to do to ensure that most pupils reach the expected standard for their age and are well prepared for their next stage of their learning. Standards of attainment are still below those found nationally, particularly in reading and writing. Outcomes in the spelling, grammar and punctuation test were in line with provisional key stage 2 national results.
• The most able pupils do not achieve as well as they should. Over time, teachers’ planning has not met their needs well and so they have not made good progress.
• The proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in the Year 1 phonics check has risen over the last two years. Results in 2016 were in line with the latest published national figure. A good proportion of pupils, other than those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, catch up quickly in Year 2.
• Outcomes in national assessments at the end of key stage 1 were disappointingly low in 2016. There was a mismatch between pupils’ point scores in formal assessments compared with the good progress and standards seen in pupils’ books. Leaders ensure that teacher assessment is accurate through the school’s own checks and moderation activities and by moderating regularly with other schools in the trust and locally.
• Evidence collected during the inspection shows that disadvantaged pupils, pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, those who speak English as an additional language and particularly those who enter school mid-year are also making much better progress than seen in previous years. Gaps are starting to diminish between these pupils and other pupils nationally from similar starting points.
• The weaknesses in reading and aspects of pupils’ writing mean that pupils are not reaching their full potential in some other areas of the curriculum. Where practical work was observed in science and through discussion with pupils it was clear that they have the appropriate knowledge and understanding, but this is not always reflected in their written work.
• Work in pupils’ books shows that some have made good progress during the last academic year. However, pupils’ past underperformance has not been fully addressed.
• In 2016, there was a rapid rise in the proportion of children reaching a good level of development. While this is still likely to fall short of the latest national figure, children made good progress in the early years from their starting points.

Early years provision Good

• The opening of a Nursery in January 2015 and effective transition arrangements have ensured that more children are ready to start school with the skills they need, particularly in communication and language and literacy. For example, children have settled into school after only five days and were seen engaging purposefully in their play and learning.
• The early years leader has an accurate view of the strengths and weaknesses in Nursery and Reception. Alongside the principal and other senior leaders, she has set about tackling any weaknesses systematically. She has changed adults’ perceptions of what the children are capable of despite a number of barriers to learning. This has created a ‘can do’ culture and much higher expectations. This is helping to diminish quickly the gaps in children’s development, including those for disadvantaged children.
• The daily systematic teaching of phonics in Nursery means that more children are entering Reception at the appropriate stage of learning. However, not all Reception children attend the Nursery. For those that do not attend Nursery starting points are often notably lower so they have more ground to make up.
• Teachers have ensured that opportunities to talk, read, write and spell are given high priority in the areas of learning. In Reception, children were observed writing and attempting to spell words independently and with confidence, while the most able children were seen using phonics strategies to read, write and spell independently.
• Actions to improve the outdoor environment have ensured that children now have a stimulating and purposeful area to play and learn that mirrors the quality of the indoor environment. These areas promote children’s development effectively in all the areas of learning, and activities are well planned to address children’s needs. Teachers ensure that all children have equal access to the outdoor area despite the physical limitations created by the layout of the school.
• The partnership with parents is a strength. Parents speak highly of the early years team and value the opportunity to learn and share in their children’s learning and development.
• The site is safe and secure and every effort is made to ensure that children are safe and well cared for, in line with school policy and procedures. Resources are of high quality and well maintained.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 140234 Kirklees 10019274 This inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was also deemed a section 5 inspection under the same Act. Type of school Primary School category Academy converter Age range of pupils Gender of pupils 3 to 11 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 556 Appropriate authority The governing body task group Chair Principal Telephone number Website Email address Helen Rowland Kyrstie Joslin 01924 450 289 http://www.boothroydprimaryacademy.co.uk k.joslin@focus-trust.co.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• The school complies with DfE guidance on what academies should publish.
• This is a larger than average primary school.
• The vast majority of pupils are of Asian Pakistani heritage, almost all of whom speak English as an additional language.
• The number of pupils joining the school at times other than the usual is high. Many of these pupils join from overseas and speak little or no English.
• The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for the pupil premium is above the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities receiving support is above that seen nationally, with a few pupils who have an education, health and care plan or a statement of special educational needs.
• The school has successfully gained the Primary Science Quality Mark Gold Award and Investors in Pupils.
• The school converted to an academy on 1 October 2013 and is part of the Focus Trust multi-academy chain of schools. When its predecessor school was last inspected by Ofsted, it was judged to be good overall.

Information about this inspection

• At the time of the inspection, the principal was on day 2 of her maternity leave. The school was led and managed by the academy improvement partner and assistant headteachers.
• Inspectors observed pupils’ learning in most classes and the early years.
• Discussions were held with the chief executive officer, senior leaders, members of staff, representatives from the task group and the academy improvement partner.
• Inspectors examined a wide range of documentation, including that relating to safeguarding, behaviour, school improvement planning, assessment information and reports on the quality of teaching.
• Inspectors spoke to pupils informally during the school day and observed them during playtime, lunch and before and after school. They also met formally with one group of pupils to talk about their learning and behaviour and safety.
• Inspectors listened to a number of pupils read.
• A range of pupils’ books were checked.
• Inspectors spoke to a number of parents at the start of the day and by telephone. Pupils and parents did not complete online surveys as they were unable to access them due to a technical problem with the Ofsted site which meant that they were unavailable for the duration of the inspection. Teachers completed a hard copy printed out by the school. Inspectors received 37 responses.
• Four further Ofsted inspectors joined the inspection at the start of the second day.

Inspection team

Anne Bowyer, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Mary Lanovy-Taylor Christine Turner Moira Dales Nicola Walsh Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector