Setting

Gregory Gilroy Headteacher St Patrick's Catholic Primary School, Walsall Blue Lane East Walsall WS2 8HN

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Education act 2005 to St Patrick's Catholic Primary School, Walsall

Following my visit to your school on 18 January 2013, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report on the findings of my visit. Thank you for the help you gave me and for the time you made available to discuss the actions you are taking to improve the school since the most recent section 5 inspection.

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Education act 2005 to St Patrick's Catholic Primary School, Walsall

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in November 2012. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

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Evidence

During the visit, meetings were held with the headteacher, deputy headteacher and two other members of the senior leadership team. The inspector also met with a member of the governing body and the local authority’s senior area improvement adviser. The school improvement plan was evaluated along with evidence of outcomes from anonymised appraisals of teachers’ performance and pupils’ achievement.

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Context

A newly qualified teacher was appointed to teach in Year 3 and started in January 2013. There have been no other significant staff changes since the school’s last inspection. Tribal 1-4 Portland Square Bristol BS2 8RR T 0300 123 1231 Text Phone: 0161 6188524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Direct T 0117 3115319 Direct F 0117 3150430 Direct email :matthew.parker@tribalgroup.com

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Main findings

Senior leaders evaluate and analyse pupils’ progress and performance accurately. They have made an effective start dealing with the most important priorities for improvement that were highlighted in the school’s recent inspection. Leaders are working with the local authority’s advisory team to put in place training and programmes of monitoring to ensure that evaluations of teaching are accurate and that these are based on pupils’ learning and progress. The school improvement plan sets out measures of success to enable leaders and governors to monitor the school’s progress, although the plan does not include enough detail about how much progress pupils are expected to make in English and mathematics. This limits the efforts of leaders to measure how well achievement is rising and how best to intervene if pupils are falling short of their expected attainment targets. The governing body has rightly linked individual governors and committees to senior and

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Main findings

middle leaders who have responsibility for managing subjects or aspects of the school’s work. The cycle of monitoring activities devised by the school’s leaders do not always involve governors enough to enable them to gain first-hand evidence of improvements to the quality of teaching.

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Main findings

Senior leaders and governors have begun to take effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the recent section 5 inspection. Following the visit to the school, HMI recommend that further action is taken to:

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Main findings

 include attainment targets and measures of progress in the school improvement plan to help leaders check the extent to which pupils’ achievement is rising  make sure that evaluations of teaching refer to its impact on pupils’ learning and progress and identify the most appropriate interventions if groups or individual pupils are falling behind  make sure that those responsible for evaluating teachers’ performance and pupils’ progress involve the governing body more in this monitoring process.

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Main findings

Ofsted will continue to monitor the school until its next section 5 inspection.

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External support

The local authority’s advisory team is providing effective support and training for senior and middle leaders. The local authority partnership review group is also putting in place arrangements to partner the school with a national leader in education which rightly focuses on improving and honing the monitoring and evaluation skills of senior and middle leaders.

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External support

I am copying this letter to the Chair of the Governing Body and the Director of Children’s Services for Walsall local authority. Yours sincerely

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