Setting

Mrs Julie Simons Headteacher St Anne's (Stanley) Junior Mixed and Infant School Prescot Road Old Swan Liverpool Merseyside L13 3BT

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Junior Mixed and Infant School, Liverpool

Following my visit to the school on 9 February 2015, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. 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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Junior Mixed and Infant School, Liverpool

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in November 2014. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

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Junior Mixed and Infant School, Liverpool

Senior leaders and governors are taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the recent section 5 inspection. The school should take further action to:

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Junior Mixed and Infant School, Liverpool

 Change the website so that it meets national requirements and contains up-to-date and well-written policies  Increase the staff’s subject knowledge of punctuation and grammar.

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Evidence

I met with four members of the governing body and a representative of the local authority. I also met with you and senior leaders. I talked to a group of children about improvements that had taken place since the inspection in November and I briefly looked at learning in classrooms as I toured the school. I scrutinised the school’s plans for improvement and plans to be judged as good at the next inspection. CfBT Inspection Services Suite 22 West Lancs Investment Centre Maple View Skelmersdale WN8 9TG T 0300 123 1231 Text Phone: 0161 6188524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Direct T 01695 566857 Direct F 01695 729320 Direct email :jkinsman@cfbt.com

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Main findings

The day after the inspection, senior leaders met and immediately began work on devising a plan for the school to be judged good at the next inspection. This positive reaction reflects senior leaders’ determination to quickly tackle every area of weakness found at the inspection. The plans for improvement are precise and identify clearly the arrangements for checking if the well-devised actions are working and how to measure whether they have had an impact on pupils’ achievement.

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Main findings

You have restructured the roles and responsibilities of senior leaders so that each member of the leadership team takes responsibility for an area to improve, as a result their accountability has increased. The special educational needs coordinator for example now has an increased role in meetings about pupils’ achievement. The teacher who leads on checking pupils’ achievement has greater involvement in making sure teachers’ checks on pupils’ work are accurate. Teachers who lead year groups now have a role in setting staff targets to improve their teaching. As a result of these changes all leaders are more focussed and more responsible for tracking the progress of individual and groups of pupils.

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Main findings

The teacher who leads English has devised a new policy to guide teachers to improve how they teach reading and writing. It makes greater reference to the school’s approach to teaching grammar, punctuation and spelling. The school is about to introduce daily basic skills lessons to enable pupils to have frequent focussed activities to improve their writing skills. More needs to be done to upgrade the staff’s knowledge about grammar and punctuation. On my walk around the school there were several errors in grammatical terminology and in the use of apostrophes.

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Main findings

Pupils that I spoke with confirmed their appreciation of the teachers and of their lessons, which they said had improved since the inspection in November. Among the comments they made were, ‘most of the teachers are amazing’ ‘they are more on their game and more enthusiastic when they teach’ ’they are trustworthy like another parent’ The pupils were particularly complimentary about teaching in art, physical education, mathematics, religious education and philosophy.

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Main findings

An important area for improvement is the attendance and achievement of pupils whose circumstances make them disadvantaged. The school has identified a National Leader of Education, at St Edmunds Primary School in the Wirral, to conduct an external review of how the pupil premium grant is used. Senior leaders have not waited for this to take place before taking action and there are already signs of improvement because of the actions they have taken. For example, the attendance of this group of pupils has risen because of the school’s effective work with the local authority and with families.

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Main findings

The governors have also taken quick and decisive action. They have reconstituted and restructured the committees of the governing body. They have taken action to improve the quality of note- and minute-taking at meetings to better reflect the level of debate, discussion and challenge that takes place. Governors have taken up offers of training, for example, how to interpret data about pupils’ achievement and how to recruit staff. There is also training booked to update governors’ understanding about pupils with special educational needs. The governors have established a new pay policy which is much more tightly tied to the achievement of pupils in teachers’ classes. These matters are discussed at newly-created monthly challenge meetings. There is no system at present to check on how well the school is meeting its statutory obligations. The website for example does not comply with national requirements. There is for example a very out-of-date special educational needs

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Main findings

policy, insufficient information about the subjects taught in each year group, and no reference to the impact of the pupil premium grant on pupils’ attainment and progress.

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Main findings

Ofsted may carry out further visits and, where necessary, provide further support and challenge to the school until its next section 5 inspection.

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External support

The local authority quickly after the inspection set up a review of governance. Each governor reviewed his or her skills and knowledge which resulted in some changes to areas of responsibility and membership of committes. The governing body is wasting no time and is taking action to implement the plans for improvement identified as part of the review.

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External support

The local authority has increased its support and challenge. It knows the school well and has identified no barriers to it improving quickly. The support has had an impact on the accuracy of assessment of pupils’ achievement, on improving teachers’ questioning skills and on improving the quality and impact of leadership. The local authority has provided effective help to increase pupils’ attendance.

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External support

I am copying this letter to the Chair of the Governing Body, the Director of Children’s Services for Liverpool and as below.

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Her Majesty’s Inspector

The letter should be copied to the following:

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Her Majesty’s Inspector

 Appropriate authority - Chair of the Governing Body/Interim Executive Board  Local authority – including where the school is an academy  Diocese – for voluntary aided and voluntary controlled schools.

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