St James' Church Primary School

St James’ Church Primary School Chelwood Drive, Allerton, Bradford, West Yorkshire BD15 7YD

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Overall effectiveness Inadequate

Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

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Overall effectiveness Inadequate

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

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Overall effectiveness Inadequate

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

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Overall effectiveness Inadequate

Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Requires improvement

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This is an inadequate school

 Leaders have not done enough to tackle the areas for improvement identified at the last inspection.  Inadequate teaching has failed to meet the needs of too many pupils, including many boys, disadvantaged pupils and the most able.  The majority of pupils are not well prepared for secondary school because they have not reached the expected standards in reading, writing and mathematics. Standards have been exceptionally low over a number of years.  Leaders have brought about recent improvements too slowly. These improvements are not securely enough embedded to enable the rapid progress that is needed.  The poor behaviour of a minority of pupils affects the whole school. There is low-level disruption from a number of pupils in some lessons.  Leaders have not managed to improve low attendance rates. Too many pupils still do not attend regularly enough or turn up late for school.  The curriculum is not sufficiently broad and

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This is an inadequate school

balanced, so pupils do not get enough chance to develop an appropriate range of skills, knowledge and understanding.  Improvements in the expertise of governors have been too slow to enable them to challenge poor performance effectively.

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The school has the following strengths

 The early years is good because of strong leadership in this provision. Good teaching enables the youngest children to get off to a good start.  The teaching of early reading skills is effective, so pupils in key stage 1 are good at matching letters to sounds.

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Full report

In accordance with 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.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the effectiveness of leadership and governance by: – regularly monitoring the performance of groups of pupils to assess whether gaps are closing, particularly between disadvantaged pupils and others and between boys and girls – more precisely focusing on the learning and progress of pupils when carrying out checks on the quality of teaching – more rigorously checking that teachers are consistently acting on advice from leaders – sharpening improvement plans so it is clear how and when the impact of actions will be measured and reported – continuing to develop senior and middle leaders so their work has greater impact on improving teaching and pupils’ progress – ensuring that all governors have the knowledge and expertise to challenge and support leaders – building stronger relationships with parents, increasing their involvement in their children’s education.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the quality of teaching so that standards are raised in all subjects by: – ensuring that teachers make effective use of assessment information to plan work that matches the needs of pupils of different abilities, especially the least and most able, so that all groups of pupils make good progress – improving teachers’ questioning skills – ensuring that pupils produce their best work – deploying support staff efficiently and ensuring that they all have the skills and expertise to support pupils’ learning and to manage pupils’ behaviour.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the curriculum by: – ensuring that sufficient time is given to the teaching of all subjects, so that pupils get to produce a broader range of work and develop a wider body of knowledge and skills – ensuring that the curriculum stimulates and motivates pupils and prepares them well for life in modern Britain – upholding high expectations of pupils’ work in all subjects as well as in English and mathematics – developing and implementing a strategy to more extensively promote British values.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve behaviour by: – eliminating low-level disruption in lessons – ensuring that those pupils who exhibit high-level disruptive and aggressive behaviour are more effectively challenged and supported so that their behaviour improves and does not affect others.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve attendance so that it reaches the national average and improve pupils’ punctuality.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

External reviews of governance and the use of the pupil premium were undertaken following the last inspection in January 2014. Leaders and governors should revisit the findings of these reviews and act on the recommendations with urgency.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

 Leaders have not managed to bring about sufficient improvement since the last inspection. Standards by the end of key stage 2 remain exceptionally low and attendance has barely increased from the exceptionally low levels of three years ago.  Leaders’ and governors’ efforts have been hampered by the high turnover of staff and extensive building work. Nevertheless, leaders have not done as much as they could have to reverse the decline in standards.  Records show that leaders have been checking the quality of teaching by observing lessons, examining teachers’ planning and scrutinising pupils’ workbooks. However, much of this work has been focused on compliance with policies and not making links between teaching and its impact on learning. Weaknesses identified some time ago in individual teachers’ and leaders’ practice persist.  Leaders have set appropriate targets for teachers this year, but over time, targets have not led to good

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

enough improvements in teaching and pupils’ outcomes. A number of teachers and leaders have been awarded increases in pay despite the lack of improvement in pupils’ outcomes.  Senior and middle leaders are unable to explain the impact of their work on groups of pupils. This is because assessment information has not been analysed or evaluated. Leaders are not able to explain where the relative strengths and weaknesses are between groups of pupils. For example, the special needs leader has worked hard to plan and implement a range of interventions for pupils who need additional or different work from others, but leaders are not able to say whether these strategies are helping pupils to catch up with their classmates.  Leaders have not made effective use of pupil premium funding provided by the government to close gaps between the achievement of disadvantaged pupils and others as significant gaps remain.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

 Senior leaders have not engaged with parents productively, keeping them at arm’s length. Some parents feel they are not listened to. Involvement of parents in the early years is much better.  The curriculum is too narrow. Not enough time is spent on subjects other than English and mathematics, limiting pupils’ engagement and interest in learning. A visiting music teacher delivers enjoyable and challenging music lessons. Pupils do have opportunities to go on visits to places of interest and a fair number of pupils access out-of-school clubs such as rugby and cheerleading. Effective use is made of the government sports premium funding to increase participation in sport.  Leaders do not have a strategy for developing the spiritual, moral, social and cultural aspects of education to ensure that pupils are well prepared for life in modern Britain. However, pupils have a reasonable knowledge of different religions and understand what it means to show respect for diversity. They have

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

insight into democratic processes through the election of school councillors.  The local authority has provided a great deal of support since the last inspection, including arranging for help from an outstanding partner school and a national lead headteacher. However, due to weak leadership and the problems facing the school, this support has had minimal impact. More recently, the local authority has stepped up its level of challenge. The Diocese of West Yorkshire and the Dales is also now providing more support and challenge. Disappointingly, external challenge has not managed to counter the school’s decline.  A temporary headteacher took up post two days before the inspection and has identified appropriate priorities.  The governance of the school – Members of the governing body accept responsibility for the current state of the school. They make no excuses and understand where the weaknesses are. The school commissioned an external review of

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

governance following the last Ofsted inspection, after which a suitable action plan was put together, but this has had limited impact. – The chair of governors has undergone intensive training and is now ensuring that other governors access much needed development. The impact of some of this training can be seen in the recent stronger challenge to school leaders by governors because of a much better understanding of assessment information. – Older pupils explained to inspectors how they valued governors listening to their views about school lunches and other matters. – The local authority has confidence in the ability of governors to challenge and support leaders to move the school forward and has recently arranged for two additional governors with appropriate expertise in education to join the governing body.  The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. Leaders have put robust procedures in place to make

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

sure suitable people are recruited. Staff follow child protection procedures properly and know exactly what to do if they have concerns about the safety of a pupil. Recording procedures are robust and leaders act quickly where a pupil is at risk of harm. Risk assessments are conducted for educational visits and other activities. The site and building are very secure. Staff record all occasions where pupils have had to be physically restrained to safeguard other pupils and key staff are trained in how to restrain pupils safely. Leaders have been unsuccessful in significantly reducing the number of these incidents.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is inadequate

 Teaching over time has not enabled pupils to make enough progress. Since September 2015, the staffing situation has been stabilised and there have been some improvements in the quality of teaching, resulting in improving progress. These improvements have been slow to emerge, and are not securely enough embedded to bring about the rapid and sustained improvements needed.  Too many teachers do not take sufficient account of what pupils already know and can do; the same work is given to all pupils so it is too hard for some and too easy for others. Teachers do not challenge the most-able pupils well enough.  Inspectors observed low-level disruption from pupils in a number of lessons in both key stage 1 and key stage 2. This happens where weak teaching fails to engage pupils fully and teachers do not have the skills to manage behaviour effectively. For example, inspectors saw young pupils play-fighting with rulers and

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is inadequate

throwing things across the table, and this was not noticed by either the teacher or teaching assistant.  In some classes, especially in key stage 2, too little work is completed in lessons and too many pupils do not work hard enough because expectations of what they can and should do are too low.  Teachers often do not deploy teaching assistants well in lessons, though many support staff do an effective job of teaching small groups of pupils away from the classroom. A number of teaching assistants are not enabled to manage behaviour well.  The questioning skills of some teachers are limited. Too often questioning does not deepen pupils’ thinking and stretch the most-able pupils.  The teaching of early reading in the early years and Year 1 is effective, enabling most pupils to match letters to sounds in order to work out unknown words by the end of Year 1. However, teaching enables too few pupils to reach the expected standard by the end of Year 2. Progress in reading through key

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is inadequate

stage 2 has been exceptionally weak. The measures put in place to improve reading are not resulting in rapid enough progress for pupils who have fallen behind to catch up.  In key stage 1, teachers enable most pupils to write with accuracy, enabling them to make good attempts at spelling, to form letters neatly and to use capital letters and full stops. Teachers’ knowledge of how to help pupils to develop their sentences is more limited throughout the school. Many pupils are developing writing stamina in key stage 1 because teachers get them to write at length, but too many pupils in older classes do not produce enough writing to enable them to become proficient.  The effectiveness of mathematics teaching is too variable. Few teachers provide pupils with plenty of opportunities to attempt tricky problem solving and to develop good reasoning skills.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare requires improvement.  A few pupils say they are sometimes anxious about the behaviour of some of their peers. Pupils report that they sometimes hear racist and homophobic language used, particularly when pupils become angry. However, pupils say that they generally feel safe in school, and parents agree.  A few parents and pupils say that bullying is not dealt with well, so in some cases it continues rather than being nipped in the bud. Some pupils and parents mistakenly interpret other forms of hurtful behaviour, such as falling out, getting cross and fighting, as bullying.  In lessons, pupils are generally compliant rather than well engaged as teaching fails to stimulate enjoyment and enthusiasm. Teaching does not enable pupils to develop the resilience and work ethic required to secure good achievement.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.  Leaders have not succeeded in managing the behaviour of a small handful of very disruptive pupils. Staff struggle each day to contain the aggressive and non-compliant behaviour of these pupils. Exclusion rates have been very high for a number of years and continue to be.  Pupils and staff told inspectors of fighting taking place in the key stage 2 playgrounds regularly. This fighting usually begins with pupils playing rough games.  The number of incidences of bad behaviour has reduced since September but remains too high. These include physical aggression towards staff, non-compliance and leaving the classroom without permission.  Weak teaching leads to low-level disruption from a few pupils in both key stage 1 and key stage 2 classrooms. Some pupils do not follow instructions straight away for some teachers. Some older pupils are wilfully disobedient for some teaching assistants.

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Behaviour

 Despite the poor behaviour of some, most pupils conduct themselves appropriately in lessons and around the school. Most pupils generally get on well together and follow instructions. The ‘traffic light’ system that has been introduced is beginning to help teachers manage behaviour better. Many pupils are polite and exhibit good manners.  Attendance levels remain low. Leaders have failed to bring about any significant improvement. Many pupils are regularly late for school and there is no strategy to address this.

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Outcomes for pupils are inadequate

 Outcomes are inadequate because over time pupils have been underachieving considerably due to weak leadership and teaching. There are wide gaps in the attainment of different groups.  In 2015, the school did not meet the government’s minimum standards for attainment and progress and in 2014 achievement was not significantly better. Consequently, many pupils have left the school unprepared for secondary school because they do not have the basic skills to access the key stage 3 curriculum.  There was an improvement in results at the end of key stage 1 in 2015, though attainment remains significantly below the national average overall. Attainment in reading has been particularly weak over a number of years. There are more recent signs of some better progress in key stage 1 but not sufficient to bring attainment into line with national averages.  There is an inconsistent picture in progress and attainment of groups of pupils currently in the school.

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Outcomes for pupils are inadequate

The proportion of boys working at age-related levels is lower than that of girls by a large degree in some year groups and subjects.  There are large gaps between the achievement of disadvantaged pupils and others in some subjects in most year groups. In 2015, there was no gap between disadvantaged and other pupils in the Year 1 phonics screening check.  Pupils who have special needs or disability have made limited progress by the time they leave the school.  Pakistani heritage pupils, who make up a significant proportion of the school population, do no better or worse than White British pupils in the school.  Very few pupils have reached above average levels over several years, and for pupils currently in the school, few pupils are working above age-related expectations. This is because teaching does not sufficiently challenge the most-able pupils.

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Early years provision is good

 Almost all pupils enter school with skills, knowledge and understanding below that which is typical for their age. From these starting points, many pupils make more than expected progress to reach a good level of development. Some exceed expected levels by the time they enter Year 1.  The proportion of pupils reaching a good level of development by the end of the early years has increased over the last few years. Assessments show that the figure is set to rise again in 2016 to near the national average. The gap between disadvantaged children supported by the early years pupil premium and other children is closing.  Teaching and outcomes in the early years are better than in the rest of the school because of the strong leadership provided by the early years leader, who hit the ground running on her appointment a year ago, improving the provision quickly and accelerating children’s progress. The leader has provided

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Early years provision is good

training and support to staff and modelled effective practice so that teaching is good.  Adults question children constantly to encourage them to talk at increasingly greater length. This also enables adults to assess children’s growing knowledge and understanding and to respond to their interests. Assessment is accurate and informs teachers’ planning. Adults take every opportunity to keep children busy and build their reading, writing and mathematics skills through play and direct teaching.  Children enjoy playing creatively throughout the extensive range of appealing indoor and outdoor provision areas. They sustain interest and concentration, cooperating well together, learning from their role play and exploration. For example, inspectors saw children building houses and tunnels in the sand and enjoying experimenting with filling and emptying containers in the bubbly water tray.  Learning is most effective when pupils are interacting with adults. Some of the independent child-initiated

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Early years provision is good

activity provides less challenge and there are not always enough opportunities for children to practise and apply their reading, writing and counting skills in these situations.  The early years leader has worked hard to involve parents in their children’s learning. A relatively small number of parents have responded to the opportunity to be coached and contribute to the online assessment system. Staff meet with each parent, making home visits before children enter the nursery. This enables them to gather information about the children. Very few parents have responded to invitations to parent workshops such as the recent well-planned reading workshop, but staff remain determined to increase parental involvement.  About a quarter of pupils attend two-year-old provision in other settings. Staff visit children in these settings prior to their starting in the nursery to assess the children’s knowledge and skills and find out

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Early years provision is good

about their interests. These visits, and visits to homes, enable children to get off to a good start.  Children’s personal development is good. Children socialise well together, they follow instructions, for example when tidying up. They say ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’ to adults and each other.  All the welfare requirements are fulfilled so that children are kept safe.

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School details

Unique reference number 107304 Local authority Bradford Inspection number 10011998

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School details

This inspection was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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School details

Type of school Primary School category Voluntary controlled Age range of pupils 3–11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 374 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Sarah Stubbs Interim Headteacher Eileen Bleasdale Telephone number 01274 777095 Website http://stjameschurch.bradford.sch.uk Email address office@stjameschurch.bradford.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 22–23 January 2014

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Information about this school

 St James’ Church Primary School is a larger than average-sized primary school.  The proportion of pupils supported by the pupil premium is much higher than that found nationally. The pupil premium is additional government funding for disadvantaged pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and for children who are looked after by the local authority.  About half the pupils are from minority ethnic groups, above the national average. White British children make up about half of the pupils on roll. The second largest group is Pakistani, making up about a fifth of pupils. The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is a little above average, at around a quarter.  The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs or disability is above average.  A new temporary headteacher took up post at the school two days before the inspection took place.  The school does not meet the current floor standards. These are the minimum expectations of pupils’

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Information about this school

achievement and progress in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 6, set by the government.  The school does not meet requirements on the publication of information about curriculum, special needs, examination and assessment results and spending of the sports premium on its website.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors visited all classes to observe teaching. Some of these visits took place with school leaders.  Inspectors asked pupils about their learning and what it is like to be a pupil at St James’ Church Primary School. Pupils’ workbooks were scrutinised and inspectors heard some pupils read. Pupils’ behaviour was observed around the school.  Inspectors took account of 14 responses to the Ofsted online questionnaire (Parent View) and held brief discussions with parents at the beginning of the school day.  Thirty-seven responses to the staff questionnaire and 16 responses to the pupil questionnaire were received and analysed.  Discussions took place with the interim headteacher, senior and middle leaders, and teachers, members of the governing body, representatives of the local authority and a representative from the local diocese.  Documents were analysed, including the school’s self-evaluation statement, school development plans,

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Information about this inspection

governing body minutes and information about pupils’ achievement.  Records relating to behaviour, attendance and safeguarding were scrutinised.

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Inspection team

Philip Riozzi, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Donald Parker Ofsted Inspector Peter Heaton Ofsted Inspector guidance ‘Raising concerns and making a complaint about Ofsted’, which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.gov.uk/government/publications/complaints-about-ofsted . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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Inspection team

You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when and as part of the inspection.

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Inspection team

You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk , or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted .

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Inspection team

achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team,

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Inspection team

The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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