St Andrew's Church of England (VA) Infant School

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 4234 www.gov.uk/ofsted

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Mrs Naomi Wood Executive headteacher St Andrew’s Church of England Voluntary Aided Infant School Lightcliffe Road Brighouse West Yorkshire HD6 2HH

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Short inspection of St Andrew’s Church of England (VA) Infant School

Following my visit to the school on 18 January 2017, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. The visit was the first short inspection carried out since the school was judged to be good in November 2012.

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Short inspection of St Andrew’s Church of England (VA) Infant School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. This is because you have created and maintain a culture of equality of opportunity where pupils enjoy learning and all members of the school community feel valued and that their views are respected. You and your head of school monitor the quality of teaching and the progress of all pupils carefully. As a result your pupils, including those who are disadvantaged, continue to make good progress and are well prepared for junior school.

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Short inspection of St Andrew’s Church of England (VA) Infant School

The school is a calm, attractive and interesting place to learn. Display is vibrant. Your pupils take pride in their appearance and that of the school. They talk enthusiastically about the ways that you and your staff care for and encourage them. Your pupils are polite, reflective and considerate about the needs of others. This is because you and your team of staff emphasise this as part of your effective approach to developing pupils’ social, moral and cultural sense.

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Short inspection of St Andrew’s Church of England (VA) Infant School

Governors have a very clear understanding about their strategic role and how to improve their effectiveness. They are very knowledgeable about the school. They use this detailed knowledge and their clear understanding of what the school needs to do to improve to hold you and your senior team to account. They are very actively engaged with the school and use their close links and focused visits to help them get a very clear view of what needs to be done. Your previous inspection in 2012 identified the need to improve the quality of teaching further and give your pupils more opportunities to develop as independent learners. You have addressed these matters effectively. However, you, your staff and your governors are clear that there is still more to do. There need to be more opportunities, particularly in Year 1 classes, for pupils to develop as confident, accurate and neat writers in a range of styles of writing for a range of audiences and readers.

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Short inspection of St Andrew’s Church of England (VA) Infant School

Safeguarding is effective. You and your governors are very clear that keeping children and pupils safe is of the highest importance at the school. You have established and maintain a culture of safeguarding throughout the school. Parents recognise and appreciate this.

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Short inspection of St Andrew’s Church of England (VA) Infant School

All of your staff are carefully and regularly trained. They know the children and their families very well. They use this knowledge to help ensure that should an issue arise, it would be dealt with very quickly and effectively. You and your staff, ably supported by the local authority, engage very well and appropriately with outside agencies to support children and their families who, from time to time, experience challenging circumstances.

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Short inspection of St Andrew’s Church of England (VA) Infant School

Pupils know how to keep themselves safe. This is because you use a range of approaches, such as assembly and class time, to talk about safety. Pupils know that they can rely on you and your whole staff to keep them safe.

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Short inspection of St Andrew’s Church of England (VA) Infant School

Underpinning all of this are scrupulously kept records and efficient systems that help ensure pupils are safe. The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are detailed and of high quality.

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Inspection findings

 You, your team of staff and governors have an accurate understanding of the strengths of the school and what needs to be done to improve it further.  You are clear that staff, other than senior leaders, need to take on more responsibility and ‘ownership’ for their areas of the school. You are already developing this aspect of the school’s work by encouraging and enabling middle leaders to take on more responsibility for their areas of the school’s curriculum. Governors have focused links with key subject leaders and meet them regularly. All staff welcome your ‘leadership at every level’ approach. This is because, with your support, it gives them opportunities to develop their skills as teachers and leaders in their areas. Pupils benefit significantly from this.  Children settle very quickly and make good and better progress from their starting points in the Reception Year. The number of children who demonstrate a good level

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Inspection findings

of development by the end of the Reception Year is consistently higher than the national average. This is because this aspect of the school’s work is well led and all staff, both teachers and teaching assistants, are skilled in giving children, including the most able, opportunities to explore and develop as learners. They are well prepared for Year 1. Parents and carers reported that they were very pleased with the education their children receive in this part of the school.  Year 1 pupils make generally good progress. Outcomes for the end of year phonics check are above the national average. A love of reading is a key and growing aspect of work in this year. The attractive library provision has contributed to this. The recent upgrade of the whole-school reading scheme has also positively raised the profile of reading in the school and across the wider community. A review of pupils’ books and folders, including those of disadvantaged pupils, suggested that

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Inspection findings

there were insufficient opportunities for pupils to develop their writing at length and in a wider range of genres. You and your governors were aware of this and you have put in place a range of strategies to address it. Early signs are that these strategies are having a positive impact.  Year 2 pupils, including those who are disadvantaged and the most able, make good progress. Teachers and teaching assistants work closely and effectively together to plan learning that focuses on pupils’ needs and extends their skills and knowledge. Staff use questioning very adeptly to draw out pupils’ ideas and deepen their understanding. Pupils in Year 2 enjoy learning and can talk with enthusiasm about what they are writing and reading. They take real pleasure in mathematics, relishing the opportunities they are given by teachers and teaching assistants to tackle knotty problems.

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Next steps for the school

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that they:

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Next steps for the school

 develop and further extend pupils’ confidence and accuracy in, as well as opportunities for, writing, especially in Year 1  extend and deepen middle leadership across the school so that all staff take a full part in and demonstrate responsibility for the school’s continuing success and development.

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Next steps for the school

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the director of education for the Anglican Diocese of Leeds, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Calderdale. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

During this short one-day inspection I met with you, your head of school, a phase and subject leader, with a range of staff and with four members of the governing body, including the chair of the governing body. I also spoke with a local authority officer on the telephone. I visited classrooms with you and saw a range of lessons. While in the lessons, where appropriate, I spoke with pupils about their work and experience of the school. I also scrutinised a range of pupils’ books and folders. I spoke more formally with a group of Year 2 pupils at lunchtime. I spoke informally with individual parents and groups of parents and reviewed information on Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View. I scrutinised a range of documents including the school’s most recent evaluations of its performance and other records and logs. I attended an act of collective worship during the morning.

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Information about the inspection

As well as assessing the effectiveness of safeguarding, in particular this short inspection focused on: whether the provision in Reception enables children to make good progress from their starting points; whether pupils, especially the disadvantaged and most able pupils, make good progress in reading and writing across the school; and the robustness and accuracy of leaders’, including governors’, evaluation of the school’s effectiveness.

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