All Saints Catholic College

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

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Miss Anita Bodurka Principal All Saints Catholic College Specialist in Humanities Bradley Bar Huddersfield HD2 2JT

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Short inspection of All Saints Catholic College

Following my visit to the school on 20 June 2017 with Lynne Selkirk, Ofsted Inspector, 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 February 2013.

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Short inspection of All Saints Catholic College

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. This is as a result of the targeted action that you have taken, your willingness to learn from other providers and your shared vision for the school community.

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Short inspection of All Saints Catholic College

Your focused and clear self-evaluation undertaken with governors, the local authority and your leadership team, has enabled leaders to develop and implement targeted action plans and systems focused on improving pupils’ attendance and progress. This work is leading to improved attendance, particularly for pupils who are disadvantaged and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. However, you recognise that for these pupils, a closer, more detailed analysis and evaluation of their attendance is still needed. This, you rightly see, could lead to more refined strategies aimed at improving the attendance even further and therefore the progress made by these pupils.

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Short inspection of All Saints Catholic College

You, your governors and senior leaders have an open and inclusive approach, combined with high expectations of your staff and pupils. Collectively, you are clear in your aims and ambition for the school working to ensure that the needs, both social and academic, of individual pupils are met. It is clear that you know your pupils well and this has enabled a more personalised approach to academic and social development. This approach and ethos is rooted in the school’s mission statement. At the last inspection, you were asked to ensure that staff use information from monitoring students’ progress to set work that is neither too easy for some, nor too difficult for others. Inspectors found that the majority of teachers are using pupil information more effectively aided by the school’s steps to success monitoring system. Most teachers take account of pupils’ individual needs and plan to ensure that these needs are met. However, school leaders are aware that, in some classes,

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Short inspection of All Saints Catholic College

the work lacks challenge and the quality of feedback, both oral and written, that pupils receive is still variable across subjects and key stages, and is not in keeping with your vision for the school.

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Short inspection of All Saints Catholic College

Teachers value the continuing professional development that they access. Your departmental reviews or toolkits enable you to identify and share good practice, which further improves the learning experience for pupils. These reviews provide a clear link to quality assurance and professional development, which is helping to improve the quality of learning in most classrooms. Teachers use time in lessons productively and they use questioning skilfully to develop pupils’ responses and deepen learning. Your pupils have positive attitudes to learning and are developing the ability to learn from their mistakes. Inspectors agreed with you that teaching is having the most impact on disadvantaged pupils when your teachers set high expectations and challenge pupils to extend their learning. Teachers are embracing your renewed strategies to promote positive behaviour and effective learning habits, so that lessons are not regularly disrupted and pupils can take responsibility for

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Short inspection of All Saints Catholic College

The school has adopted the local authority’s clear, effective policies and procedures to ensure that pupils are safe. Your child protection records are thorough and followed up appropriately and astutely. Staff and governors receive up-to-date training on key safeguarding issues, including online safety. Leaders are tenacious in ensuring that concerns are logged and appropriate action taken. Furthermore, school leaders have refocused the school’s expectations regarding pupils’ behaviour for learning that foster a safe and respectful culture. Most teachers use pastoral time effectively to promote this culture of safety and to inform pupils how to keep themselves safe. Pupils feel safe and speak with confidence about the approachable nature of the staff and the number of people to whom they can turn in times of need.

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Inspection findings

 You, your staff and governors are not complacent. You have reviewed the school’s position with clarity and insight and as a result, you have a detailed and focused vision for continuing improvement.  Quality assurance procedures are thorough and linked to opportunities for staff professional development, which are proving effective in improving the quality of teaching and learning over time. However, leaders acknowledge the need to improve the accuracy of assessment and feedback provided by teachers across the school.  You have reviewed strategies for using your pupil premium funding and have put in place clear, focused plans to ensure that disadvantaged pupils have the same opportunities as their peers. Governors have a clear strategic vision of pupil premium spending and closely monitor the impact of these funds. Leaders recognise that ongoing robust assessment of these strategies will be needed in

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Inspection findings

order to ensure their effectiveness.  The lead practitioner and special educational needs coordinator work closely with all members of staff to empower them to use information from the school’s monitoring procedures to meet the pupils’ learning needs, especially for those pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities.  You have established effective systems for monitoring pupil progress but acknowledge that current arrangements for target setting are not sufficiently robust or challenging, especially for the most able pupils. Leaders recognise this and see the need for an urgent review of the impact of the process for setting pupil targets.  You rightly identified that pupils’ weaker attendance and punctuality are key barriers to their learning in the school and have recently put in place renewed strategies to address these issues. This work is beginning to have a positive impact upon pupils’ attendance and also the progress they make at school,

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Inspection findings

particularly for the disadvantaged pupils and those pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. However, you recognise that ongoing monitoring of the impact of these strategies will be required in order to improve, where needed, the effectiveness of the approaches used.  Pupils confirmed your view that the majority of their peers behave consistently well, but that a few pupils are involved in repeated instances of poor behaviour that disrupts learning at times. You intend to review the impact made so far of the revised behaviour for learning procedures which are now being used.  You have established clear lines of accountability across the school. Middle leaders are vibrant, committed and effective. Collectively, they have a good understanding of the school’s strengths and areas for development, which is helping to drive the school’s further improvement.

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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

 rigorously analyse, evaluate and where needed, further develop strategies to improve the attendance and progress of disadvantaged pupils and those pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities  improve the accuracy of assessment and feedback provided by teachers so that it is consistently effective across all subjects and key stages  undertake a robust review of the effectiveness of target setting in the school, so that expectations for all pupils, especially the most able, are high and encourage excellence  rigorously review the impact of the behaviour for learning procedures, to ensure that instances of pupils’ repeated weaker behaviour are reduced rapidly.

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Next steps for the school

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

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, inspectors met with you, your senior leaders, middle leaders and governors. Inspectors met formally with one group of pupils and informally with pupils at break and lunchtime. Inspectors visited lessons alongside senior leaders to see the impact of recent changes on the progress of pupils. An inspector met with a group of governors and representatives from the local authority, one of whom acts as the school’s improvement partner. Documentation was scrutinised including: minutes from governors’ meetings, information about pupils’ progress, documents about teaching and learning, details of attendance and exclusions and information about safeguarding. Inspectors also viewed the 31 parent responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, 50 pupil questionnaires and 33 staff questionnaires. Inspectors focused on the attendance and progress of pupils, particularly those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities and those

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