Northfield Primary School: With Communication Resource

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 1231 www.gov.uk/ofsted

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Vanessa Vaughan Headteacher Northfield Primary School: With Communication Resource Northfield Lane South Kirkby Pontefract West Yorkshire WF9 3LY

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With Communication Resource

This letter sets out the findings from the monitoring inspection of your school that took place on Thursday 6 July 2023, on behalf of His Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills. The monitoring inspection was carried out under section 8(2) of the Education Act 2005 and took place because the school has received two successive judgements of requires improvement at its previous graded (section 5) inspections.

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With Communication Resource

During the inspection, I discussed with you, other senior leaders and subject leaders the actions that have been taken to improve the school since the most recent graded inspection. I also spoke with governors and the senior school improvement adviser from the local authority. We discussed the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. I conducted visits to lessons, met with pupils to discuss their learning and look at their work and spoke to staff. I reviewed the school’s single central record and met with members of the safeguarding team to discuss the culture of safeguarding in the school. I have considered all of the information collected in coming to my judgement.

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improvement. Leaders have made progress to improve the school, but more

work is necessary for the school to become good.

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Main findings

Since the last inspection, you have appointed an assistant headteacher who is responsible for curriculum development. This has resulted in staff being effectively supported to make swift, strategic changes to the school’s curriculum. There is a strong sense of collegiality in the school and you have worked hard as a team to bring about improvement. Your school development plan is clear and concise. You have chosen the right priorities to focus on.

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Main findings

You have carefully selected several published schemes of work to support the development of the curriculum. The curriculums in many subjects are now coherently planned and sequenced. Subject leaders can explain the adaptations that they have made to ensure that what is being taught matches the context of the school and meets the needs of pupils. You have put systems in place to check what pupils know and remember. Pupils understand how these systems support them to remember what they have been taught. Pupils can talk confidently about both recent and past learning. Their use of subject-specific vocabulary is particularly strong, for example, when talking about vehicles that they had made in design and technology, pupils used the terms ‘chassis’ and ‘axle’.

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Main findings

Although not a specific focus of this visit, it was clear from visiting lessons that reading has been a priority. Adults were seen to teach the phonics programme consistently. Pupils achieve well in phonics. In reading skills lessons, pupils were reading appropriately challenging texts.

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Main findings

Governors have received support from the local authority and external consultants to help them to better understand their role. They are now more confident with challenging leaders about the quality of education in the school and are beginning to ask the right questions of leaders. The recruitment of governors with a background in education has added some strength to the governing body.

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Main findings

You have commissioned support from external partners to provide you with some validation and feedback about the changes you have made and feel that this support has been useful.

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Main findings

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the Department for Education's regional director and the director of children's services for Wakefield. This letter will be published on the Ofsted reports website.

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