St Malachy's Catholic Primary School, A Voluntary Academy

Inspection of St Malachy’s Catholic Primary School, A Voluntary Academy Furness Place, Illingworth, Halifax, West Yorkshire HX2 8JY

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The quality of education Requires improvement Behaviour and attitudes Good Personal development Good Leadership and management Good Early years provision Good Previous inspection grade Requires improvement

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The headteacher of this school is Mary Hodges. This school is part of Blessed Peter Snow Catholic Academy Trust, which means other people in the trust also have responsibility for running the school. The trust is run by the chief executive officer (CEO), Rob Pritchard, and overseen by a board of trustees, chaired by Antonia Dorsey. 1 and 2 July 2025

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What is it like to attend this school?

St Malachy’s is an inclusive and caring school. Pupils are welcomed by staff who prioritise pupils’ safety and well-being. As a result, pupils know how much adults care about them. The school provides a safe haven, where pupils are happy and they grow in confidence. One pupil, typical of many, said that ‘school helps us to be the best version of ourselves’.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Positive relationships between staff and pupils ensure that classrooms are calm and productive places. Over time, incidents of poor behaviour have reduced significantly. Pupils recognise that behaviour is much better. Staff take time to talk with children about their worries. Bullying is rare. Pupils say that it is dealt with swiftly, when it happens. The ‘regulation stations’ in school, for example, provide spaces where pupils can calm down and reflect on their emotions.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The changes that the school has made to the curriculum have raised ambition and expectations for what pupils will achieve. However, the positive curriculum changes have not had enough time for their impact to be realised in pupils’ published outcomes. This means that too many pupils move on to secondary school without the skills and knowledge that they need to be successful.

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What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

Since the last inspection, there have been many positive changes at the school. Staff are supportive of the improvements that have been made. Leaders provide staff with the training and advice they need to teach the curriculum well. Teaching revisits pupils’ previous learning and this is starting to help them remember more of what they have been taught. However, in some subjects, staff do not teach content as planned in a logical order. This affects how well pupils build up their knowledge over time.

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What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

The school has prioritised reading. Pupils who struggle with their phonics get the help that they need to catch up. Older pupils enjoy the reading corners in their classrooms and the wide range of texts that they can choose from. This starts in the early years, where staff share stories, songs and rhymes enthusiastically with children. Staff are highly trained and teach phonics well. They make regular checks on the sounds pupils have learned and use this information to inform what they will teach next. In other curriculum areas, this is not the case. The information from checks on pupils’ learning, such as at the end of a topic, is not used to identify gaps in pupils’ knowledge consistently. This means that pupils’ misunderstandings are not remedied and pupils’ recall of their learning in some subjects is less secure.

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What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

The school is quick to identify pupils’ individual needs, including special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Pupils with SEND benefit from appropriate curriculum adjustments. The school has created a nurturing space, where pupils receive the support they need to access a curriculum matched to their needs.

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What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

The school follows up absence tenaciously. Regular monitoring means that action is taken swiftly to address declines in pupils’ attendance. Working with individual pupils and 1 and 2 July 2025

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families, the school helps overcome the barriers that they face to attendance. With support from the trust, the school has recently purchased a minibus to transport pupils to school. Despite this, persistent absenteeism is too high, especially for disadvantaged pupils. This has a negative impact on their academic achievements.

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Children in the early years flourish in a bright and engaging environment. Guided by skilled staff, children take turns and share resources, playing and learning together collaboratively. Staff inspire children with stories. They model the vocabulary that they want children to learn. Adults engage children in their learning through careful questioning and the tasks that they provide. As a result, children concentrate for sustained periods of time and work hard to achieve their goals. The classroom is awash with opportunities for children to develop their mathematics skills. This includes making repeated patterns using paint and cotton buds or exploring numbers through games of bingo. Increasingly, pupils are well prepared and ready for Year 1.

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The schools’ personal development programme ensures that pupils have an age- appropriate understanding of healthy relationships. Pupils know the dangers that the internet poses and how they can keep themselves safe. Pupils speak with confidence about the importance of equality. They describe their school as a tolerant and respectful place. Pupils understand the negative impact of discriminatory behaviour and relate this to their studies of significant historical figures, such as Katherine Johnson.

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Those with responsibility for governance have a detailed working knowledge of the school. The academy council and the trust support and challenge the school to ensure it is safe and that teaching is impactful. Staff feel supported and professionally developed. They recognise that the school is on an exciting journey of improvement.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 At times, teaching adaptations to the curriculum affect the order in which pupils learn subject content. When this happens, pupils’ learning is not moved on and pupils complete tasks that they can already do. The school should ensure that when staff make changes to the sequence of learning, these changes meet the needs of pupils consistently.  In some subjects, the checks that the school makes on pupils’ learning are not used to plan what pupils will learn next. This means that some pupils move through the curriculum with ongoing misconceptions and gaps in their understanding. The school should ensure that staff are equipped to use assessment strategies well, so that gaps in pupils’ learning are addressed before they move on. 1 and 2 July 2025

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 The school’s strategies to improve attendance for disadvantaged pupils are not yet having the impact that leaders want. As a result, persistent absence remains too high and pupils miss out on important learning. This is reflected in pupils’ published outcomes. The school must re-focus and continue their tenacious approaches to attendance to reduce persistent absence further for these pupils.

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How can I feed back my views?

find out what other parents and carers think. We use information from Ofsted Parent View when deciding which schools to inspect, when to inspect them and as part of their inspection.

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How can I feed back my views?

The Department for Education has further guidance on how to complain about a school.

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Further information

You can search for published performance information about the school.

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Further information

In the report, ‘disadvantaged pupils’ is used to mean pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND); pupils who meet the definition of children in need of help and protection ; pupils receiving statutory local authority support from a social worker; and pupils who otherwise meet the criteria used for deciding the school’s pupil premium funding (this includes pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years, looked after children (children in local authority care) and/or children who left care through adoption or another formal route). 1 and 2 July 2025

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School details

Dates of previous inspection 21 and 22 March 2023, under section 5 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 The school is part of the Blessed Peter Snow Catholic Academy Trust.  The school does not use alternative provision.  The school is a Catholic school in the Diocese of Leeds. The most recent section 48 inspection for schools with religious character took place in November 2018.  The school runs a before- and after-school club for pupils.

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Information about this inspection

The inspectors carried out this graded inspection under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. During a graded inspection, we grade the school for each of our key judgements (quality of education; behaviour and attitudes; personal development; and leadership and management) and for any relevant provision judgement (early years and/or sixth form provision). Schools receiving a graded inspection from September 2024 will not be given an overall effectiveness grade. 1 and 2 July 2025

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 Inspections are a point-in-time evaluation about the quality of a school’s education provision.  Inspectors discussed any continued impact of the pandemic with the school and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school.  Inspectors met with the headteacher, deputy headteacher and special educational needs coordinator.  Inspectors held discussions with staff to consider their views.  Meetings were held with trustees, including the chair of the trust and the CEO.  An inspector met with members of the academy council, including the chair of the committee.  Inspectors carried out deep dives in the following subjects: early reading, mathematics, and history. For each deep dive, inspectors held discussions about the curriculum, visited a sample of lessons, spoke to teachers, spoke to some pupils about their learning and looked at samples of pupils’ work. Inspectors also discussed the school’s

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work and reviewed pupils work in some other curriculum areas.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, the inspectors: reviewed the single central record; took account of the views of leaders, staff and pupils; and considered the extent to which the school has created an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts pupils’ interests first.  An inspector visited the school’s breakfast club and spoke to parents at the start of the school day.  Inspectors reviewed responses to Ofsted’s parent survey, Ofsted Parent View. They also considered responses to Ofsted’s staff and pupil surveys.  To evaluate pupils’ behaviour, inspectors visited lessons, analysed behaviour records, met with groups of pupils and observed their play at breaktime and lunchtime.

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Inspection team

Chris Pearce, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

John Davie Ofsted Inspector 1 and 2 July 2025

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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 children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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