Hollybush Primary

Hollybush Primary

Address: Broad Lane, Bramley, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS13 2JJ Unique reference number (URN): 134513

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Safeguarding standards met

The safeguarding standards are met. This means that leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfil their specific responsibilities and have established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed. As a result, pupils are made safer and feel safe.

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How we evaluate safeguarding

When we inspect schools for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes:

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How we evaluate safeguarding

Met: The school has an open and positive culture of safeguarding. All legal requirements are met. Not met: The school has not created an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not all legal requirements are met.

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Early years Expected standard

Children in the early years are increasingly well prepared for their next steps. Teachers invest time with parents and carers and build positive relationships. A warm and nurturing environment supports children to make a positive start to school life.

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Early years Expected standard

The curriculum is well considered. Recent work, alongside an external agency, has ensured that all aspects of the curriculum are implemented well. The provision focuses on ensuring that children’s communication is prioritised. High-quality interactions between staff and children are evident. This means that they learn new words and practise these words when speaking out loud.

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Early years Expected standard

Teachers understand what additional support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities need. Teachers make adaptations to ensure that children learn effectively from the point of learning at which they start. This includes ensuring that all children, including those who are not ready for formal learning, are given many opportunities to learn to read. The school’s chosen phonics scheme allows teachers to ensure that children learn the sounds they need in the right order. Some children focus on other sounds, such as sounds they can hear in the environment. This allows them to develop important skills.

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Inclusion Expected standard

Leaders in the school are committed to ensuring that pupils’ needs are met through the school’s inclusion offer. The school has improved its provision for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Leaders carefully identify pupils’ needs and consider what additional support they need. Pupils who attend the school's enhanced provision are well supported. Pupils within this provision make secure progress from their starting points and engage positively in the inviting activities set out for them. Staff have recently engaged in further training to support their understanding of the tiers of different support available for pupils with SEND. Many teachers are new to the school. Leaders provide additional support to these teachers to ensure that staff understand pupils’ needs.

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Inclusion Expected standard

The school’s pupil premium strategy identifies the barriers that pupils who are disadvantaged may face. Staff have a broad awareness of these priorities. Leaders regularly work with other agencies outside of the school, including the local authority. This helps them to provide further support for pupils with SEND and those who are known, or previously known, to social care. Leaders review the interventions in place to support pupils’ learning and they check how much progress pupils have made. This helps them to adapt provision to pupils’ changing needs.

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Personal development and wellbeing Expected standard

The school prioritises pupils’ personal development. Disadvantaged pupils are considered first in the school’s approach. Leaders ensure that all pupils engage in their personal development offer. Participation in clubs is tracked carefully. This means that leaders further target pupils, who may wish to attend future clubs. Hollybush’s new house teams allow

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Needs attention

pupils to work collaboratively with other pupils and external visitors. Within these teams, pupils are given opportunities to debate interesting topics. This helps to develop pupils' vocabulary and self confidence.

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Needs attention

Children in the early years are taught important skills and knowledge as soon as they start school. In Nursery, pupils are taught how to use scissors safely and play carefully outside on the equipment. In Reception, children know how to manage emotions and take turns with their peers. Many books in the early years support children’s understanding of a wide range of family types. Children develop a secure knowledge of the world around them. Further up the school, the personal, social and health education programme allows pupils to understand how to stay safe online and how to stay healthy. Discussions about diversity, respecting difference and learning about other cultures are woven into the daily life in school. This helps most pupils to be ready for life in modern Britain.

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Needs attention

Leaders have carefully planned a range of trips that pupils enjoy, including overnight residentials. Pupils experience the coastline through a visit to Whitby. They explore the local area through a geography topic to find out what it is like to live in different areas of Leeds. These visits help to extend pupils' learning beyond the academic and bring the curriculum to life.

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Achievement Needs attention

Historically, too many pupils have left the school not ready for their next steps. Outcomes in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of key stage 2 reflect this. Inconsistencies in achievement over time have led to gaps in pupils’ learning. A suite of extra support is now offered in reading, writing and mathematics to give every pupil an opportunity to catch up in their learning. Some of this support is not as effective as it should be. Some pupils cannot form letters properly or do not understand how to construct a sentence. This means that they struggle to write longer texts. Reading interventions focus on ensuring that pupils secure their understanding of how to blend letters into words. This helps most pupils to catch up in their reading.

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Achievement Needs attention

Refinements to the curriculum now support many pupils to move through the curriculum at an appropriate pace. This helps pupils to secure the knowledge they need to be ready for secondary school. However, some of the school’s work to raise achievement is at an early stage and it is too soon to evaluate the impact of this.

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Attendance and behaviour Needs attention

Leaders recognise that the school’s attendance rates are not as high as they should be. Some pupils, particularly those in receipt of pupil premium, miss long periods of school. This means that they miss out on important learning. Leaders know that there is more work to do and have implemented a range of strategies to support these pupils. However, the impact of these strategies is limited and they do not improve rates of absence as quickly as they need to over time. Leaders have focused appropriately on ensuring that all pupils are ready to learn. They have made improvements to many aspects of the school’s work around behaviour. Pupils recognise this. For some pupils, they need additional support to manage their behaviour and emotions. The school’s pastoral team supports pupils to be able to do this and make the appropriate adaptations where needed. Staff apply the school’s behaviour approaches consistently. For example, the ‘Hollybush hands’ approach enables younger pupils to know

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Attendance and behaviour Needs attention

how to carry their equipment safely. Any instances of poor behaviour are dealt with quickly. Although suspensions are high, leaders have a sensible plan to reduce this and use suspension as a last resort. This has led to an environment, where pupils feel that they belong.

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Curriculum and teaching Needs attention

For some pupils, including pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities, learning is not well matched to their identified needs. This means that they find learning hard. Sometimes, opportunities for pupils to practise their writing are not sufficient. This means that they do not secure important knowledge and skills, such as learning to hold a pencil appropriately or spelling words accurately. Some of the improvements identified by leaders have not been addressed with sufficient urgency. This means that gaps in pupils' learning remain. Many changes in staffing have led to inconsistencies in the delivery of the curriculum.

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Curriculum and teaching Needs attention

Leaders have continued to refine the curriculum over recent years. All subjects, including in the early years, now identify the knowledge that pupils need to learn. A recent focus on mathematics has further refined the steps in learning that pupils will take. Careful checks on pupils' learning in subjects, such as English and mathematics, allow teachers to understand how securely pupils have remembered aspects of their learning. Professional learning opportunities support teachers to develop skills to be able to deliver the curriculum effectively.

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Leadership and governance Needs attention

For some improvement areas, actions are not clear and developments are at an early stage. Leaders do not have sufficient oversight of the quality of these areas. This means that reporting mechanisms to and from the governing body are not as closely focused as they need to be on how well leaders' actions impact on pupils. This makes it hard for governors to fully understand how well these improvements work.

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Leadership and governance Needs attention

While leaders have prioritised the right areas and have quickly identified aspects that need further improvement, they recognise that the school is on an improvement journey. An accurate evaluation of the school has begun to impact positively upon some aspects of the school’s work. However, there is still more work to do. Leaders are clear that any improvements to the school have the best interests of the Hollybush pupils at heart.

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Leadership and governance Needs attention

Staff are overwhelmingly proud to work at the school. Staffing has stabilised and leaders have invested time in staff wellbeing. This includes a number of teachers who are new to teaching. This means that staff feel well supported in their roles. They appreciate the professional learning opportunities they have been given, particularly those focused on managing behaviour and supporting pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Hollybush Primary is an improving school. Changes to leadership have brought clarity to the school's plans to improve the provision further. Many early improvements are evident. There is a sense of calm that pervades through the corridors and in the classrooms. However, there is more work to do. Over time, pupils have not achieved as well as they could in national tests. A number of staffing changes have also impacted on the quality of teaching in the classroom. Leaders have identified appropriate actions to drive further improvement. It is, however, too early to see the impact of this. Some actions from leaders also need to be reviewed more closely to evaluate how successful they are.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils enjoy coming to this school. The school is very inclusive. Pupils’ pastoral needs are met well. This pastoral support removes barriers to pupils' social and emotional development. Pupils learn how to be respectful to one another and show this when working with others. They say that bullying is now rare and that staff help them to deal with friendship issues. Staff build warm relationships with pupils. This means that pupils feel safe and settled. However, too many pupils do not attend school as often as they should. This includes disadvantaged pupils.

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What it's like to be a pupil at this school

Pupils' wider development is well supported. For example, the school’s tranquillity garden gives pupils a space to explore and learn about the natural world. The school’s ‘Restore’ curriculum allows pupils to develop their knowledge about mental health and staying safe in the local area. It teaches pupils how to respond to situations and manage their feelings. The impact of this curriculum can be seen in the way the majority of pupils conduct themselves around the school.

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Next steps

• Leaders should embed high-quality teaching, including a focus on writing and matching tasks to pupils' different starting points, so that pupils' achievements improve across the curriculum and in national tests. • Leaders should further develop their strategies to improve pupil attendance, including the attendance of disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. • Leaders should ensure that they implement rigorous monitoring systems to check the impact of their improvement strategies. • Leaders should develop further professional learning opportunities for all staff to embed the pupil premium strategy consistently and effectively.

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Team inspectors:

Sinead Fox, Ofsted Inspector Liam Colclough, Ofsted Inspector

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Facts and figures used on inspection

The data was used by the inspector(s) during the inspection. More recent data may have been published since the inspection took place.

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About this inspection

The chair of the board of governors for this school is Janice Priestley.

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About this inspection

Inspectors carried out this full inspection under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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About this inspection

Following our renewed inspection framework, all inspections are now led by His Majesty’s Inspectors (HMIs) or by Ofsted Inspectors (OIs) who have previously served as HMIs.

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About this inspection

Inspectors spoke with the headteacher, deputy headteacher and the wider leadership team during the inspection, including the special educational needs coordinator. Inspectors also spoke to the writing leader, phonics leaders and a group of teachers. Meetings were held with the governing body and the local authority.

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About this inspection

The inspectors confirmed the following information about the school:

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About this inspection

The school makes use of one alternative provision.

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About this inspection

The school has undergone a significant change since the last inspection. The headteacher began working at the school in May 2025.

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What does this mean?

The total number of pupils currently at this school and how this compares to other schools of this phase in England.

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What does this mean?

The total number of pupils who can attend the school and how this compares to other schools of this phase in England.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils with an education, health and care plan. This covers pupils with more support than is available through special educational needs support.

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What does this mean?

The proportion of pupils with reported special educational support needs at the school.

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What does this mean?

Based on the English Indices of Deprivation (2019) and the school's location, we have calculated whether the school is located in a more or less deprived area.

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What does this mean?

Whether school has Resourced Provision or SEND unit (if applicable).

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Pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics

The percentage of pupils meeting the expected standards in a combined reading, writing and mathematics measure.

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average

2022/23 (final) 56% 60% Close to average

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Pupils reaching the expected standard in reading

The percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading.

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Pupils reaching the expected standard in teacher-assessed writing

The percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in teacher-assessed writing.

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Pupils reaching the expected standard in mathematics

The percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in mathematics.

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average

2022/23 (final) 70% 73% Close to average

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Disadvantaged pupils' performance

Disadvantaged pupils are those who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years and children looked after.

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mathematics

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics.

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average

2023/24 (final) 42% 46% Close to average

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average

2022/23 (final) 41% 44% Close to average

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in reading

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in reading.

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average

2023/24 (final) 61% 62% Close to average

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average

2022/23 (final) 50% 60% Close to average

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in teacher-assessed writing

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in teacher- assessed writing.

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average

2023/24 (final) 50% 58% Close to average

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in mathematics

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in mathematics.

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average

2024/25 (revised) 51% 61% Close to average

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average

2023/24 (final) 50% 59% Close to average

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average

2022/23 (final) 59% 59% Close to average

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Disadvantaged pupils' performance gap

Disadvantaged pupils are those who have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the last six years and children looked after. The school disadvantage gap is the difference between the performance of the school's disadvantaged pupils compared to the performance of all non-disadvantaged pupils nationally.

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mathematics

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics, including the disadvantaged gap.

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in reading

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in reading and the disadvantaged gap.

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in teacher-assessed writing

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in teacher- assessed writing and the disadvantaged gap.

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Disadvantaged pupils reaching the expected standard in mathematics

The percentage of disadvantaged pupils meeting the expected standard in mathematics and the disadvantaged gap.

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Overall absence

The percentage of all possible mornings and afternoons missed due to absence from school (for whatever reason, whether authorised or unauthorised) across all pupils.

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national average

2022/23 (3 term) 6.2% 5.9% Close to average

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Persistent absence

The percentage of pupils missing 10% or more of their possible mornings and afternoons.

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national average

2022/23 (3 term) 18.2% 16.2% Close to average

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Exceptional

Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other schools can learn from it.

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Strong standard

The school reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.

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Expected standard

The school is fulfilling the expected standard of education and/or care. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them.

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Needs attention

The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.

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Urgent improvement

The school needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care. services providing education and skills for children and learners of all ages, and inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people.

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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