West End Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Short inspection of West End Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 25 October 2018, 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 March 2015. This school continues to be good.

The new leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Despite substantial changes in staffing over recent years, including at senior- and middle-leadership level, you have kept a constant focus on what is working well and where practice must improve. Staff feel positive about the changes that have ...been implemented to bring about improvement.

Your effective staff induction arrangements ensure a smooth transition resulting in consistency for pupils, for example in the way all teachers manage pupils' good behaviour. Parents also appreciate the changes you have introduced, including to the grounds and site security. As one parent said, 'the current leadership team is breathing new life into the school, and it has been fantastic to see the improvements made over the last year or so'.

Many parents comment on the fact that you are so approachable and deal swiftly with any concerns they raise. Your strong leadership has ensured that new staff have settled quickly, and the quality of teaching remains good. You and your leadership team are ambitious for improvement.

The recently appointed chair of governors is undertaking nationally recognised leadership training. The board has recruited new governors to fill skills gaps that were identified in their recent audit. Governors have recently increased their visits to the school and formalised the reporting of these visits to the board.

Procedures for holding leaders to account have recently been strengthened. During the last inspection, it was noted that teachers did not always have high enough expectations of pupils' handwriting and presentation. You and your staff have successfully addressed this by setting consistently high expectations, agreed by all staff, and sticking to them relentlessly.

Expectations are shared with pupils, who write a best example at the start of their books to remind them of their neatest work. You have monitored this to ensure that all staff and pupils are adhering to the new policy. Pupils now take pride in their work.

Even the youngest pupils are developing neat, joined handwriting. A minority of girls were not making strong enough progress in mathematics at the time of the last inspection. This is still the case.

The gap is most significant at the higher standard. You have rightly identified this as a priority for improvement for the current academic year. While this is still the case at the higher standard, the difference in the outcomes of boys and girls has narrowed at the expected standard.

Leaders have achieved this by ensuring that teachers clarify pupils' misconceptions. Your investment in new mathematics resources and the increased training opportunities provided for staff have already had an impact by improving the quality of mathematics teaching and learning. At the time of the last inspection, inspectors identified that senior and middle leaders did not always check sufficiently on the quality of pupils' work.

I looked at your current monitoring records to see if this has been addressed. I could see clear evidence of improvement, including more frequent time for middle leaders to undertake this task. We worked together to evaluate the rate of progress that all pupils are making now, including across the wider curriculum.

Generally, we found current pupils to be making good progress across the broad and balanced curriculum you offer. Safeguarding is effective. The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding systems are fit for purpose.

You are thorough in your risk assessments and constantly adapt your practice to reflect any emerging concerns or issues. For example, after an external health and safety audit you promptly acted on the findings and strengthened the safety of the school site. Parents told me that they welcome the new electronic gate that limits pedestrian access to the site.

The newly appointed safeguarding governor told me how she holds leaders to account, for example by checking that those staff who are absent catch up with safeguarding training. All staff know how to raise concerns about child protection. Leaders respond in a timely manner to ensure pupils get the extra help they need.

Leaders work well with external partners to ensure pupils get additional support. Your introduction of a new electronic system for staff to report their concerns has ensured a robust audit trail of your swift actions in response. Pupils could explain with confidence how they stay safe online.

Pupils say they are happy and feel safe in school. Inspection findings ? Pupils' progress in key stage 1 has been inconsistent over recent years, but is improving. We saw evidence of stronger progress since September this year in many key stage 1 pupils' books.

We agreed that pupils' books showed that teachers have high expectations of children's writing in Reception. Children's high starting points on leaving the early years are built upon effectively in Year 1 so that the standard of writing is high throughout key stage 1. Pupils in Year 1 could confidently explain to me the digraphs they are learning and give examples of other digraphs and trigraphs that make the same sound.

Pupils in Year 2 have a good understanding of place value and they articulate good mental mathematics skills. Pupils use and apply their knowledge and skills to mathematical problem-solving, and they have good attitudes to their learning. Together, we noted that the work set in mathematics lessons sometimes lacks sufficient challenge for pupils of all abilities, preventing an even faster rate of progress for some pupils.

• Your monitoring records show that inducting, supporting and developing recently appointed staff have been priorities this term. This has ensured that successful school policies and procedures are embedded and used consistently by all teachers. You have rightly spent time supporting and coaching recently appointed leaders who are new to their roles.

You recognise that it is now time to sharpen the focus of your monitoring schedule, targeting your leadership time on achieving specific pupil-progress priorities, such as your drive to secure an increased proportion of pupils attaining at the higher standard. ? The progress of pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities is variable. You have trained your own staff to give extra help to the minority of children and pupils who have speech and language needs.

Governors are fully supportive of your investment in visiting specialists, who support pupils' mental health needs. ? Most teachers know their pupils well and differentiate their teaching effectively to meet the range of needs and abilities in their class. Lower-attaining pupils are often well supported by very skilful teaching assistants.

For example, I saw a teaching assistant working very effectively in a key stage 1 class. Her use of precise mathematical vocabulary and tangible objects, working at a suitably steady pace, helped the pupil build confidence and develop a more secure understanding of mathematical place value. ? When learning to read, lower-attaining pupils and those who have SEN and/or disabilities are not making consistently strong progress.

These pupils do not practise their reading frequently enough, and the reading books used in key stage 1 are not matched well enough to pupils' phonics knowledge. Pupils are given books that include sounds that they do not know and have not learned. This undermines pupils' fluency and their confidence to read.

• The wider curriculum offers breadth and balance. A highly skilful subject specialist teaches music to whole classes and smaller groups in key stages 1 and 2. We observed a first recorder lesson for a whole Year 2 class where expectations for handling instruments were established and pupils learned how to play some notes.

Additional peripatetic musicians offer personalised tuition and after-school clubs, including a keyboard club. Pupils speak with pride about their school orchestra. Pupils are encouraged to run the daily mile, and the popular skipping club is enjoyed by girls and boys alike.

The curriculum is further enhanced by visitors linked to topic work, and the impact of this can be seen in high-quality written work. History topics provide ideas for writing in key stage 2 pupils' English work. This supports pupils' practising core skills using knowledge that they have learned in, and interest sparked by, other parts of the curriculum.

For example, I saw pupils writing instructions on how to make a mummy, including the first line, 'Make sure he's really dead, first'. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: ? teachers' expectations are sufficiently high to ensure that all pupils, especially those who have SEN and/or disabilities and the most able pupils, are effectively challenged to reach their full potential ? pupils' have greater opportunities to practise their reading, using reading books that are carefully matched to the sounds that they know and are learning, so that they develop into confident and fluent readers. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children's services for Leeds.

This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Tracey Ralph Her Majesty's Inspector Information about the inspection During the inspection you, or your deputy headteacher, and I observed lessons together in all year groups. Pupils' work from Year 1 to Year 6 was scrutinised alongside senior leaders.

Meetings were held with you, the deputy headteacher, the special educational needs coordinator, four governors including the chair, teaching assistants and administrative staff. Various documents were evaluated, including the school improvement plan, the school's self-evaluation document, governors' meeting minutes, safeguarding documents and the school's monitoring records. I met with pupils in lessons and in the dining room.

I also listened to several pupils read. The responses to Ofsted's questionnaires from 17 staff and 67 pupils were considered. The 63 responses to Ofsted's questionnaire, Parent View, were also taken into account, along with comments made personally to me by several parents bringing their children to school at the start of the day.

Also at this postcode