Birstall primary schools rated ‘good’

HIGHCLIFFE PRIMARY school and Riverside primary school have both been graded ‘good’, following a visit by Ofsted inspectors.

Highcliffe Primary was visited by a team of Ofsted inspectors for a two-day visit in October.

Having been graded a ‘good’ school in 2017, the school has retained this grading.

The Highcliffe Ofsted report recognised:

A strong school community where relationships between the adults and children at the school are enormously positive and based on ‘mutual respect’.

Children are safe and understand how to keep themselves safe; they saw that if any child is worried or concerned, there are robust systems in place for them to report this and receive support.

Children who attend Highcliffe are happy and polite, respectful, and a ‘credit to the school’.

Leaders’ high expectations of all children was evident, and that the children shared in this vision knowing that if they work hard, they will do well, and this will help them to achieve their ‘big dreams’.

The curriculum as being effectively designed to meet the needs of all children, including for children with special educational needs or disabilities.

The school’s passion for reading was evident, as was the skilful teaching of mathematics.

The report found that to improve, the school needed to make small changes to the way curriculum plans are prepared to avoid inconsistencies. It also found that some adults who read with pupils do not provide effective support. Not all staff revise pupils’ phonic knowledge or develop their inference skills in a meaningful way. Leaders should ensure that expectations of how staff support pupils as they read are consistently successful in enabling pupils to read with improved fluency and comprehension.

Executive Principal, Chelsea Williams said: “We are incredibly proud of all of our children and staff at Highcliffe.

There are so many positive aspects to the inspection report and we’re quite simply delighted to have had this acknowledgement of the good work we do while educating young people in the local community.”

Riverside school was visited by inspectors in November 2022, and it also retained its rating as ‘good’.

Inspectors found that:

Riverside Primary School is a warm and welcoming place.

Pupils are polite and are proud of their school. They said that they would ‘definitely’ recommend the school to another child. Parents said the same.

Leaders are ambitious for all pupils. Staff make sure that all pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), receive the support they need to flourish and achieve well.

The school is calm and orderly. Pupils’ behaviour is positive in lessons and around the school site. Pupils say that bullying is rare. They trust staff to resolve incidents quickly.

Pupils respect differences between people. Pupils commented: ‘Teachers teach us not only to read and write, but that everyone is equal, even if they are different.’

Teachers have strong subject knowledge. They explain tasks clearly and use appropriate resources. In lessons, teachers use assessment frequently to check how well pupils have understood and remembered new learning.

The provision for pupils with SEND is a strength. Pupils with SEND thrive in this school.

The classrooms are calm and well organised.

Staff are proud to work at this school. The staff are a happy team. They say they are well supported by leaders and the trust.

To improve the report found that:

Leaders have not implemented a clear assessment and feedback policy across all subjects. In some subject areas, pupils’ misconceptions are not always identified, which means that pupils do not learn as well as they should. Leaders should ensure that the curriculum and assessment policy is implemented consistently well throughout the school.

Executive Principal, Chelsea Williams, said: “The inspector was able to recognise the huge strengths within the school, and they describe this in their final report. The leaders’ ambition for all children to achieve their best permeates around our warm and welcoming school.

“The inspector was able to see how respectful of difference we are at Riverside, that we are committed to our diver- sity work and the incredible impact this is having on our children. As always, there will be areas for us to improve and the one area that was identified links to our continued development of the foundation subjects and our assessment of some of them to ensure that our children are building strong knowledge banks as they move through school. This is an area we have already started working on and will continue to be a key focus in the coming months. Finally, I would like to again reiterate how immensely proud we are of our children, our staff and our school.”