St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Otley

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

This school is greatly valued by parents and carers. They appreciate the love and care that goes into helping their children to flourish. The strong Catholic ethos drives the school's ambition for every pupil to be happy and achieve well.

This includes those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Pupils, parents, staff and governors are proud to belong to the 'St Joseph's family'.

Pupils enjoy lessons.

The curriculum is broad and well designed to enthuse and inspire them. The school makes the most of the natural environment close to the school to enhance learning. Visits farther afield and visitors to school also help to bring learning to ...life.

Pupils behave well in lessons and are polite and respectful. They play happily together at breaktimes. The older pupils are 'buddies' for the younger ones.

Bullying is very rare. When it does happen, it is dealt with swiftly. Pupils feel safe.

They have trusted adults to share any problems with.

The school is ambitious for pupils' personal development. It provides a wide range of clubs for pupils to try new things.

These include arts and crafts, a range of sports, board games, choir and animal club. All pupils learn to play a range of musical instruments. Performance is a greatly enjoyed part of school life.

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

The curriculum is well established and embedded in core subjects, such as mathematics. Staff are confident in their subject knowledge. They check what pupils know and adapt the curriculum to meet pupils' needs.

Repetition and retrieval practise is built into lessons. This helps pupils to learn and remember more. Pupils apply their mathematical knowledge to problem-solving.

They use the language of mathematics to explain what they know. The school has developed some of the foundation subjects more recently. In these subjects, gaps in pupils' learning are not identified effectively.

Also, pupils do not use subject-specific vocabulary as well as they do in mathematics.

Pupils with SEND are included in everything the school has to offer. Carefully planned adaptations ensure that they are able to learn the same curriculum as their peers.

The school makes sure that pupils with SEND take part in all enrichment activities.

The enjoyment of reading is promoted at every opportunity. Reading breakfasts, bedtime stories, the 'mystery reader' and the 'vocabulary parade' all help to get pupils excited about reading.

Year 6 pupils 'buddy up' with Reception children to help them to choose and share books in the library. The school invites parents to watch phonics sessions. They receive information to enable them to help at home.

Teachers read to pupils every day. They choose texts carefully and revisit themes across year groups. This helps pupils to make connections and develop their knowledge of the world.

Children start to learn phonics from the start of Reception. The phonics scheme is ambitious. Children are soon able to read and write simple words.

Learning is revisited throughout the day, helping all children to keep up. Precisely focused interventions help those pupils in key stage 1 and key stage 2 who need to catch up. The books pupils read match the sounds they know.

This helps them to gain confidence and fluency.

The early years curriculum is ambitious. It prepares children well for future learning.

Well-planned and interesting resources enable children to explore and follow their interests. They were particularly excited by the dinosaur theme. This prompted a wide range of learning across the curriculum.

The school has a strong program of personal development. Pupils learn how to keep themselves safe and to look after their mental and physical health. Pupils know the 'Catholic virtues' very well and can relate these to British Values.

They learn about different world faiths, though some pupils' knowledge of these is patchy. The school has a strong culture of caring for others. Pupils make regular visits to local homes for the elderly.

The school council and the 'Mini Vinnies' lead fundraising activities. They support causes such as the local food bank and homelessness charities. Pupils in Year 4 and Year 6 have fun learning new skills on their residential visits to outdoor activity centres.

The school and trust have a strong, shared vision of providing a well-rounded education for every pupil. Members of the academy council make a point of getting to know pupils, parents and staff. They are a visible part of the school community.

Staff are happy to work here. They appreciate the quality of the professional development they receive.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Assessment systems are not established in the more recently developed foundation subjects. This means that gaps in pupils' learning are not identified consistently. The school should implement effective assessment systems across all subjects.

• In some foundation subjects, the school has not identified the specific vocabulary that pupils should learn. Pupils do not have the vocabulary to articulate their knowledge clearly. The school should implement its plans to identify and sequence subject-specific vocabulary in all subjects.