West Rise Junior School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

This is a caring school where staff and leaders know every pupil. Relationships are warm and nurturing. Pupils know that they can always speak to someone from the well-being team if they need support.

Pupils learn about their rights and responsibilities and the importance of respect and kindness. Most pupils behave sensibly and work with positive attitudes. They are happy here, and like attending this welcoming school.

Pupils appreciate the rich variety of outdoor learning experiences on offer. This includes opportunities to connect with the natural environment, including the local marshland. Through these experiences, pupils learn about the diversity of local wildlif...e.

They also learn to respect and look after the world around them.

Pupils are encouraged to be active citizens and to take up responsibilities. The school council is a valued 'voice' in the school community.

Through this, pupils contribute to decision-making. Recently, this has included creating the names and emblems for the 'communities' in the school.

Leaders aspire for pupils to learn an engaging curriculum and to achieve well.

However, while pupils experience an interesting curriculum, they are not achieving well enough. This is reflected in the outcomes for pupils, including in reading and mathematics, in 2022.

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

Since the previous inspection, there has been a decline in standards and the quality of education.

The school has also been through a difficult period and experienced some turbulence in leadership and staffing. Additionally, governors have not maintained strong enough oversight of aspects of the school or held leaders to account sufficiently well. The acting headteacher has worked tirelessly to 'steady the ship' and has ensured that the school community has remained 'connected'.

Staff enjoy working at the school and feel supported.

Leaders' recent work to strengthen mathematics has been successful. Consequently, achievement is improving.

In this subject, leaders have identified and sequenced, step by step, the knowledge that pupils need to learn. However, the curriculum in most other subjects is not so well defined. In many subjects, leaders have not been precise enough about the knowledge pupils need to acquire 'en route' to the school's curriculum goals.

Consequently, staff do not have clear enough guidance about what to teach and assess, and pupils' knowledge is not secure.

Leaders have reinvigorated the school's wider reading curriculum and promote a love of reading. Many pupils are keen to read, and make use of the attractive school library.

High-quality texts form the foundation of the English curriculum, which supports pupils' wider reading knowledge. However, the support for pupils who are still at an early stage of learning to read is not fully effective. This is because the programme is not tailored precisely enough around pupils' knowledge gaps.

As a result, some pupils are not catching up quickly enough and do not enjoy reading.

Teachers make sure that pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) have access to the full curriculum offer. Pupils' additional needs are quickly identified and understood, and they are supported well in class.

Some pupils with SEND receive effective nurturing support in the 'learning lodge'. This supports them to successfully access education with their peers in class.

Assessment processes are not fully in place.

Teachers do not check well enough what pupils have learned and remembered in all subjects. Staff do not systematically identify or address weaknesses in pupils' learning. As a result, gaps in some pupils' knowledge become barriers to their learning.

This is particularly so for pupils with low prior attainment.

Behaviour is calm and orderly, and there is a positive, respectful ethos in the school. Pupils enjoy school; however, some do not attend regularly.

Persistent absence remains stubbornly high for pupils with SEND and disadvantaged pupils. Leaders are rightly maintaining a sharp focus on improving attendance.

Pupils' personal development is enhanced through a wide range of enrichment, sporting and artistic activities.

They also benefit from a well-planned curriculum for personal, social and health education. The school council elections enable pupils to learn about democratic processes.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Leaders have ensured that staff receive regular, timely training to enable them to fulfil their safeguarding responsibilities. There is a strong culture of care that runs through the school. Pupils learn about safeguarding risks and how to stay safe.

Leaders ensure that, when needed, families receive timely early help. This includes connecting parents with local community support services. However, while safeguarding is effective, some aspects of safeguarding practice need tightening up.

Leaders do not always connect new concerns well enough with information they already hold about pupils. Sometimes, they are not sufficiently 'professionally curious' about emerging concerns.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Until recently, leaders have not acted quickly enough to address weaknesses in the curriculum.

As a result, pupils are not benefiting from a good-quality education or achieving well enough. Leaders need to ensure that recent improvements to core subjects are embedded fully. They also need to refine their curriculum thinking in other subjects and ensure that they identify with precision the component knowledge that pupils need to learn and remember.

• In many subjects, teachers' checks on how well pupils are learning are not precise enough. Learning gaps are not addressed well enough, and errors and weaknesses become embedded, particularly for pupils with low prior attainment. This limits pupils' achievement.

Leaders need to ensure that assessment processes are used consistently well so that learning builds more effectively on what pupils know and can do. They need to make sure that staff more systematically address gaps and weaknesses in pupils' knowledge. ? The reading programme and support for pupils at an early stage of learning to read are not fully effective.

This means that some pupils are not catching up quickly enough, and some lose interest and do not enjoy reading. Leaders need to strengthen the reading programme for these pupils to ensure that this is targeted more precisely on the specific gaps in pupils' knowledge. ? Leaders do not always connect new information with previous safeguarding concerns about pupils well enough.

Sometimes, they have not exercised sufficient professional curiosity. As a result, safeguarding arrangements are not as robust as they could be. Leaders need to take action to tighten up these aspects of their safeguarding arrangements.

• Governors have not maintained strong enough oversight of some aspects of the school. Consequently, they do not have the information they need to hold leaders to account fully. Governors need to implement stronger systems so that they have a better understanding of the school's work, hold leaders to account and more effectively fulfil their responsibilities.

Also at this postcode