NO time has been lost in trying to improve the fortunes of a Crosland Moor primary school.
That’s the view of Ofsted’s Steve Isherwood. He carried out a follow-up inspection at Crosland Moor Junior School after it was given a ‘Requires Improvement’ (3) grade 10 weeks ago.
He said: “The school has moved on well in the weeks since the inspection, in spite of some significant disruption to staffing.
“No time has been lost – everyone is stepping up to the mark and the collective responsibility for improving the school has strengthened.
“Decisive action has been taken to improve the quality of teaching and develop the roles of middle leaders to impact more effectively on school improvement.
“Senior leaders have also focused effectively on improving provision in mathematics, with greater attention given by teachers to ensuring that tasks and activities for more able pupils are sufficiently challenging.
“Pupils can sense the improvements being made to their lessons. ‘Learning is more fun now’ and ‘we get to do more interesting things’, were typical comments.”
During his visit in May, Mr Isherwood held a meeting with the head teacher, middle leaders, governors, pupils and two Kirklees Council representatives. They looked at the school’s improvement plan, records of lesson observations and reviews of council visits. Head teacher Jane Richardson took him on a tour of the school to look at the changes being made.
He noted that two new staff appointments will be made – an assistant head teacher and a literacy teacher.
Mr Isherwood added: “The school improvement plan provides a clear direction for the school and closely matches the areas identified for improvement.”
The original Ofsted report criticised some teaching as well as pupils’ progress in reading, writing and particularly maths.
The Dryclough Road school has 432 pupils, a high proportion of whom are from minority ethnic groups.It also has above average numbers of children receiving free school meals.
