Walsall Muslim faith school still not meeting standards

Ofsted carried out an unannounced progress monitoring inspection at Palfrey Girls School in July and have now published their feedback.

The independent school, in Queen Mary Street, which caters for around 230 pupils was declared 'inadequate' following the last visit in October.

While the watchdog said 'clear improvements' were being made they declared that independent school standards were still 'not met'.

Read the full Ofsted report on Palfrey Girls School here

Their latest report said: "Leaders and managers have made clear improvements to the quality of education provided at the school in the nine months since the last full inspection.

"As a result of improved leadership, teaching and safeguarding measures, nearly all of the independent school standards are now met.

"The school does not yet have enough resources and some of the ones they do have are not looked after well and therefore this standard is not met.

"Although initial improvements have taken place to develop the Reception provision, further work is needed here to ensure the children in this class have full and independent access to all areas of learning for their age. As a result of not all standards being met, some leadership and management standards are not yet met."

Ofsted also declared the new headteacher has increased expectations and developed an 'ambitious' improvement plan.

While the school was deemed Inadequate in every area in October safeguarding issues were prioritised on a list of issues to be addressed.

The report said at the time: "The school's safeguarding and child protection policies do not meet current statutory requirements. As a consequence, the school's practices do not always make sure that children are safe. For example, the school does not follow rigorous and appropriate procedures when pupils are missing from school or have taken extended family holidays. In addition, school leaders have not carried out 'disqualification by association' checks on staff."

However this time round the watchdog recognised how the problems had been tackled including working with Walsall Council to ensure an up-to-date safeguarding policy was in place, monitoring pupil attendance and putting four senior staff members in place to oversee child protection.

Staff at Palfrey Girls School declined to comment, but in a letter to parents, headteacher Jane Collins said the report was 'very favourable' and highlighted the 'considerable improvement' that had been made. She expressed her gratitude to parents for their continued support.