Didsbury Road Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are happy to come to school each day. They champion one another and recognise each other's strengths.

This contributes to an environment where success is celebrated and rewarded. Consequently, pupils are eager to succeed and to try their best. The school has the highest expectations for pupils' achievement.

Typically, pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), achieve well across the curriculum.

Pupils' behaviour is exemplary. They fully embrace the school's '3Bs' rules, to be kind, be respectful, be our best.

As soon as they join the Nursery class, children are taught how to follow the school's behaviou...r routines. They are rewarded when they do so successfully. For instance, pupils enjoy receiving a kindness award.

Staff and pupils enjoy positive relationships with each other.

The school's meticulously designed 'My Didsbury Road Journey' provides a vast array of opportunities that prepare pupils exceptionally well for their future lives. Pupils recognise this.

For example, they spoke keenly about how their independence is developed through the different residential trips. The school also offers a myriad of roles of responsibility which allow pupils to contribute positively to their school community. For instance, house captains remind pupils how to move about sensibly in the school corridors.

Playground leaders and infant helpers escort younger pupils to the dining room, lead games and help them in the classroom.

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

The school has designed a broad and ambitious curriculum that is logically ordered from early years to year 6. In the main, teachers know what curriculum content to teach to pupils and when it should be taught.

However, in a small number of subjects, the curriculum needs refining. This is because the key knowledge that pupils should remember over time has not been identified. This makes it difficult for teachers to emphasise the key knowledge when they revisit and check pupils' learning in these subjects.

As a result, a small number of pupils are not able to connect new ideas with previous learning.

Teachers swiftly identify any additional needs that pupils may have. There has been investment in training about how to support pupils with SEND.

This training has helped teachers to adapt the delivery of curriculum content effectively. Typically, teachers deliver new learning well. There is a sharp focus on developing vocabulary which helps pupils to articulate their learning clearly.

Reading is integral to all that the school does. Pupils enjoy it. The school has ensured that pupils have access to and enjoy high-quality texts.

Children in the Nursery class enjoy listening to familiar tales and recounting nursery rhymes. The school has recently changed its approach to teaching reading to ensure that all pupils can access ambitious texts. Pupils read with confidence and understanding.

Last year, the school introduced a new phonics programme which is still being embedded. In phonics lessons, some teachers do not check that pupils have secured their understanding of some sounds before moving on to new ones. This hinders a minority of pupils from building on their phonics knowledge successfully.

Similarly, in some other parts of the curriculum, assessment strategies are not used well enough to identify and address any gaps in learning that pupils have. Pupils who struggle with reading receive effective support to help them to catch up.

Clear routines from the start of early years, along with a strong understanding of the school's values, help pupils to behave exceedingly well.

They attend school regularly. Pupils are highly enthusiastic in lessons and eager to participate. They respond swiftly to instructions.

Pupils' learning is undisrupted. In the early years, children learn how to patiently wait for their turn on the climbing frame. Pupils' conduct embodies the caring atmosphere of the school.

The school places much value on promoting pupils' personal development and this is a real strength of the school. Pupils are provided with a wide range of exciting opportunities that enhance the curriculum, such as visits to a local church and a river. They have a well-formed understanding of British values.

Pupils see these lived out in school. For example, children in the Reception class vote for which book to read. Pupils have a strong voice within the school.

For instance, the reading council was instrumental in organising new reading sheds to be installed in the playground. Pupils are accepting of one another and appreciate that 'everyone is different'. The school nurtures pupils' talents and interests to an exemplary level.

Pupils enjoy performing in concerts and assemblies. They blossom into confident individuals who are ready for their lives beyond school.

The governing body knows the school well.

It provides effective support and challenge to the school in terms of improvement priorities. The school has made changes to its marking and feedback policy which has reduced staff workload and has improved feedback to pupils.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• In a minority of subjects, the school is still refining the key knowledge that pupils need to know and remember over time. This means that, in these subjects, some pupils do not build on their prior learning as well as they should. The school should ensure that it clearly identifies the most essential knowledge that pupils need to learn so that teachers can emphasise this when revisiting and consolidating pupils' prior knowledge.

At times, the school's assessment strategies do not check that pupils have learned the most important parts of the curriculum, including phonics. This means that some pupils develop gaps in their learning or reading knowledge without teachers knowing. The school should ensure that its assessment methods support teachers to check that pupils' knowledge is secure before moving on.

Also at this postcode