Great Meols Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are happy and enjoy attending Great Meols Primary School. They said that the school is a great place to be and they love spending time with their friends. Pupils understand and follow the school's values of compassion and teamwork well.

They are respectful of each other and of the adults who are there to support them.

Pupils behave well in lessons and at playtimes. They follow the school rules.

Pupils appreciate the positive praise and rewards that they receive for making the right choices. They particularly enjoy parents and carers coming to weekly assemblies to celebrate and join in their success.

The trust and the school have high expectati...ons of all pupils' learning.

This includes those pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Pupils try their best. They typically achieve well.

Year 6 pupils are well prepared for their secondary education.

Pupils benefit from a range of opportunities that promote their wider development, such as trips, clubs and visitors to the school. Pupils learn about the importance of looking after their emotional and mental well-being.

They carry out positions of responsibility diligently, such as being 'super kind change-makers' or play leaders for those children in the early years.

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

Children in the early years receive the best possible start to their education. The exceedingly well-ordered early years curriculum sets out the specific knowledge that children must learn.

Adults, who are highly trained, deliver the curriculum with skill. They interact exceptionally well with children. For example, adults question, support and draw out the specific learning that children must know and remember.

Children show high levels of concentration and perseverance in the activities that are designed for them. This prepares children remarkably well for Year 1 and beyond.

The trust and the school have worked well together to revise much of the curriculum from early years through to Year 6.

Overall, they have ensured that the curriculum is well organised and that it enables children, and pupils, across school to build up their knowledge in a logical order. Staff have a secure subject knowledge. They skilfully check that pupils have retained key subject concepts in their long-term memory before delivering any new knowledge.

In one or two subjects, however, the curriculum does not fully identify the essential knowledge that pupils need to know. From time to time, this prevents some pupils from acquiring the depth of knowledge of which they are capable. Furthermore, some teachers do not ensure that pupils apply their knowledge of spellings and grammar consistently well across subjects.

This prevents some pupils from achieving as highly as they should across the wider curriculum.

Reading is carefully woven throughout the curriculum. Adults successfully encourage pupils to develop a love of reading across school.

Pupils read widely and often. This exposure to high-quality literature is pivotal in extending pupils' vocabulary.

In the Nursery class, children enjoy listening to different rhymes and songs.

Children begin to learn sounds through the structured phonics programme in the Reception Year. Staff are well trained to teach the phonics scheme. As a result, adults model the phonics sounds that pupils learn in lessons consistently well.

Pupils read books that match the sounds that they know. Consequently, many pupils read with increasing fluency and accuracy by the end of Year 2.

The school utilises the expertise from across the trust to support and develop the quality of education of pupils with SEND.

Leaders, including from the trust, ensure that staff are well trained in the identification of pupils with additional needs. Most pupils with SEND do learn alongside their classmates. However, a small number of pupils receive a bespoke curriculum that fully meets their learning needs.

The school has a clear rationale for why this is in the best interests of those pupils. They have carefully thought through how and when those pupils will return to studying the full curriculum.

The school fosters pupils' talents and interests well.

Pupils enjoy a vast array of clubs on offer and they take part in competitive sporting tournaments. They have the opportunity to perform with the school choir or take part in an end-of-year school production. Pupils embrace differences in society.

They learn about wider faiths and cultures. Pupils are taught how to keep themselves safe, with a particular focus on water and rail safety, which are crucial due to the school's location.

Governors and trustees have a thorough understanding of the school and they perform their statutory and delegated duties well.

Staff are overwhelmingly positive about the benefits of being in the trust and how this supports their well-being and workload. They appreciate the well-being committee, which is accessible to all staff. Staff benefit from the collaborative working culture fostered by the trust and school leaders.

They recognise the positive impact this has on their workload.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• In one or two subjects, the school has not pinpointed the fundamental knowledge that pupils should learn.

In these subjects, some pupils do not learn to the depth that they could. The school should finalise its curriculum thinking in these remaining subjects. This is so that pupils build a more detailed understanding of subject topics and concepts.

Sometimes staff do not ensure that pupils apply their knowledge of spelling, punctuation and grammar across the wider curriculum. As a result, some pupils do not achieve as highly as they could. The school should ensure that staff support pupils to deepen their knowledge, skills and understanding of spelling, punctuation and grammar across all subjects.