Manaccan Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils get along well together in this close-knit village school. They play and learn harmoniously. However, the education they receive is not yet good.

Over recent years, support and challenge for the school to improve the quality of education has been weak. Since joining Aspire Academy Trust, pupils' learning is improving significantly but there is more work to do.

Relationships between staff and pupils are warm and encouraging.

This is appreciated by parents. Pupils are respectful towards one another. This begins in the early years where children share, play and collaborate together well.

Pupils know the rules and the expectations. They understand... the consequences of the choices they make.

The school does not develop pupils' character as well as it could.

Pupils do not benefit from an overall coherence to their personal development. For example, younger pupils develop their social skills and independence. However, the school does not build on this as pupils get older.

Pupils do not have enough opportunities to take on responsibilities or experience ways of contributing to school and community life. Even so, they enjoy experiences such as sailing, museum trips and clubs. These enrich the curriculum.

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

The trust has added significant capacity to the school. Trust leaders and Hub councillors are committed to ensuring their vision for a high quality of education becomes a reality for pupils. They strategically drive the focus on curriculum and standards.

They have taken some decisive actions, are evaluating the impact of these actions and are astute in their understanding of next steps. Subject and phase experts are supporting curriculum development. This has been hampered by changes to staffing.

However, arrangements for the new academic year promise greater stability. Staff feel invested in since joining this trust. They benefit from curriculum networks and quality professional development.

In the subjects that have been the focus for development, pupils learn well. This includes children in the early years. The school has identified the key knowledge it wants pupils to learn.

This has been broken into small steps. The implementation of a sequenced curriculum in the context of the school's size, has challenges. The school has thought carefully about how key concepts can be used to deepen and secure knowledge over time.

For example, in history, pupils learn about different time periods by building knowledge about key concepts such as rituals. Nevertheless, this design needs to be applied to a number of other subjects, as well as writing, to ensure that pupils learn well across the curriculum. In addition to this, the school has yet to consider how pupils make accelerated progress to make up for their experience of a weaker curriculum.

Pupils learn to read well. The use of a sequenced phonics programme ensures this. Children in nursery enjoy learning about sounds through their play.

They build on this in Reception Year and quickly learn to segment sounds and blend them together to read and write words. Pupils read books that match the sounds they know which helps them read fluently. As a result of improved teaching, pupils are making better progress through the curriculum.

Those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) receive strong support.

The trust has worked alongside school staff to achieve an early years' environment that is fit for purpose. The school is developing the use of the space and resources to support learning, but this is in its infancy.

It is not used as a fully integral part of the curriculum provision for early years children.

Developing teachers' subject knowledge is central to the trust's vision for excellence. In some subjects, teaching is strengthened through high-quality professional development.

The school has designed its own 'blueprint' lesson structure. Pupils' learning in some subjects is stronger as a result. Some pupils with SEND do not learn as well as they could.

This is because teaching does not always adapt the curriculum closely enough to build on what they already know. Staff expertise and stability has affected the impact of this, particularly at key stage 2.

Many parents have negative views of the school.

Leaders' communication with parents has not fully engaged parents to show the accelerated, positive changes that have been made since the school joined the trust.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Some areas of the curriculum are not as developed as others.

Where this is the case, pupils do not learn as well. The trust and the school must complete its work to design a coherent, well-sequenced curriculum for pupils, including for children in the early years. ? The school has not identified clear teaching strategies that it wants pupils to learn the curriculum through.

This includes in the early years. Consequently, adults use a range of strategies, not all of which are effective. The trust and the school must develop staff's understanding of pedagogy, including the use of assessment to ensure pupils know more and remember more over time.

• A majority of parents say the school does not communicate or engage well with them. As a result, parents do not understand the improvements and developments in the school well. The trust and the school should review and improve its work with parents to restore trust and an understanding of improvements to pupils' education.

Opportunities for pupils to contribute to their school and local community are limited. Pupils do not gain a full understanding of what it means to be a responsible citizen. The trust and the school should build coherent opportunities for pupils to develop this knowledge so that they can contribute to and influence the school and local communities.