Moldgreen Community Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils feel safe and are happy to come to school.

Warm relationships are evident across all classes. From the youngest children in the early years to pupils in Year 6, pupils are taught to respect each other and play nicely together. Older pupils say, 'It's what's on the inside that counts.'

Pupils celebrate difference. Adults act as excellent role models for respectful relationships. Adults teach pupils about British values to help them to become valuable citizens in today's world.

Pupils have a very good understanding of what it means to have British values.

Everybody has high expectations of how they should behave. Pupils say that although there ...is some name-calling, and that a few pupils very occasionally disrupt learning, teachers deal with it and address any issues or concerns they have.

Pupils access a well-planned and well-taught curriculum. Pupils develop a sound understanding of complex vocabulary. They are highly articulate in explaining what something means.

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

Senior leaders, governors and the local authority have ensured that school improvement has continued, despite high absence of both staff and pupils due to COVID-19. They know exactly what still needs to be done. Governors have ensured their strategy and vision to strengthen the leadership in school have been achieved.

Staff feel well supported by the leadership team. Communication between school leaders and governors is strong. Governors receive comprehensive analysis of trends in aspects of pupil welfare and safety and in the English and mathematics curriculum.

However, governors do not challenge the information they receive around the wider curriculum. They do not assure themselves that the information they receive from the school around the foundation subjects is accurate.

All leaders have high expectations of themselves and of their colleagues.

Subject leaders know their subject well. They plan curriculums to ensure that learning is sequential so that pupils develop deeper knowledge over time. Teachers ensure that the curriculum is aspirational.

Pupils' understanding of, and recall of, learning is evident. However, middle leaders of foundation subjects do not get enough opportunities to check the effectiveness of the curriculum in their subject. Although they look at books from time to time, they rarely spend time observing and supporting other teachers, modelling teaching or speaking to pupils.

Consequently, some middle leaders do not have enough information to have a comprehensive view of how well pupils are doing in the subject they lead.

Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities are well provided for. Teachers take care of these pupils well, making sure they can access the same good-quality curriculum.

Teachers make sure targets for these pupils are as aspirational as they are for other pupils in school.

Reading is a high priority from the pre-nursery class to Year 6. A new phonic scheme has quickly and effectively been introduced by trained staff.

Daily phonic and reading sessions, alongside online stories and a welcoming, well-kept library, help instil a love of literature. Younger children are introduced to reading and phonics through regular singing, rhymes and teachers modelling good language and communication.

During the pandemic, when pupils were not in school, leaders and teachers took great care to ensure that reading remained a priority.

Daily phonic and story time sessions were made available. Online games, such as 'The Masked Reader', where pupils had to guess which teacher or pupil was reading the story, have been a great success. Some of the pupils, particularly in key stage 2, lack fluency in their reading.

Sometimes, teachers and teaching assistants do not give pupils enough opportunities to read fluently, as too often they interrupt the flow of their reading. Senior and middle leaders have already identified this, through their research projects and internal assessments, as something to address. Some strategies for pupils in Years 5 and 6 have already been introduced and are having a positive impact on pupils' reading skills.

Teachers plan activities to broaden pupils' life experiences, for example through making links with English Heritage to help pupils learn how to become historians. Pupils spoke enthusiastically about the trips they went on before the COVID-19 pandemic. Opportunities to go on these types of trips are returning once again.

Pupils can, and do, attend a wide range of clubs.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Safeguarding is a priority.

Records are comprehensive and incidents are followed up. All the appropriate recruitment checks are made before anyone starts work in the school. Staff are well trained and know the signs that may indicate a pupil is worried or suffering in some way.

They know how to report concerns and to whom. They know that concerns must be reported immediately.

Teachers make sure that pupils learn how to keep themselves safe through a well-planned personal, social and health education (PSHE) curriculum.

Pupils speak knowledgeably of how to administer basic first aid and stay safe online. A group of pupils confidently spoke of how they would recognise the signs that a friend was having an asthma attack or an anaphylactic reaction.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Some pupils, particularly those in key stage 2, lack fluency and automaticity in their reading.

Teachers and teaching assistants often interrupt the flow of pupils' reading, asking questions, for example, about diagraphs, illustrations or comprehension. Teachers and teaching assistants need training in how to support pupils in building fluency and automaticity in their reading. They need to focus clearly on the learning intention in each reading session and ensure that support and feedback to pupils is valuable and relevant to learning to decode.

• The information governors receive from leaders about the effect of the curriculum in subjects other than English and mathematics is limited. This is because middle leaders do not have a complete picture of the subject they lead, as they do not quality assure all aspects. This also makes it difficult for middle leaders to identify where colleagues may need support in improving the delivery of the curriculum.

Senior leaders need to ensure that middle leaders get appropriate opportunities to visit lessons, speak to pupils about their learning and support colleagues in the delivery of their subject. They then need to ensure this information is shared with governors so they too can support and challenge where any strengths and weaknesses may lie. Governors need to have systems in place to ensure that the information they receive about the foundation curriculum is accurate.