Mottram CofE Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school. Pupils, parents and staff believe the school provides children with a good education. As one pupil commented, `We are like one big happy family.'

At the start of Reception, children's development and skills are typical for four-and-five-year-olds. They make good progress across the school and attain above-average standards, particularly in English, by the time they move onto high school. Standards in other subjects such as art, music, physical education (PE) and history are also above average.

Teaching is mostly good. Teachers check on pupils' learning throughout the lesson and ask questions or adapt their teaching to guide pupils to ma...ke progress. Pupils know what they need to do to improve their work.

As one pupil commented, `Most people behave well most of the time, there is just one or two that don't.' Staff and pupils agreed that pupils feel safe, are polite, friendly and a credit to the school. Senior leaders have taken effective action to improve attendance, the quality of marking and the teaching of mathematics.

Governors have a good understanding of teaching, the performance of the school and of pupils' achievement. Their challenge has led to improvements in attendance and in teaching. The curriculum is well-designed and is effective.

It is a strength of the school as is the method of assessing pupils' standards in each subject. It is not yet an outstanding school because : When groups are taught by some teaching assistants, a few pupils make less progress. This is because teaching is not always engaging and pupils are not always asked questions that make them think or make progress.

In Reception, children do not make as much progress in activities when the teacher is not there. By the end of Year 1 more pupils should attain the expected level of reading for their age. Pupils identified there is occasionally name-calling and teasing; good behaviour and language is not always modelled by all adults.

Although teachers who lead subjects check on the quality of teaching and pupils' work, this needs to be developed further so that they lead improvements in teaching.

Information about this school

This is much smaller than the average-sized primary school and most pupils are White British. Very few pupils leave or arrive at school part way through their education.

Pupil premium is a grant of money from the government to support pupils who are from families who work in the armed forces; those who are in care and looked after by the local authority, and those who are known to be eligible to receive free school meals. The proportion of pupil premium pupils in the school is much lower than the national average. Compared to the national average few pupils have special educational needs so the proportion determined by the school to be at 'School Action' is far fewer than the national average as is the proportion that receive outside teaching and support because they are 'School Action Plus'.

There are no pupils with a disability. The school has in the last two years met the government's floor standards (this is the minimum standards and progress expected of pupils). A small number of pupils are educated off-site for an afternoon a week at Dyslexia Action in Wilmslow Manchester.