Nelson St Philip’s Church of England Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils, including children in the early years, are proud to attend this calm and friendly school where everyone is made to feel welcome. The school provides an environment that allows pupils to grow in confidence and learn the curriculum successfully. This ensures that pupils are prepared well for secondary school.

Pupils benefit from and appreciate the kind and caring relationships that they have with staff. If pupils do not understand something, they know that they can ask staff for help. Pupils also know that staff will listen to any worries or concerns that they may have.

Pupils said that this helps to make their school a happy place.

The school has high ...expectations for pupils' achievement and for their behaviour. Pupils live up to these expectations every day.

They are polite and respectful to each other and staff. Through their interactions with their peers, pupils demonstrate kindness and gentleness. This creates a calm and purposeful atmosphere in which pupils can learn well.

Typically, pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), achieve well across a range of subjects.

Pupils enjoy taking up the many leadership roles on offer in school. They are proud of the contribution that they make to school life.

For example, by acting as school councillors, worship ambassadors and mental health champions.

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

The school has designed a curriculum that is suitably broad, ambitious and meets the needs of pupils, including those with SEND. Across subjects, the school has identified the key knowledge that pupils should learn and the order in which this content should be taught.

The school provides high-quality training so that staff, for the most part, can deliver the curriculum effectively. Teachers use their strong subject knowledge to explain new learning clearly to pupils. Added to this, staff typically design activities to enable pupils, including children in the Reception class, to remember the intended curriculum.

For example, pupils in Year 6 completed calculations in mathematics with confidence because their earlier learning on place value was secure.

In the main, teachers design learning so that pupils can revisit important knowledge as a matter of routine. Added to this, in most subjects, teachers check that pupils' understanding of important earlier learning is secure.

However, in a small number of subjects, staff do not afford some pupils the opportunity to recap aspects of earlier learning frequently enough. On occasion, this hinders some pupils when they come to apply this knowledge to new concepts.

The school has prioritised the teaching of early reading and phonics.

This begins as soon as children join the school in the Reception Year. All staff receive appropriate training to ensure that they can deliver the phonics programme effectively. For example, staff carefully match the books that pupils read to their phonics knowledge.

Those pupils who struggle with reading are quickly identified by staff. Staff provide these pupils with bespoke support to enable them to catch up quickly.

Older pupils talked enthusiastically about the books that they had enjoyed recently, including some high-quality texts that they had borrowed from the school library.

Older pupils, in their roles as ambassadors, were keen to promote the benefits of reading to younger pupils.

The school has appropriate systems in place to ensure that pupils' additional needs are identified by staff in a timely manner. Teachers adapt how they deliver the curriculum to ensure that pupils with SEND learn well alongside their classmates.

In addition, the school ensures that pupils receive high-quality pastoral support and carefully considers the wider needs of families.

In the Reception Year, staff ensure that classroom routines are quickly established and that children know what is expected of them. As a result, children learn how to behave well and they listen attentively to adults as they learn new things.

Across the school, pupils are highly committed to succeeding in their learning. Lessons are seldom disrupted by poor behaviour.

Pupils understand that eating a healthy diet and doing regular exercise help them to look after their own physical and mental well-being.

They learn about different faiths, cultures and families. Pupils also learn about the importance of respecting each other's differences. For example, older pupils spoke knowledgeably about British values and their worth within a modern society.

Pupils are eager to take part in a wide range of after-school activities that capture their interests. The school ensures that opportunities to listen to guest speakers, visit places of interest and participate in residential trips help to enhance pupils' wider personal development.

The school considers staff's workload and well-being when making decisions about how to further improve the quality of education for pupils.

As a result, staff feel that they are listened to and they feel valued by leaders.

The school offers a range of support for parents and carers such as regular 'reading cafes'. These initiatives encourage parents to take a more active role in their children's education.

Those responsible for governance provide an appropriate level of challenge to the school. Members of the governing body are well informed about how well pupils are learning the curriculum.

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 small number of subjects, the school has not ensured that staff provide sufficient opportunities for pupils to revisit essential knowledge, including important subject-specific vocabulary. This hinders some pupils when they come to apply this knowledge to more complex tasks. The school should ensure that, in these subjects, learning is designed so that pupils can revisit the knowledge that will be most useful for future learning.