Rock Ferry Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

This is a good school. The high quality of the care, guidance and support pupils receive contributes very significantly to their good overall academic progress and their good personal development. Highly effective safeguarding procedures ensure that pupils feel extremely safe.

The vast majority of parents and carers are very positive about all aspects of the school's work, especially about how well their children are looked after. Very many children enter the Nursery classes with skills that are extremely low compared to those expected for their age. Despite pupils' good overall progress and their rising standards, their attainment in English and mathematics is still low when compared nationally by th...e time they leave Year 6.

Extremely effective provision for the high proportion of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities, and for those who speak English as an additional language, results in these groups making exceptional progress from their starting points. The overall good quality of teaching and a relevant and stimulating curriculum contribute well to pupils' good achievement both academically and personally. Teaching and the curriculum are particularly effective in providing those pupils who lack some self-belief with the confidence to face any difficulties they might have with their work or in their personal circumstances.

The headteacher and senior leaders are effective in driving improvement and ensuring that the staff share their vision to raise pupils' attainment. They rigorously evaluate the school's performance, which enables them to accurately assess what needs further improvement and what is working well. The school is highly effective in ensuring equality of opportunity and that no discrimination of any kind is tolerated.

All leaders and managers recognise that more work needs to be done to raise attainment further and to raise the overall quality of teaching from good to outstanding. The good record of improvement since the previous inspection, together with senior leaders' pragmatic and accurate self-evaluation, indicates that the school has a good capacity to sustain further improvement.

Information about the school

Rock Ferry is larger than average in size for a primary school.

Most pupils are from White British backgrounds but with a currently average proportion of pupils from minority-ethnic groups. The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is average. Nearly 70% of pupils are known to be eligible for a free school meal, which is well above national figures.

The school houses a resourced provision for up to 12 pupils who have moderate learning difficulties. All of these pupils are on the school roll and have a statement of special educational needs, thus making the proportion of pupils who come into this category much higher than average. There are 12 looked after children in school.

At over one third, the overall proportion of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities is high. The number of pupils who leave or join the school other than at normal times is also much higher than that found nationally. The school shares it site with a children's centre.

There is a breakfast club run by the governing body. The school has been awarded the Basic Skills Quality Mark. There has been a recent change in the structure of the senior leadership team, with two assistant headteachers appointed on the retirement of the long-serving deputy headteacher.

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