Springside Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

The school provides a warm welcome to all pupils. Pupils are well supported by caring staff. This is particularly true for those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

Children settle quickly in the early years. They enjoy making the most of the wide range of opportunities provided to support their learning and wider development.

Established routines ensure that the school is a calm and well-ordered environment.

Pupils play and learn happily alongside each other. They are polite, respectful and well-behaved. Pupils focus on their learning during lessons.

Pupils benefit from the high focus that the school places on personal develop...ment. Pupils look forward to assemblies where they earn celebratory postcards or certificates.

Pupils learn how to keep themselves safe, fit and healthy in mind and body.

They also learn how to support others in this endeavour. For example, older pupils support younger pupils effectively in a range of roles, such as play leaders or lunchtime monitors. Similarly, 'happiness heroes' ensure that pupils' emotional and mental well-being is maintained.

The school has high expectations for pupils' academic achievement. Pupils' success in this is improving. As a result, most achieve well and are suitably prepared for their next stages of education.

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

The school's curriculum is ambitious and well organised. The curriculum has been revised in recent years to ensure that pupils build up their knowledge consistently as they progress from the Nursery Year to the end of Year 6. Pupils develop a wide range of useful knowledge, which they can recall with increasing ease.

This helps them to learn new information successfully. The development of the curriculum has also resulted in teachers managing their workload more effectively.

Teachers usually check that pupils have understood their learning before moving on to something new.

However, there is some variability in this, including for some pupils at the early stages of reading. Sometimes, teachers do not notice or address pupils' misconceptions. Occasionally, teachers do not provide the most appropriate support for pupils who find learning more difficult.

As a result, some pupils continue to find some aspects of their learning difficult. This is particularly true for writing. The legibility and fluency of some pupils' writing are hampered by incorrect letter formation.

The school's systems for checking the impact of the revised curriculum on pupils' learning are at the early stages of development. Therefore, at times, the school is not clear where it needs to focus its support to enable teachers to deliver the curriculum with the greatest effect.

Reading is central to the school's curriculum.

The reading curriculum includes a wide range of high-quality literature that captures pupils' interest and broadens their horizons.The school has recently taken decisive action to improve the delivery of its phonics programme to address the fact that some pupils have not developed a secure enough understanding of phonics in the past. As a result of this action, children in the early years get off to a flying start and apply their secure phonics knowledge with enthusiasm to begin to read and write words.

Some pupils, however, in Years 1 and 2 still do not develop fluency and accuracy in reading as well as they could. This impacts on how well they access the rest of the curriculum.

The school ensures that staff are well trained in identifying and meeting pupils' differing needs, including those with SEND.

Staff make suitable adaptations skilfully to enable all pupils to access the curriculum and wider life of the school. Pupils with SEND flourish and achieve well.

Pupils adhere willingly to the school's rules and values.

They appreciate being part of a diverse community where staff and pupils support each other. Pupils recognise that behaving responsibly at school and while accessing the locality helps to create an environment that is more pleasant for everyone. This prepares them well for making a positive contribution as a citizen of their wider community when they are older.

The school benefits from the support of the trust. Positive and professional relationships are evident between the school, the local governing body and members of the trust. The trust is supporting the school to increase its focus on accurately evaluating the quality of education pupils receive.

This is enabling the school to make greater strides forward in its work to support all pupils in achieving as well as they can.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• At times, teachers do not support pupils to build up their knowledge as well as they could.

For some pupils, this includes in reading and writing. This makes it more difficult for pupils to successfully secure new learning. The school should ensure that teachers consistently and accurately check what pupils know and can do before introducing new information.

• The school does not identify how well pupils are learning the intended curriculum in different subjects consistently well. This gets in the way of providing support to teachers where it is most needed. The school should ensure curriculum leaders are well equipped to check that pupils' learning is having the desired impact on their achievement.