St Richard’s Catholic Primary School, Skelmersdale

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

St Richard's Catholic Primary School is a calm and welcoming place. Pupils enjoy learning and spending their social time together.

They learn how to be patient and kind. Pupils develop positive relationships with each other and with staff. They are keen to make the most of the wide range of opportunities that are on offer at school.

Pupils are proud of their many leadership roles. They carry these out with enthusiasm. For example, older pupils act as buddies and prefects at lunchtimes for younger pupils.

Some pupils organise clubs and other activities for the rest of the school and the wider community, such as 'star' bakers, Minnie Vinnies and clubs that refl...ect pupils' interests.

The school has high expectations of all pupils. Staff understand pupils' differing needs and provide carefully tailored support to help them overcome any difficulties that they might face.

This is particularly true for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). As a result, pupils grow in confidence as they progress through the school. Most achieve well.

Most pupils focus well during lessons. Those who struggle to constantly meet the schools' high standards of behaviour value the support and encouragement they receive. Pupils are polite and considerate as they move around the school.

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

The curriculum is ambitious and well organised. Since the previous inspection, the school has focused on ensuring that the curriculum defines what all pupils need to learn to be ready for their next stages of education. As a result, teachers from the Nursery Year to Year 6 know precisely what to focus on with their classes.

Teaching staff are well trained. They use effective and consistent approaches when delivering the curriculum. For example, teachers provide pupils with regular opportunities to practise and recall their prior learning.

Established routines such as these help pupils to build up their knowledge more effectively.

Most subject curriculums are well established and support pupils' achievement. However, in a small number of subjects, revised curriculums have only recently been implemented.

In these areas, it is too soon to see how effectively pupils are building up their knowledge.

In a minority of subjects, teachers do not check carefully enough that all pupils have learned what they need to. This sometimes includes pupils who are at the early stages of learning to read.

When this happens, some pupils' learning is not as secure as it could be.

Reading is a high priority at the school. Teachers make sure that children quickly become familiar with the relationship between sounds and letters in the early years.

The songs, rhymes and stories that staff share with children in both the Nursery and Reception Years provide a firm foundation for this. Pupils enjoy times when they can read books that they have chosen themselves. They appreciate and make good use of the well-stocked and enticing library areas in the school.

Children begin to learn how to read words using phonics in the Reception Year. The school ensures that pupils practise the sounds that they have learned with books that contain them. Pupils who struggle with reading benefit from regular additional support from skilled staff.

Most pupils can read accurately and fluently by the end of key stage 1. This helps them to access the rest of the curriculum.

The school makes sure that all staff are well trained to accurately identify pupils who may have SEND.

As a result, teachers choose suitable and effective approaches for these pupils' learning. Pupils with SEND achieve well because they benefit from the ambitious curriculum that the school provides.

Most pupils typically demonstrate positive attitudes to school and to their learning.

Most pupils attend regularly. This helps them to achieve as well as they can. The school provides effective support for families where attendance is a concern.

The school provides a wide range of high-quality opportunities for pupils' personal development. Pupils benefit from learning about how to keep physically and mentally well. They also learn about developing healthy and positive relationships.

Pupils develop confidence in expressing their own opinion and respecting the views of others. Their learning in this area prepares them well for later life.

The school is a harmonious community.

Governors provide effective support and challenge to the school to ensure that all pupils receive the support that they need to achieve as well as they can. Governors ensure that staff workload is not compromised when new initiatives are introduced.

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, including reading, there is variability in the rigour in which the school identifies and addresses gaps in pupils' knowledge. This means that at times, some pupils do not build up their knowledge as quickly or as well as they could. The school should ensure that teachers support all pupils to build up a secure body of knowledge across the curriculum.

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