Wild Bank Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Wild Bank School is a happy place to be. Children settle well in the early years, where they make friends easily. All pupils are welcomed by nurturing staff.

Pupils are valued as individuals. They enjoy strong relationships with each other and with adults in the school.

Pupils are starting to respond to the higher aspirations that the school has set for their learning.

However, many aspects of the curriculum have only been introduced recently. Pupils currently have gaps in their prior learning. This is preventing them from achieving as well as they should.

Pupils take part in some extra-curricular activities. These include art, construction and sport...s clubs. They proudly represent their school in competitions.

Pupils value the help that they receive to help them manage their social skills and their emotional and mental health. This includes support from the school dog, Odie, who is a key part of the Wild Bank family. Pupils behave well and have positive attitudes to their learning.

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

With the support of the trust, the school has recently developed a new curriculum, which is ambitious and meets the needs of pupils well. This curriculum is starting to help pupils to build their knowledge more securely than in the past. This is especially true for children in the early years.

This means that children are prepared well for Year 1.

The positive changes to the curriculum are relatively new. This means that the impact of the previous weaker curriculum on pupils' learning has not been fully resolved.

This is reflected in the 2023 results from the national tests and assessments. There was a considerable dip in pupils' attainment in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of key stage 2. Many pupils at the school continue to have gaps in their learning.

In a few subjects, and in all areas of learning in the early years, the key knowledge that pupils should learn has been clearly identified. However, in many subjects, the most important content that pupils in key stages 1 and 2 should learn has not been determined well enough. As a result, some key subject knowledge is not covered in enough depth to help pupils to remember it in the long term.

Staff assess children's knowledge accurately as they progress through the curriculum in the early years. This enables staff to reshape teaching to meet children's needs. As a result, children in the early years remember what they have learned.

However, the checks on pupils' knowledge in key stages 1 and 2 do not identify and address the gaps and misconceptions in pupils' prior learning. This hampers pupils' ability to connect earlier learning with new content. It also hinders their progress through the subject curriculums.

As a result, pupils do not achieve as well as they should.

The school has taken effective action to establish a suitable phonics programme. In the Nursery class, children build their knowledge of sounds well.

They start to link sounds and letters when they enter the Reception Year to read simple words and sentences. Staff typically deliver the phonics programme well. As a result, most pupils can read accurately by the end of Year 2.

However, the support for some of those pupils who do not keep pace with the phonics programme does not enable them to catch up. As a result, these pupils do not read as fluently and confidently as they should.

There are appropriate systems in place to identify pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).

However, staff are at various stages of using the information that they hold about pupils' needs to adapt their delivery of the curriculum. This means that pupils with SEND make uneven progress through the subject curriculums.

The school's work to improve pupils' conduct has been highly effective.

Pupils enjoy their learning. They are keen to do well. They work well together in lessons so that learning is rarely disrupted.

The school's arrangements to promote regular attendance at school are effective. It has a clear oversight of the barriers that prevent some pupils from attending school as often as they should. The school supports these pupils and their families well.

As a result, pupils' rates of absence have reduced over time.

The school has established a coherent programme for pupils' personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education. This ensures that pupils learn and remember some important aspects for their future lives.

For example, pupils have a strong understanding of how to maintain appropriate relationships and to respect one another's differences. The school instils a strong understanding of right and wrong and of local and global cultures. However, similar to other areas of the curriculum, some pupils find it difficult to recall their learning.

This is because some aspects of learning in the PSHE curriculum are not defined clearly enough to guide teachers on what should be taught.

Trustees are well informed about the actions that the school is taking to improve the quality of education that pupils receive. Staff have welcomed the fresh approach to the curriculum.

The actions taken to reduce teachers' workload have ensured that staff have embraced recent changes. They feel valued and they are committed to the vision that the school has set for future improvements.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• The school has not defined the essential curriculum knowledge that they want pupils to learn and remember in many subjects, including PSHE. This means that teachers are unclear about what to teach and the order in which they should teach subject content. This hampers pupils from building their knowledge securely over time.

The school should ensure that subject curriculums, and the programme for PSHE, are more specific about what pupils should learn so that teachers are better equipped to help pupils develop a secure body of knowledge. ? Teachers' checks on pupils' learning in key stages 1 and 2 are not effective enough. This means that the gaps in pupils' learning, caused by weaknesses in the previous curriculum, are not resolved.

This makes it difficult for pupils to benefit from the new curriculums. It hinders their achievement. The school should ensure that teachers have the expertise to check and then address the gaps in pupils' prior learning so that they can progress well through the subject curriculums.

• Some pupils with SEND do not receive the support that they need to access learning. This limits their chance to benefit from the new subject curriculums as well as they should. The school should ensure that teachers adapt their delivery of the curriculum more effectively so that pupils with SEND can learn all that they should.

• The support for some pupils in the early stages of learning to read does not enable them to catch up quickly enough with the phonics programme. This means that these pupils do not read words as well as they should. The school should ensure that these pupils are helped to develop their reading knowledge so that they are able to read with increasing fluency and confidence.