Netherton Moss Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 28 January 2025

Pupils enjoy being part of this welcoming school community. Caring staff provide effective support and encouragement to pupils. Pupils particularly value the strategies that they learn to effectively manage their emotions and remain calm. They recognise how this helps them to be ready to focus and listen to their teachers. Pupils develop positive and respectful relationships with adults and with each other. They are keen to support others. This includes carrying out ambassador roles, such as helping to look after the school library. Pupils behave well during lessons and as they move around the school. They play together happily on the playground. Older pupils describe proudly the many dramatic performances that they have taken part in while at school. They enjoy dancing, singing, acting and providing backstage support. Activities such as these help pupils to develop self-confidence. They also broaden pupils' awareness of leisure opportunities available to them beyond the school gates. The school has high aspiration for pupils' academic success. However, pupils do not achieve as well as they should. This is because the school does not ensure that pupils build up their knowledge as well as possible in some aspects of the curriculum.

What the school should improve

• The school has not ensured that the curriculum is organised sufficiently well or implemented effectively in several subjects, including in writing. This inhibits pupils from building up a secure body of knowledge across the curriculum. The school should ensure that the curriculum is sequenced logically and consistently across all subjects and that teachers implement this with greater success.
• The school's systems and procedures to improve pupils' attendance are unclear and lack rigour. They do not bring about the required improvement needed to help pupils to attend and achieve as well as they should. The school should review and strengthen how it ensures that pupils attend regularly and on time.
• The school does not ensure that teachers identify and address gaps in pupils' knowledge sufficiently well. As a result, some pupils, especially those who do not attend school regularly, struggle to make sense of new information. The school should make sure that pupils have the prior knowledge that they need to enable them to learn the school's curriculum successfully.
• In the early years, the intended learning is not as clear in elements of the wider curriculum as it is in reading and mathematics. This means that, at times, children's knowledge is not extended and deepened as fully as it should be. The school should ensure that the intended learning is clearly identified so that staff know what to focus on as they interact with children across the provision.

Read the full Ofsted report (opens in a new tab)