St Mark's Church of England Primary School, Eccles

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 22 March 2022

St Mark's is a happy and welcoming place. Pupils enjoy their learning and work hard in their lessons. As one parent enthused, 'My son bounces into school and comes out so happy, with lots to share about his day'. Pupils here really enjoy school life and are especially friendly and respectful towards each other. Any form of unkindness or poor behaviour is rare. Older pupils take pride in being 'guardian angels' and supporting younger children in Reception to settle into school life. Pupils feel safe in school and know that adults will listen and take action should they have any worries. Leaders have raised the level of challenge on offer across the curriculum and have high expectations of all pupils. They know that there is further work to do in some subject areas. Building on existing strengths, they have maintained a key focus upon ensuring that learning is not something that just happens in the classroom. Pupils relish the chance to enrich and deepen their learning outdoors in the school's extensive grounds. Similarly, they benefit from a rich selection of after-school clubs and participation in themed weeks such as history explorer's week, enterprise week and participation in art competitions. The curriculum helps to prepare pupils well for their future learning.

What the school should improve

• The pandemic has hindered the completion of leaders' plans to improve the curriculum in science and some foundation subjects. Here, more work needs to be done to identify and sequence the key knowledge pupils need to know and by when. Pupils' learning is therefore not fully maximised. However, it is clear from leaders' actions that they are making the necessary amendments. For this reason, the transitional arrangements have been applied. Leaders should ensure that they identify the exact content teachers need to deliver and how this knowledge will accumulate over time.
• Support for some of the weakest readers is not organised as well as it needs to be. Consequently, some pupils who struggle to gain fluency do not progress swiftly enough. Leaders need to make sure that these pupils regularly practise their reading skills using books that are precisely matched to the sounds that they know, as well as experiencing a wider range of texts.
• Leaders have implemented a variety of different systems to communicate key messages and information to parents. Some parents report that they find having different systems and portals confusing and are frustrated when they miss out on information. Leaders need to streamline their systems of communication and ensure that all parents can access the information that they need.

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