You and the leadership team have maintained the good quality of education since the last inspection. You and the staff are highly motivated to make a difference to pupils’ and families’ lives in the local community. It is clear that you are all highly committed and that morale is high. Relationships between staff and between staff and pupils are positive, warm and friendly and are underpinned by a steely determination that pupils can ‘be the best they can be’. You have successfully invested in widening pupils’ experiences in the curriculum through special days and weeks, through trips and visitors to the school to which they would not usually have access. The school was asked, in May 2013, to improve the quality of teaching, pupils’ writing and leaders’ use of assessment information. You and other leaders have a thorough, accurate and detailed knowledge of the attainment and progress of pupils through very good use of assessment information in every national curriculum subject. The quality of pupils’ writing has improved, particularly for the most able, and the progress they make in key stage 2 has accelerated every year for the last three years. In 2016, pupils’ progress was much faster than the national average. The next step for the school is to make sure that in key stage 1 pupils make faster progress. Pupils’ writing in Years 1 and 2, in subjects such as history, geography, science and religious education (RE), is not as good as it is in their English work. You have also made improvements to teaching, particularly in writing, because of significant investment in staff training including for teaching assistants. The next step is to increase the impact of teaching in the early years on boys’ writing as well as on their overall skills and development. Safeguarding is effective. You and the staff have established a culture of vigilance in the school. Very good computer-based systems are in place to gather information together from pupils’ behaviour, absences and from staff concerns to gain a full picture of pupils’ needs. This information is used very positively by staff to individualise the support and guidance for individual families. You have ensured the establishment of very good systems to share information with other agencies involved with different families. Health services and other agencies readily and effectively share information with the school, which means that the support for a family is more effective. Documentation is thorough, detailed and comprehensive. You have developed good systems to train and update staff to any changes to safeguarding or health and safety. There is also a very good system for training new staff and students into procedures at the school. Procedures to check on the eligibility for staff, visitors and contractors to be around children is thorough and effective. Inspection findings In this inspection, I focused my time on five different aspects. First, I investigated why pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities have low attendance and why they were more likely to be persistently absent. It is clear from the detailed information about each pupil that many of the absences are because of valid medical needs. Some, however, are due to extended holidays abroad which have not been authorised by the school or because a few parents, particularly international new arrivals, prefer to keep their children with them at home. You and the attendance team take all the necessary steps to make sure that pupils are safe. You work closely with parents, particularly those who may be hard to reach, to place a higher value on pupils’ time in school. The second focus for the inspection was boys’ level of development at the end of Reception, which has been well below average in two out of the last three years. Children’s work and the school’s assessments indicate that children make good progress in Nursery and in Reception. The published assessment information on children’s progress is misleading and is distorted by a large turnover of children part-way through the early years. Approximately a third of the children are new to, or have left before the end of, Reception. Children make particularly good progress in their physical, personal and social development. Boys, however, when they are not working with adults, do not make gains in their knowledge or their skills as quickly as they could. This is because some of the activities are not challenging enough or do not increase their mathematical, reading or writing skills. You have already started to change provision to tackle boys’ lower attainment. Third, I focused on pupils’ use of phonics because, although attainment in Year 1 in 2014 and 2015 was average, it dipped in 2016. Teaching is effective and pupils make good progress. In lessons, pupils revise sounds and blends of letters that they have already learned at the level that is appropriate for their reading abilities. They read and write words and sentences confidently. Again, the published assessment information should be treated with caution as it includes pupils who are recent additions to the year group and international new arrivals. Pupils’ attainment is slightly hindered because teachers do not consistently use correct Standard English in their teaching or accurate pronunciation of the phonic sounds. You have already identified this issue and have provided staff with training in correct use of grammar when speaking. Fourth, I investigated why the published data for pupils in key stage 1 indicates that the most able pupils do not make the progress they should from the end of Reception, particularly in writing. Only just over a half of the pupils at the end of Year 2 started at the school. Those that stay at the school throughout their education make better progress and attain higher standards. Pupils, particularly the most able, make good progress in their writing. However, their work in history, geography, science and RE is not the same quality as it is in English. There are not many chances for pupils to write at length, or to use or build on their writing skills. In some activities, for example, the most able pupils are only required to write signs and captions, despite being able to use sophisticated writing structures and vocabulary in their English work. Finally, at the start of the inspection the information published on the website did not meet requirements. By the end of the inspection the missing information had been added. There has been no system for the governing body to check on the content of the website. However, in the next full meeting the governors are due to discuss setting up such a system. Next steps for the school Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that: a higher proportion of boys attain a good level of development by the end of Reception in key stage 1, pupils’ writing in subjects such as science, geography, history and RE reflects what they can write in English lessons. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Manchester. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website. Yours sincerely Allan Torr Her Majesty’s Inspector Information about the inspection I met with you, the deputy headteachers and other senior leaders to talk about safeguarding, attendance, the early years and improvement since the last inspection. I met with three members of the governing body and with a representative of the local authority. With you, I observed teaching in Nursery, Reception and in Year 1 and looked through pupils’ work from Reception through to Year 6. Nine pupils returned responses to Ofsted’s online survey. I looked through the school’s own survey of parents and the 27 responses to Parent View, Ofsted’s online survey. I considered the views of 17 members of staff who returned responses to the Ofsted staff survey.