Longmoor Community Primary School

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 4234 www.gov.uk/ofsted

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Mrs Elizabeth Grundy Headteacher Longmoor Community Primary School Hall Lane Liverpool Merseyside L9 0EU

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Short inspection of Longmoor Community Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 22 February 2018, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. The visit was the first short inspection carried out since the school was judged to be good in January 2014.

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Short inspection of Longmoor Community Primary School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Based on the evidence gathered during this short inspection, I am of the opinion that the school has demonstrated strong practice and marked improvement in certain areas. This may indicate that the school is improving towards being outstanding. Therefore, I am recommending that the school’s next inspection be a section 5 inspection.

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Short inspection of Longmoor Community Primary School

You and your deputy headteacher ensure that Longmoor Community Primary School is a thriving school, characterised by high aspirations for every pupil. You are determined that every pupil will flourish and achieve the very best outcomes so that they are fully prepared for the next stages of their education. Without doubt, you are successful in this mission. In your school, by the end of key stage 2, pupils make some of the best progress across the whole country in mathematics, reading and writing. In 2017, pupils have continued to make considerable and sustained improvements in their rates of progress. In mathematics, for example, pupils’ progress was in the top 1% of the country in the key stage 2 national assessments. The progress made by disadvantaged pupils in 2017, across the range of subjects, was also exceptional.

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Short inspection of Longmoor Community Primary School

You enable pupils to make such rapid progress because the quality of teaching continues to go from strength to strength. It has a profound impact on pupils’ learning and progress. You achieve this by empowering your teachers and other adults in the school to be flexible, dynamic professionals who respond the needs and interests of every pupil. Careful, well-thought-out deployment of staff is having a marked impact on continual school improvement. You believe in your staff and they feel valued. Consequently, they are a highly motivated team that enables pupils to excel. They plan lessons that stretch pupils to deepen their knowledge, skills and understanding. They know that only the best-quality teaching will do.

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Short inspection of Longmoor Community Primary School

Pupils also reciprocate the high expectations that you and your staff have of each of them with excellent behaviour and attitudes to learning. Pupils are resilient, self- assured and confident because you empower them to succeed. The excellent programme to support their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development helps them to develop as well-rounded individuals who know right from wrong. Pupils also have plentiful opportunities to develop as leaders through the school council and as playground buddies. Pupils are proud to belong to the school.

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Short inspection of Longmoor Community Primary School

The rich, broad and balanced curriculum that you provide ignites pupils’ imaginations. This highly effective curriculum, which includes Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, music and creative arts, allows pupils to build and develop a wide range of technical skills year on year. They enjoy learning both in and out of the classroom. For example, pupils made excellent progress when they explored different festivals of light from around the world. It was particularly striking to see children in the early years exploring the Chinese culture by formulating Chinese characters with different materials and exploring food, clothing and art.

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Short inspection of Longmoor Community Primary School

Since the previous inspection, not only has teaching continued to improve apace, writing has also developed considerably. Pupils, including children in the early years, particularly enjoy developing their writing through exciting topic-based activities that you clearly link to real-life experiences. Pupils across the school also hone their writing skills through the wider curriculum, for example in science, history, geography and religious education. Nevertheless, you are not content that sufficient pupils achieve greater depth in their foundation subjects. This, rightly, is one of your key priorities to improve the school further.

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Short inspection of Longmoor Community Primary School

Also since the previous inspection, you have dramatically reduced the proportion of pupils who are regularly absent from school. The systems that you have in place to ensure very good rates of attendance are reaping rewards. For example, the proportion of disadvantaged pupils who are regularly absent from school has halved this year and overall attendance rates are in line with the national average. Pupils know the importance of attending school regularly and, increasingly, parents support you in ensuring that their children attend regularly and arrive on time.

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Short inspection of Longmoor Community Primary School

You ensure that there is an extremely strong culture of safeguarding across the school. Governors fulfil their statutory safeguarding duties diligently. The reports that you provide to governors enable them to test out the effectiveness of the school’s policies, procedures and practice. Leaders and governors ensure that staff receive regular training to ensure that they are up to date with the most pertinent issues facing young people today. For example, staff undertake additional training on dealing with ‘sexting’, identifying concerns around child criminal exploitation and also the issues facing young carers in our society. You ensure that there are robust systems in place to identify potential children missing from education and you act swiftly on any concerns that you have.

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Short inspection of Longmoor Community Primary School

Pupils feel exceedingly safe in this school. Parents recognise the work that you do to keep their children safe. Pupils across the school receive plentiful training about staying safe online, in the local community and in the wider world because you interweave such themes across key stages and across the entire curriculum. Pupils have access to a range of outside speakers and they also understand the issues facing other people in the local area. For example, pupils undertook activities in the Children’s Mental Health Week that exposed them to the issues facing homeless people, those in the local area without sufficient food and the loneliness faced by elderly people. Your work to safeguard pupils goes far beyond statutory requirements.

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Inspection findings

 At the outset of this inspection, we agreed several areas to investigate. The first of those was how you are maintaining and improving the progress that pupils make in writing so that it consistently matches the strong progress and attainment seen in mathematics and reading by the end of key stage 2. This is now a key area of strength. You have relentlessly focused on ensuring that teachers have the skills to enable pupils to excel in writing. Frequent external checks on the quality of pupils’ writing across the school confirm that they are on track to excel once again. You ensure that teachers deliver exceptionally high- quality teaching and learning in writing. Consequently, inspection evidence confirms that pupils have the knowledge, skills and understanding to flourish.  The second area to investigate was how effectively leaders promote good learning and progress in history and geography. The depth of the curriculum

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Inspection findings

enables pupils to achieve well in these subjects. The humanities leader regularly tracks pupils’ learning and progress to ensure that the aims of the national curriculum are met. You have also introduced an assessment system to track pupils’ progress across the foundation subjects that you are sharing across a cluster of schools. Nonetheless, you recognise that even more pupils could achieve greater depth in the foundation subjects and this forms part of your next steps for improvement.  The third area of focus was how effectively leaders are securing strong progress for pupils in reading, writing and mathematics in key stage 1. Since your appointment in 2015, you have significantly improved the quality of teaching across the school, including in key stage 1. Teaching in mathematics is now exemplary because it leads to such strong progress right across the school. Year on year, the proportion of pupils who achieve greater depth also increases. This

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Inspection findings

year, inspection evidence supports leaders’ view that the proportion of pupils on track to achieve a greater depth in reading, writing and mathematics is high.  Another key focus to improve further provision in key stage 1 was to ensure that transition arrangements between year groups have the maximum benefit on children’s and pupils’ learning and progress. This key strategy has been extremely successful in improving the quality of education that pupils receive. You also have a member of staff who leads both the early years and key stage 1 provision with precision. This is to ensure that the strong progress made in the early years continues seamlessly into Year 1. Consequently, no learning time is lost.

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Next steps for the school

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that they:

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Next steps for the school

 utilise the highly effective teaching across the foundation subjects to ensure that a higher proportion of pupils achieve greater depth.

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Next steps for the school

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Liverpool. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

During the inspection, I met with you, your leadership team and the subject leaders for English, mathematics and humanities. I also met with teachers from across the school. I met parents and three members of the governing body. I spoke formally with a group of pupils and informally with others around the school and in lessons. Furthermore, I observed teaching and learning in key stages 1 and 2 and visited the early years. I examined a range of documentation, including that relating to safeguarding, attendance information, pupils’ assessment information, a range of policies, your evaluation of how well the school is performing and your school improvement plan. I also undertook a review of the school’s website. As part of the inspection I considered 23 responses to Parent View, Ofsted’s online questionnaire, and a number of free-text comments. I also took in to account 16 responses to Ofsted’s staff questionnaire and 88 responses to Ofsted’s pupils’ questionnaire.

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