Netherton Moss Primary School

Inspection of Netherton Moss Primary School Swifts Lane, Netherton, Bootle, Merseyside L30 3RU

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Inspection dates: 28 and 29 January 2025

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The quality of education Requires improvement Behaviour and attitudes Good Personal development Good Leadership and management Requires improvement Early years provision Requires improvement Previous inspection grade Good 28 and 29 January 2025

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What is it like to attend this school?

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.

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What is it like to attend this school?

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.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils behave well during lessons and as they move around the school. They play together happily on the playground.

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What is it like to attend this school?

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.

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What is it like to attend this school?

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.

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

The school has responded to the findings of the previous inspection. For example, it has taken steps to help pupils improve the content and structure of their written work. The school has also raised the expectation of what pupils should know across the curriculum to increase their achievement. It has been partially successful in these endeavours.

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

The school has introduced new curriculums in several subjects, including a new writing programme. This initiative has reduced teachers’ workload. It has also defined more clearly what pupils in Years 1 to 6 should typically know. However, there is less clarity about what children are expected to learn during their time in the Nursery or Reception Years.

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

Many of the subject curriculums in place at the school do not make clear what children in the early years need to know to be well prepared for their learning in Year 1 and beyond. This lack of clarity hinders how well staff in the early years support children to deepen and extend their learning. Moreover, teachers are unclear how to support older pupils who have gaps in key knowledge that they should have learned while in the early years.

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

Some pupils are frequently late for school or are regularly absent. They miss out on important learning. This adds to the difficulty they experience accessing the curriculum. The school’s systems and processes for supporting pupils to attend regularly are unclear and are not improving pupils’ attendance well enough. 28 and 29 January 2025

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Pupils demonstrate positive attitudes when talking about school and their learning. They generally achieve well in reading and mathematics. However, pupils’ achievement in other subjects is more variable, especially in writing. They do not develop their knowledge as quickly as they should. This is usually because teachers do not find out what pupils already know consistently well before attempting to introduce new curriculum content. As a result, at times, pupils do not have a secure foundation of knowledge on which to build. For example, many pupils in Year 6 lack fluency in writing. This means that they are not well prepared for moving on to their secondary phase of education.

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There is a strong focus on reading at the school. Most pupils become confident and fluent readers. The school ensures that staff deliver its phonics programme consistently well. Children in the Nursery Year learn to recognise different types of sounds. More formal phonics learning begins in the Reception Year. Children learn how to use their phonics knowledge to read words. Pupils across the school who are still at the early stages of reading benefit from the expertise of staff to develop their fluency and accuracy.

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The school places a high priority on pupils’ personal development. Pupils know how to keep themselves safe while in their local community. They have a secure understanding of how to protect themselves from unhealthy relationships in real life and while online.

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The school ensures that teachers identify pupils’ special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). It makes sure that teachers know how to support these pupils appropriately. This enables pupils with SEND to access the curriculum and the wider life of the school.

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The governing body is supportive of the school. It understands the school community well. However, governors do not provide sufficient challenge to the school to ensure that all pupils achieve as well as they should. This is particularly true about the rates of pupils’ attendance.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 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 28 and 29 January 2025

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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.

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How can I feed back my views?

find out what other parents and carers think. We use information from Ofsted Parent View when deciding which schools to inspect, when to inspect them and as part of their inspection.

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How can I feed back my views?

The Department for Education has further guidance on how to complain about a school.

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Further information

You can search for published performance information about the school.

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Further information

In the report, ‘disadvantaged pupils’ is used to mean pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND); pupils who meet the definition of children in need of help and protection ; pupils receiving statutory local authority support from a social worker; and pupils who otherwise meet the criteria used for deciding the school’s pupil premium funding (this includes pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years, looked after children (children in local authority care) and/or children who left care through adoption or another formal route). 28 and 29 January 2025

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Dates of previous inspection 26 and 27 November 2019, under section 8 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 Both the headteacher and the deputy headteacher have been appointed recently.  The school does not currently make use of alternative provision for pupils.  The school provides a breakfast club for pupils.

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Information about this inspection

The inspectors carried out this graded inspection under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. During a graded inspection, we grade the school for each of our key judgements (quality of education; behaviour and attitudes; personal development; and leadership and management) and for any relevant provision judgement (early years and/or sixth form provision). Schools receiving a graded inspection from September 2024 will not be given an overall effectiveness grade.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspections are a point-in-time evaluation about the quality of a school’s education provision. 28 and 29 January 2025

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 This was the first routine inspection the school received since the COVID-19 pandemic began.  Inspectors spoke with the headteacher and other leaders in the school.  An inspector met with all members of the governing body, including the chair of governors.  An inspector spoke with a representative of the local authority.  Inspectors carried out deep dives in English, including early reading, mathematics and history. They spoke with the leaders of these areas of the curriculum. Inspectors also visited lessons, looked at examples of pupils’ work, held discussions with teachers and talked with pupils.  Inspectors looked at samples of pupils’ work and spoke to them about their learning in other subjects from the curriculum.  An inspector listened to pupils from Years 1 to 3 reading to a familiar adult. She also listened to some other pupils reading from Years 3, 4 and 5.  To evaluate the effectiveness of safeguarding, inspectors: reviewed the single central

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record; took account of the views of leaders, staff and pupils; and considered the extent to which the school has created an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts pupils’ interests first.  Inspectors spoke with parents and carers as they dropped their children off at school. They also considered the responses to Ofsted’s online Parent View survey and parents’ free-text responses.  Inspectors considered responses to Ofsted’s online survey for staff.  Inspectors spoke with a range of groups of pupils about their experiences at school.

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Inspection team

Claire Cropper, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Nicky Parkinson Ofsted Inspector 28 and 29 January 2025

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achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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