a school not in a category of concern of St John Bosco RC Primary School

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 1231 www.gov.uk/ofsted

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Louise Pearson Headteacher St John Bosco RC Primary School Hall Moss Road Blackley Manchester M9 7AT

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RC Primary School

This letter sets out the findings from the monitoring inspection that took place on 30 April 2025, on behalf of His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills. The monitoring inspection was carried out under section 8(2) of the Education Act 2005 and took place because the school meets the monitoring threshold as set out in the Monitoring Inspection Handbook .

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RC Primary School

The purpose of a monitoring inspection is not to grade the school’s key and (where applicable) provision judgements, but to identify and report on the school’s progress. It is to highlight to the school and parents any improvements that school leaders have made since the school’s previous graded inspection.

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RC Primary School

During the inspection, I discussed with you and other senior leaders, staff, governors and representatives from Manchester local authority and Salford Diocese the actions that have been taken to improve the school since the most recent graded inspection. We discussed the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. I also visited lessons, looked at examples of pupils’ work, met with pupils and reviewed a range of documentation. I have considered all this in coming to my judgement.

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Leaders have made progress to improve the school, but some aspects of the

school need further improvement. The school should take further action to:

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Leaders have made progress to improve the school, but some aspects of the

 continue to address any gaps in pupils’ subject knowledge, including in the early years, by developing assessment systems to more specifically identify where pupils cannot recall their prior knowledge as well as they should.

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Main findings

Since the school’s previous inspection, the acting headteacher and the deputy headteacher have been appointed to these substantive posts.

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Main findings

The school has provided staff with a wealth of training and development. A number of teachers have been empowered to lead on improving the curriculum. This has included providing support for other staff to develop their subject knowledge. This has been particularly effective when developing pupils’ subject-specific vocabulary. This is now taught consistently well throughout the school. The school has revised its curriculum to be progressive and build well on pupils’ prior knowledge. Staff have a clearer understanding of this progression. However, in a small number of areas, the curriculum is not clear enough about some of the subject knowledge that pupils need to remember for their future learning. This results in pupils not recalling some of their prior knowledge well enough.

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Main findings

Staff are more confident at identifying and correcting misconceptions in pupils’ understanding. Even so, the school’s work to improve the checks that are made on pupils’ knowledge has been more successful in some areas than others. Where it is better, staff are using these checks to identify, with precision, where gaps in learning remain. However, in some subjects, including in the early years, this work is less secure. Where this is the case, pupils still struggle to remember the key knowledge that they need for future learning.

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Main findings

In the early years, the refinements to the curriculum have brought about greater consistency to the quality of education that children receive. There has been a strong focus on the progression of learning across the early years in order to get children ready for the national curriculum in Year 1. Staff are clearer about how to help children progress in their education. They are becoming increasingly adept at questioning children to improve their knowledge across different areas of learning.

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Main findings

Since the previous inspection in March 2024, governors and senior leaders have been united in their efforts to retain teaching staff, ending the cycle of changes to personnel seen in recent years. They have brought about greater stability by ensuring that staff feel valued. This has formed the basis upon which leaders have started to build consistency in the delivery of the curriculum. The school has also made the best use of external support from other schools, the local authority and a local multi-academy trust. As a result, teachers have been provided with the skills they need to improve the quality of education at the school. I am copying this letter to the chair of the board of governors, the director of education for the Diocese of Salford, the Department for Education’s regional director and the director of children’s services for Manchester. This letter will be published on the Ofsted reports website.

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