Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Academy

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Academy provides a happy and safe place for pupils to learn. Leaders have high expectations of pupils' behaviour and for what they will achieve. The relationships between adults and pupils are respectful.

Classrooms are calm and purposeful places to learn. One pupil told inspectors that: '[The] school is a place where you can make friends and feel treasured.'

Pupils told inspectors that they feel safe and cared for.

Incidents of bullying are rare. When they do happen, pupils are confident that adults will sort it out by talking through their problems with them. Pupils know that they can share their worries with their... teachers.

Pupils act out the school's virtues of resilience, self-belief and compassion in their attitudes to work and how they treat each other. They take great pride in promoting the Catholic life and values of the school as 'Mini Vinnies'. Other roles, such as school councillors, house captains and pupil chaplains, enable them to make a purposeful contribution to their school.

Pupils can struggle to remember what they have learned in some subjects, such as reading and geography. This is, in part, because the curriculum does not identify with enough precision what pupils in each year group should know. In reading, the curriculum is not ambitious enough.

As a result, some important knowledge is being missed out.

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

Leaders have made the teaching of phonics a high priority. They have ensured that most staff have had the training they need to teach phonics well.

Teachers make regular checks to see if pupils know the sounds they have been taught. If pupils fall behind, they are supported to catch up. In the early years, teachers have increased the amount of time they spend teaching phonics.

The early years teachers model the language and vocabulary they want children to use as they learn through play. As a result, children's phonics knowledge is improving quickly.

Leaders have carefully planned the books that they want to share with pupils in each class.

This includes books to help promote equality and diversity. Teachers read to pupils every day. In the early years, children take home books each week to share and read with their family.

Adults spend time helping pupils choose a book they might enjoy. Pupils' love and enjoyment of books is a strength of the school.

The reading curriculum requires further work to ensure it covers all that pupils need to learn.

The current curriculum does not break learning down into small, well-sequenced parts. Pupils have gaps in their knowledge, and their understanding of genres, such as poetry, is not secure.

The mathematics curriculum is well organised.

The knowledge and skills that pupils need to learn are carefully sequenced. Teachers make regular checks on what pupils have remembered. However, teachers do not use this information to plan what pupils will learn next.

Consequently, pupils' misunderstandings are not always supported quickly enough. In the early years, children follow a carefully planned mathematics curriculum. Early years teachers have created packs of mathematics resources, such as clocks and counters for children to take home.

This approach helps parents to support their children to practice what they have learned at school.

Leaders have recently reviewed the science curriculum. They have carefully considered what pupils have missed when they were learning from home due to the pandemic.

The knowledge that pupils will learn by the end of each year is clearly identified. Pupils develop the knowledge and skills they need to be scientists. In other subjects, such as geography, knowledge is not organised in this way.

The knowledge leaders want pupils to know by the end of each year is not clearly identified and the geographical skills pupils need to learn are not precise enough.

Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are supported effectively. Leaders have identified the extra help pupils need to access the full curriculum alongside their peers.

The leaders with responsibility for pupils' well-being work alongside other professionals to make sure that pupils are supported with their social and emotional needs.

The relationships, sex and health education curriculum supports pupils to develop an appropriate understanding of healthy relationships. Leaders' introduction of a school currency, Power Pounds, helps pupils of all ages understand the value of money.

Pupils enjoy saving their Power Pounds to buy rewards.

Pupils understand the importance of equality. Despite this, some pupils told inspectors that inappropriate language is sometimes used on the playground.

Although this is dealt with, leaders do not log incidents of poor behaviour with enough rigour. This means that some behaviour goes unrecorded and leaders do not have a full picture of behaviour throughout the school day.

The members of the multi-academy trust work closely with leaders to offer the training and support they need.

Staff value the training opportunities that they have received. Staff, who made their views known, agree that leaders support them to manage their workload well. Staff say that leaders listen to their concerns.

Staff morale is high because of the support they receive from the leadership team and the trust.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Leaders carry out all the required checks to make sure that adults working with children are safe to do so.

Leaders provide termly bulletins and morning briefings so that safeguarding concerns are shared and understood by all the staff that need to know about them. Staff are clear on how to report their concerns.

All adults have received the training that they need to identify pupils who may be at risk of harm.

When concerns are reported, leaders with responsibility for safeguarding follow these up in a timely way. Leaders work tenaciously to support parents and follow up on absences.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Leaders do not log incidents of poor behaviour with enough rigour.

Some incidents of poor behaviour go unrecorded. As a result, leaders do not have a full picture of behaviour across the school day. Leaders should review their reporting and recording procedures so that all behaviours are logged and they have a comprehensive picture of pupils' behaviour.

• The reading curriculum is not ambitious enough. The reading knowledge and skills pupils need to learn have not been broken down into small, manageable parts. As a result, pupils have gaps in their reading knowledge.

Leaders should improve the reading curriculum so that it is ambitious and the order in which knowledge is taught to pupils builds over time effectively. ? In the foundation curriculum, for example in geography, the knowledge that leaders want pupils to learn by the end of each year is not clearly identified. Geographical skills are not precise enough.

The curriculum that leaders have planned does not provide opportunities for pupils to revisit knowledge that they have missed due to the pandemic. As a result, pupils have gaps in their geographical knowledge and understanding. Leaders should review the curriculum to ensure that the knowledge pupils should know at the end of each year is clearly identified.

• In mathematics, teachers are not using the checks they make on pupils' learning in order to plan lessons to meet the different needs of pupils. Consequently, pupils' mathematical misconceptions are not supported quickly enough. Leaders need to ensure that teachers are using assessment to decide what to teach pupils next and how to adapt their plans.