Moss Hall Infant School

Overview

Moss Hall Infant School is described as a “welcoming and nurturing” environment where pupils are “happy and feel safe.” The inspection judged overall effectiveness as ‘Good’, with ‘Outstanding’ ratings for personal development and early years provision. Leaders have created an ambitious curriculum that prepares pupils well for their transition to the neighbouring junior school.

Strengths

• Pupils benefit from a “rich and broad” personal development offer, learning about citizenship, diverse cultures, and environmental awareness through carefully sequenced experiences.
• Early years provision is ‘Outstanding’, with staff skilfully expanding children’s language and interests through purposeful activities like making and posting letters.
• Reading is prioritised via a “well-planned and sequenced early reading curriculum,” with staff well-trained in phonics and leaders ensuring consistent implementation.
• The needs of pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are “identified effectively,” with targeted support in phonics and mathematics helping them achieve well.
• Governors “know the school well” and pose “effective challenges,” while staff value the training opportunities provided within the school federation.

Areas to improve

• In some subjects, particularly in Years 1 and 2, the school has not fully checked how effectively the curriculum is implemented, leading to tasks that do not always build on prior knowledge.
• In phonics, some reading books are “unsuitable” or too hard for pupils to practise their skills, requiring systematic checks to ensure resources match pupils’ learning stages.

Safeguarding

The report states that “the arrangements for safeguarding are effective.”