St Edmund’s Catholic Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school Strong leadership from the headteacher has helped staff to work as a very effective team. They have greatly improved the quality of education in the school. The school is a thriving, multicultural community where boys and girls from different backgrounds get along together extremely well.

The quality of teaching and pupils' attitudes to learning are much better than at the last inspection, leading to good achievement. The deputy headteacher, governing body and other leaders play a full part in driving improvements in the school. Teachers have high expectations of pupils' work and behaviour.

Pupils are well behaved and eager to learn. They... have a very good understanding of how they are doing, and so know how to improve. Parents are kept well informed about their children's progress.

Children get off to a good start in the early years. They enjoy school and make good progress. The provision has been transformed since the last inspection.

Accurate assessments of pupils' attainment help teachers to plan work that usually matches the needs of most pupils well. This helps all groups of pupils to achieve well over time. Teachers provide pupils with interesting tasks that pupils enjoy.

Pupils have good relationships with staff. They rightly feel safe in the school because they know staff look after them well. The curriculum is wide-ranging, with a great variety of enrichment activities.

This supports pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, as well as their academic progress. It is not yet an outstanding school because : Some inconsistencies remain in teaching, for example in fully challenging the most able, checking how well all pupils get on and ensuring that they are fully focused and engaged throughout lessons. Adults in the early years do not consistently use day-to-day assessments to plan what children need to learn next.

This reduces their ability to build on children's existing understanding, and so accelerate their progress.

Information about this school

The school is average in size for a primary school. It has one class in each age group in key stages 1 and 2.

There are two classes in Year 3. There is a full-time Reception class, and a part-time Nursery class that operates in the morning. The majority of pupils are White British.

Two in every five pupils come from a wide range of other ethnic heritages. This is an above-average proportion. About a quarter of the pupils speak English as an additional language, which is more than in most schools.

The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs or disability is about average. The proportion of disadvantaged pupils who are supported by the pupil premium is well below average, at around a third of the national figure. The pupil premium is extra government funding provided to support the education of pupils who are known to be entitled to free school meals, or children who are looked after by the local authority.

The school meets the government's current floor standards, which set minimum expectations for pupils' attainment and progress by the end of Year 6. There have been significant changes in staffing since the last inspection. A new headteacher started after Easter 2014, and several other members of the senior leadership team have taken up post since then.

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