Holy Family R.C. Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Holy Family RC Primary School is a diverse community where contributions to its unique ethos and culture make it a warm, welcoming and exciting place to live and learn. Pupils at the school are respectful, confident and friendly.

They love coming to school and are brimming with interesting comments and information about their time at the school whether right at the beginning of their journey or heading towards the end. They feel very safe and listened to and this is echoed by parents and carers who are full of praise for the dedicated staff. Throughout the school, pupils make very good progress in nearly all aspects of their learning.

They thrive on the many opportunities they have to develop their use of language through ...a breadth of engaging topics and projects. They confidently express themselves, share their ideas and stretch their imagination. They reflect on their own and others' learning and achievement and challenge themselves to identify the skills they need to improve.

Pupils make useful contributions to teachers' planning and are ready now to make a difference to other aspects of school life such as developing the outdoors and outdoor learning. The school's shared vision for moral and social development is firmly at the heart of their curriculum. The close attention to equity and values supports pupil well-being and develops their sense of social justice.

School staff work hard to create positive relationships between staff and pupils and extend these relationships to form trusting relationships between school and home, showing care and commitment to their families. Teachers work with their pupils to plan learning experiences that engage them and capture their interests. There is a growing range of authentic opportunities to acquire and apply skills across the curriculum.

Pupils respond especially well to these opportunities and enjoy spending time exploring ideas in depth. On occasion, where planning for learning is less influenced by pupils, the themes covered do not always give them the chance to explore the people and places that would make their learning more relevant. Nearly all teachers and support staff continuously look to develop their professional knowledge to improve their practice.

This creates opportunities for pupils to excel in the areas of expertise their teachers bring. Allowing teachers to share this expertise more widely across the school would provide greater equality of opportunity for all pupils. Senior leaders have created an effective vision for the school.

Together with teachers and governors, they plan improvements that directly improve prospects for pupils and raise their aspirations. In particular, leaders and teachers successfully nurture creativity across the curriculum, enabling pupils to explore all aspects of their learning through art and digital media. They collectively and regularly review the impact of their work on pupil outcomes and make changes to their improvement plans when needed.

Their careful consideration of pupil progress ensures that all pupils, including those with additional needs, language barriers and those who are vulnerable in other ways, make very good progress throughout their time at school. Recommendations R1 Provide opportunities for all teachers to share their curriculum knowledge and expertise with colleagues R2 Improve opportunities for pupils to influence the school's plans to develop provision What happens next The school will draw up an action plan to address the recommendations from the inspection. Estyn will invite the school to prepare case studies on its work in relation to how it has develop the high quality use of assessment for learning to support pupil progress; and on the teaching approaches used to secure rapid progress in speaking and listening skills for dissemination on Estyn's website.