Holy Trinity CofE Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

This school has a warm and nurturing environment and pupils are happy to attend.

They enjoy their learning and time spent with their friends. Many pupils participate in clubs and activities that develop their talents and interests. Popular examples include sports clubs and competitions, coding club and book club.

Pupils learn about the wide array of differences between people in the school community. They welcome new arrivals to the school. This includes the number of pupils that join the school at various points after the early years, many of whom speak English as an additional language.

Most pupils behave well. They understand the importance of kindness and... they show respect towards each other and to teachers. Pupils are well supported to recognise and regulate their own emotions.

This particularly helps some pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) to establish a positive mindset for learning.

The school recognises that some pupils do not achieve as well as they should. To address this, it has taken steps to increase its expectations for pupils' achievement by improving the curriculum.

However, as many of these changes are recent, the impact cannot be measured. In the early years, where the curriculum is more established, children progress well from their starting points.

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

The school is ambitious for pupils and wants them to do well.

However, some aspects of this vision are not fully realised. The school, with the support of the governing body, has taken action to improve the quality of education that it provides. However, its analysis of the impact of this work is inconsistent and, in some cases, lacks urgency.

This means that, at times, the school misses opportunities to swiftly address actions that are not having the intended impact.

The school has recently revamped the curriculum in many subjects. It has defined what pupils should learn and when they should learn it.

This helps teachers to design learning that builds on what pupils already know. In the main, teachers check on pupils' developing knowledge well. They identify misconceptions quickly, before these become embedded in pupils' memory.

The school is taking action to address gaps in pupils' knowledge due to the previous, less effective curriculum, as well as due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it has not acted swiftly enough to raise standards in writing. As a result, some pupils have weak handwriting, grammar, and spelling knowledge.

This limits their progress across the curriculum and means that they are not as prepared as they should be for their next stages of learning.

Staff are quick to recognise when pupils have SEND. The school aspires for these pupils to benefit from what the school has to offer.

Nonetheless, sometimes staff have lower expectations of these pupils' learning, which limits their progress across the curriculum. They do not make suitable adaptations to activities that would allow pupils with SEND to successfully access learning alongside their peers.

In the early years, the school places a heavy emphasis on developing children's communication and language skills.

This ensures that children are well prepared for a strong start when learning to read. The school has recently redesigned the phonics programme. Most staff deliver this new approach successfully.

This is starting to improve the rate at which children develop their reading knowledge. However, there remains a number of older pupils who do not read as well as they should. The school has not acted with sufficient urgency to address weaknesses in their reading knowledge, fluency, and comprehension.

The school ensures that most pupils attend school regularly. It quickly recognises and intervenes when pupils' rates of absence begin to rise.

Staff create warm and positive climates for learning in classrooms.

This helps pupils to develop their confidence and to try their best. In the early years, staff support children to develop their independence and self-care skills through well-established routines. For example, children in the Nursery class learn how to put on waterproof clothing in readiness of outdoor learning.

This prepares children well for key stage 1.

The school places particular emphasis on nurture. It fosters pupils' and staff's well-being highly effectively.

The school is keen to extend pupils' learning beyond the academic. For example, pupils learn about the importance of maintaining their mental and physical health. They understand how to manage the risks that they may face in the local community and while online.

Staff enjoy working at the school. They value the support of leaders and governors. Staff said that the school is mindful of their workload, including during the current period of rapid school development.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Some of the school's systems do not provide useful evaluations of the impact of its work. At times, staff do not know how well the school's strategies to improve pupils' progress and attainment are working.

The school should strengthen its systems to monitor the quality of provision that pupils, including those with SEND, receive to ensure that it is as effective as it should be. Some pupils do not write as well as they should. They are hampered by weaknesses in their handwriting, spelling and grammar knowledge.

This limits their success in English, and across other curriculum subjects. The school should ensure that staff better support pupils to develop these fundamental skills, so that they are well prepared for their next steps in education. ? At times, staff have lower expectations of what some pupils, including pupils with SEND, can achieve.

Sometimes they do not support these pupils to access ambitious learning activities alongside their peers. This hampers their learning. The school should train staff to adapt their curriculum delivery, so that pupils with SEND benefit from high expectations of their learning.

• The school's approach to help older pupils who struggle with reading is not tailored well enough to swiftly address gaps in their reading knowledge and how fluently they read. For some pupils, these weaknesses persist over time, which hinders their ability to read and therefore to access the curriculum. The school should sharpen its approach in developing pupils' reading knowledge, so that pupils become fluent and confident readers.