St Edward’s Catholic Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school The headteacher delivers her clear and ambitious vision for the school with passion and diligence. Along with senior leaders, she has established a good standard of education across the school. Senior leaders provide helpful support for newly appointed middle leaders, whose effectiveness is developing.

Pupils learn to be caring, thoughtful young people. Leaders ensure that the school's considerate values are promoted reliably as an intrinsic part of pupils' daily life. Pupils enjoy school and rarely miss a day.

Robust safeguarding systems ensure that pupils are safe. Pupils' behaviour is impeccable. They are very polite, respectful and st...rive to do their very best in lessons.

They demonstrate an obvious pride in their school and their personal achievements. Pupils are successfully prepared to be kind citizens in modern Britain. Opportunities for pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) development are carefully woven throughout the well-developed curriculum and the life of the school.

The multi-academy trust knows the school well, rigorously holding leaders to account for standards of teaching and pupils' outcomes. The local governing body is developing its effectiveness. Pupils learn well across the school.

Teachers use their subject knowledge effectively to plan interesting and engaging lessons which meet the needs of most pupils well. Children in the early years make strong progress, often from very low starting points. Effective teaching and support enable children to learn and develop successfully within a safe, stimulating and happy environment.

Pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make good progress from their typically low starting points, especially in reading and writing. At times, work set for pupils does not challenge the most able pupils precisely enough. Although pupils learn well in mathematics, they make less progress during key stage 2 than in reading and writing.

Leaders' work to further develop the teaching of mathematics is not yet fully effective.

Information about this school

St Edward's Catholic Primary School is a smaller-than-average, one-form-entry school. The school joined the Kent Catholic Schools' Partnership multi-academy trust in July 2016.

The trust includes 23 other Catholic schools in Kent. The trust board oversees four committees and the local governing board. The local governing body is relatively newly formed and has delegated authority from the trust for standards of education and safeguarding within the school.

The majority of pupils are of White British heritage, with the second largest group being of Any other White background, including families of Eastern European heritage. The proportion of pupils who are disadvantaged is above the national average. The school has a higher-than-average proportion of pupils with SEND.

The school's most recent inspection of denominational education and collective worship took place in November 2016. The school was judged to require improvement overall. There is a breakfast club every day for pupils.

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