St Margaret Clitherow Catholic Primary School, Bracknell

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Main findings

St Margaret Clitherow is a good school. It has some outstanding features. The headteacher's enthusiasm, determination and close attention to detail are felt in all aspects of the school's life.

Parents and carers, staff and pupils acknowledge her very positive influence. Parents and carers recognise the importance of the school in their children's lives and appreciate its numerous qualities. They are overwhelmingly supportive of the school and are unanimous in saying that they are happy with their children's experience at the school.

One representative view was: 'The school has been really good for my daughter and for her needs. The school supports her in every way.' Pupils' individuality and... uniqueness are celebrated well and their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is outstanding.

This means that the community is harmonious and cohesive and its diversity is seen as a cause for celebration. Staff know the pupils well and they provide good levels of care, guidance and support resulting in pupils feeling totally safe, behaving exceptionally well, adopting excellent healthy lifestyles and having positive attitudes to school and learning. By the time that they reach Year 6, pupils develop into mature, responsible and reflective pupils.

Pupils achieve well. They make good progress in each year group. By the time that they reach Year 6, standards are above average in English and science and average in mathematics.

Although pupils' progress is good overall, it is satisfactory in mathematics. Fewer pupils attain the higher level at the end of Year 6 in mathematics than in English or science. This is because sometimes teachers do not have high enough expectations of what higher-ability pupils can achieve.

Furthermore, pupils' ability to apply their mathematical knowledge and skills in practical mathematics and investigations is not sufficiently well developed. The reason why pupils enjoy school and learning is that the quality of teaching is good. Relationships are particularly strong because teachers manage pupils well and this leads to their outstanding behaviour which has a positive effect on learning.

All classrooms are characterised by a calm and purposeful atmosphere in which pupils enjoy the many opportunities that they are given to work in pairs and small groups. As one pupil remarked: 'We love learning. Our teachers really help us when we are stuck.

It's OK to get stuck sometimes because that means that we are going to learn something new.' This mature thought stems from the school's well-founded emphasis on strengthening the pupils' independence in learning. This is achieved by teachers almost always ensuring that pupils are clear about lesson objectives and how the activities set help to meet them.

There are, though, some inconsistencies in teachers' marking. Although marking is supportive, it does not always highlight areas for improvement. There are two parts to this shortcoming.

First, it means that some pupils, particularly in Years 3 and 4, are not always sure of whether they have met the lesson objectives. Second, pupils are not always helped to understand what they need to do to meet their long-term targets, particularly in mathematics. Leadership and management are good.

There is close and careful monitoring of the school's provision. Tracking data of pupils' progress are of good quality. Taken together these twin aspects enable senior leaders to have a clear understanding of what the school needs to do to improve further and also to ensure that self- evaluation is accurate.

This results in the ensuing school development plan being of good quality and a useful tool in bringing about improvement. The school has responded well to the improvement points raised at the last inspection, particularly in the strengthening of writing skills. The removal of inconsistencies in the quality of teaching and lifting of standards in English and science demonstrate the school's good capacity to improve further.

Information about the school

St Margaret Clitherow serves the local parish and is an averaged sized primary school. The large majority of pupils are of White British heritage though an increasing number are from a wide number of minority ethnic groups. Currently there are few pupils who are at an early stage of learning English though the numbers of pupils that speak English as an additional language is increasing each year.

An average proportion of pupils are identified as having special educational needs and/or disabilities. The number of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is about half the national average. The school has gained Healthy School status and the Investor in People award.

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