St Mary’s Catholic Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school. Outstanding leadership has improved teaching and pupils' progress considerably in the last year, and raised behaviour from satisfactory to outstanding. Leaders continually review the school's work and ensure that any shortcomings are tackled by all staff as a very effective team.

Achievement is good and continues to improve rapidly. Many pupils made excellent progress over the course of last year. Teaching is good, with an increasing amount that is outstanding.

Teachers plan work that excites and interests pupils. They usually set work that is at just the right level of difficulty. Teachers benefit from sharing good practice with colleag...ues across the federation, so that they all learn from each other.

This, and clear feedback from senior colleagues to help them improve, has driven up quality. Teachers use the close tracking of each pupil's progress to ensure that anyone who needs extra help gets it. This ensures that all pupils do well.

Children get off to a great start in the Reception Year, settling very happily into class and making excellent progress. This is a major improvement since the last inspection. Pupils behave extremely well in class and around school.

They work very hard, are exceptionally keen to do well and greatly enjoy learning. Their relationships with each other are outstanding. They feel exceptionally safe and secure in school The excellent links with parents mean that they are overwhelmingly positive about the school and what it does for their children.

It is not yet an outstanding school because : There has not been enough outstanding teaching to make achievement outstanding. In some lessons, inconsistencies in applying good practice can slow learning for a few pupils, although progress is seldom less than good for the great majority. Despite the rapid improvement in achievement last year, attainment remained average at the end of Year 6.

This was because of the slow progress these pupils had made in previous years when teaching was weaker.

Information about this school

This is a very small primary school which has three mixed-age classes. Reception-aged children share a class with pupils in Year 1.

The majority of pupils are White British, with about a quarter coming from a variety of other backgrounds. Those of Asian or Irish Traveller heritage form the largest groups. Very few pupils speak English as an additional language The proportion of pupils for whom the school receives pupil premium funding (which is provided to support the learning of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals, children looked after by the local authority and children of armed services families) is above average.

The proportions of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs, who are supported at school action, school action plus or have statements of special educational needs, are broadly average. These figures vary considerably between year groups and from year to year. The school meets the government's current floor standard, which sets minimum expectations for pupils' attainment and progress.

Since the last inspection, the school has entered a federation with two other small Catholic primary schools in the same diocese. The work of all three schools is overseen by an executive headteacher and by a single governing body. There is a head of school, who leads and manages St Mary's on a day-to-day basis Since September 2011, the school has had considerable changes to staffing, including in senior leadership, and has grown in size.