St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Isleworth

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Key findings

This is a good school. It is not yet outstanding because there is some variability in the rates of pupils' learning and progress between classes.

Regular monitoring of teaching by senior leaders and managers ensures the school has an accurate view of provision. However, some middle leaders are not as fully involved in monitoring teacher and staff performance and securing further improvements to teaching and pupils' achievement. As a result, a few inconsistencies remain.

Pupils' achievement is good. Pupils make good progress to reach above average levels of attainment by the end of Year 6. They reach particularly high standards in English.

Children's outcomes are good in the Early Year...s Foundation Stage. The school works effectively to meet pupils' specific needs. All groups of pupils, including disabled pupils and those with special educational needs, learn and progress well.

Teaching is good through the school. Work in lessons is matched well to pupils' learning needs and tasks are appropriately challenging. Occasionally, the pace of learning slows because teachers' explanations to the whole class take up too much time.

There are a few inconsistencies in the time and emphasis teachers give to helping pupils use teachers' marking, feedback and their individualised learning targets to improve progress further. Pupils have positive attitudes to learning and behave well in lessons and around the school. They have a good awareness of how to keep themselves safe, for example when using computers and crossing the road.

Good leadership and management have maintained the school's good overall effectiveness since the previous inspection. Proportions of pupils reaching above average standards in assessments the end of Year 6 have increased. Together with recent well-selected developments to the provision for mathematics, this shows the effective leadership of teaching and management of performance.

Information about the school

This is a slightly larger-than-average primary school with Early Years Foundation Stage provision for children in one part-time Nursery class and one Reception class. The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic groups is above average. A higher proportion of pupils than average speaks English as an additional language.

Few of these pupils are at an early stage of learning English. The proportion of pupils supported by school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs is much lower than average. The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is below average.

The school has exceeded the current floor standards, which are minimum standards for attainment and progress expected by the government. The school has had three changes of headteacher since the previous inspection. The current headteacher joined the school in April 2011.

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