St Michael’s CofE Primary School, Great Lever

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school. St Michael's is a happy, popular and successful school which pupils enjoy and show pride in.

Relationships between pupils and teachers are strong and valued. The headteacher and her senior leadership team are resolute in their determination to improve the school further. Parents and staff responding to inspection questionnaires were overwhelmingly positive about the work of the school and its leaders.

The capacity of leaders to make further improvements is very strong. Subject leaders and their teams, for example, have a clear overview of quality in their subjects and areas. The early years provision is outstanding.

Consequently..., children make very good progress and are very well prepared for Year 1. Pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is outstanding. The curriculum, including extra-curricular activities, which are wide, varied and rich, contributes to this quality very well.

Pupils' safety and welfare is promoted well. Pupils have a mature understanding of what is right and wrong. Their behaviour is good and they demonstrate British values very well.

Individual programmes of support for disabled pupils or those who have special educational needs promote pupils' academic, social and emotional development very well. Partnerships with external agencies to support such progress are strong. From often well below average starting points, pupils achieve well.

They reach standards at the end of Year 6 that are broadly average. This is because the quality of teaching is good. Good teaching of reading and writing is leading to improved outcomes for pupils in these areas.

Attendance is above average, demonstrating the school's very effective partnerships with parents and pupils' enjoyment of school. Governors share the commitment of leaders to improve the school further. They hold leaders to account well.

It is not yet an outstanding school because : Pupils, particularly the most able, are not always routinely challenged to record their responses in their own words or to use reasoning skills to solve problems in mathematics. When observing lessons, leaders' records of teaching quality do not routinely make clear the impact such teaching has on the learning of pupils.

Information about this school

The school is larger in size when compared to other primary schools in England.

Over 90 percent of pupils are from minority ethnic backgrounds. Almost an equal percentage of pupils do not have English as their first language. Around 70 percent of pupils are of Pakistani heritage.

The proportion of disadvantaged pupils, those who are eligible for funding through the pupil premium, is above average. The pupil premium funding is additional government funding to support pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and those looked after by the local authority. The proportion of disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs is below average.

The school met the government's current floor standards for 2014, which are the minimum expectations for pupils' attainment and progress in English and mathematics by the end of Year 6. The local authority uses the school to provide support for other schools. The school holds a number of externally validated awards including the Basic Skills Quality Mark, Investors in People and the International Schools Award.