St Norbert’s Catholic Voluntary Academy

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is an outstanding school.

The headteacher's inspiring leadership spreads excellence throughout the school. She has ensured that the spiritual, moral, social and cultural aspects of the curriculum are outstanding. Pupils are well prepared for life in modern Britain.

The school's leaders and managers form a strong team. Their consistent and rigorous approach to improving teaching and the analysis of all data ensures that any pupils in danger of falling behind are quickly helped to succeed. Pupils' behaviour is outstanding and their attitudes to learning are exemplary.

Excellent arrangements are in place to ensure all pupils are safe. All the parent...s who stated a view say their child is safe and happy at the school. They are full of praise for the teaching and the progress their children make.

The school day is exciting and varied, with a wide range of subjects. Literacy and numeracy are emphasised, and the developing links in other subjects, for these essential skills, have proved successful in helping pupils to do even better. The support staff are a huge strength of the school.

They are extremely well trained and highly focused on pupils' well-being, personal development and academic achievements. Outstanding support by all staff, and other pupils, helps those pupils who speak little or no English on entry to make rapid gains in their learning. The early years provision is outstanding.

All the children get off to an excellent start and are more than ready for their learning in Year 1. The quality of teaching is outstanding. Staff are experienced and highly trained.

This, along with exceptionally high levels of care, supports learning extremely well. Pupils' achievement is outstanding. They make rapid and sustained progress over time.

As they move up through the school, pupils are consistently well supported to overcome any difficulties and to achieve as well as they can. Governors are extremely skilled. They are very supportive of the school.

They constantly challenge leaders to get the best out of pupils.

Information about this school

The school is smaller than the average-sized primary school. Fewer pupils than average are White British.

A much higher proportion of pupils than average enter the school mid-year, and are from Eastern Europe, mostly Poland or Lithuania. The vast majority of these, when they start at the school, are at a very early stage of speaking English. The proportion of disadvantaged pupils, those supported through the pupil premium, is below the national average.

The pupil premium is additional government funding to support pupils known to be eligible for free school meals and children who are looked after by the local authority. The proportion of disabled pupils and those with special educational needs is below the national average. Early years provision is full time, in one Reception class.

The headteacher was appointed after the previous inspection, having previously been the deputy headteacher. The majority of the staff are new to the school since that time. Two of the staff have achieved recognition as Specialist Leaders of Education.

A new Chair of the Governing Body has just been appointed. The school meets the government's current floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils' attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of Year 6. The school has full accreditation as a 'Rights Respecting' school, and has been verified as an 'Expert Centre' by the Global Learning Programme.