St Patrick’s R.C. Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Pupils enjoy their time at the school very much.

This is because they have positive relationships with their teachers and other staff, which help support a vibrant atmosphere around the school. On the whole, teaching is effective, and the school environment promotes beneficial learning opportunities. Both indoors and outdoors, the classrooms are stimulating and active learning areas.

This assists most pupils to make strong progress in language and mathematics and achieve well from their starting points. Staff successfully promote an ethos of care and support for pupils that encourages them to take responsibility for their well-being and behaviour. This contributes to their positive attitudes to learning.

The schoo...l is a very diverse community that encourages pupils to develop confidence in their own, individual identity, while also developing a healthy respect for others. Pupils state openly that they feel safe and secure in and around the school, and that the staff encourage them to be happy and relaxed. Teachers listen carefully to what the pupils want to learn about.

They blend these ideas and interests into engaging lessons that encourage pupils to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding in a variety of different ways. Pupils' literacy skills progress particularly well, and many use these skills effectively across all areas of their learning. However, pupils' skills in speaking Welsh and their ability to use numeracy and digital skills across the curriculum are not as effective.

Leaders and governors work well together, and the new senior leadership team shares its responsibilities purposefully. They provide beneficial professional learning opportunities for staff that supports an effective whole school ethos where most staff feel valued for their contribution to school life. Leaders self-evaluate the school's work rigorously to plan for improvements.

This is a thorough process. However, they attempt to do too much within individual targets and leaders need to streamline the targets in order to make them more manageable. Recommendations R1 Ensure that the targets set for school improvement are manageable R2 Ensure that teaching promotes independent learning successfully between Year 3 and Year 6 R3 Plan effectively to improve pupils' numeracy, digital competency and physical skills R4 Strengthen the provision for pupils to speak Welsh, and to learn about the culture and heritage of Wales What happens next The school will draw up an action plan to address the recommendations from the inspection.