St Swithun Wells Catholic Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

The school expects pupils to treat each other with a great deal of respect and kindness. Pupils regularly meet these expectations. For example, in lessons pupils listen patiently to one another's contributions.

They are supportive and considerate when working together. Pupils are also encouraged to help people in the wider world. Some pupils take the lead on arranging fundraising events for charitable organisations.

Relationships between pupils and staff are professional, nurturing and caring. For example, in the early years, children and school staff role play being firefighters to rescue a teddy bear from the tree. Pupils are happy here.

Typically, pupils s...aid there are trusted adults in school to speak to if they are worried about anything. Pupils behave responsibly. If any incidents occur, the school deals with them swiftly and appropriately.

Pupils are safe and feel safe.

Leaders and staff expect pupils to achieve strong outcomes. The curriculum is ambitious.

The school checks that pupils learn and understand appropriate vocabulary and subject content. Published national assessment results reflect the school's high expectations for pupils' achievement.

What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

Pupils at the early stages of learning to read receive daily phonics teaching.

This begins in the early years or when pupils join the school, if they need it. Leaders ensure that pupils' understanding of letters and the sounds that they make is regularly checked. Teaching and the books pupils read are matched carefully.

Some pupils receive additional phonics teaching if necessary. Helpful information is provided to parents and carers so they know how to help with reading at home. Pupils quickly become confident and fluent readers.

Pupils study a broad range of subjects in line with the National Curriculum. Leaders have decided the important knowledge they want pupils to know and remember as they move up through the school. Mostly, important content is sequenced effectively from the early years onwards.

Typically, teaching and resources help pupils learn the required material. This includes pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Expert therapists provide training for teaching staff and specialist support for pupils who need it.

As a result, pupils with SEND receive appropriate adaptations to help them learn the curriculum alongside their peers.

Mostly, leaders and staff ensure that pupils recall key subject content. This enables pupils to build secure knowledge and connect new learning with what they have learned before.

For example, pupils in Year 4 learn about the way volcanoes are formed. They recall and build on this knowledge in Year 5, when learning about the different parts of mountains. Sometimes, the essential prior knowledge that pupils should recall is not made explicitly clear.

On occasion, teaching does not ensure that important prior knowledge is remembered securely. Sometimes, as a result, pupils struggle to recall and connect important prior learning to their current learning. This leads to gaps in some pupils' knowledge.

Pupils are attentive in class. In the early years, children remain focused on learning for extended periods of time. Low-level disruption rarely interrupts learning.

Leaders and staff pay close attention to pupils' behaviour and take appropriate action, where necessary. The governing body and school leaders provide support for staff well-being. They consult staff on issues that may have an impact on their workload.

Leaders keep a close eye on pupils' attendance rates. Pupils and parents receive guidance about the importance of regular school attendance. If frequent absence is a concern, the school works closely with parents and finds solutions that ensure it improves.

Leaders and staff encourage pupils to take care of their safety. This includes staying safe online. Recently, representatives of the police spoke to pupils in Year 6 about the dangers of knife crime.

Pupils are encouraged to take part in a range of wider enrichment and character-building opportunities, such as taking up positions of responsibility in the school as house captains and sports captains. The school provides a range of extra-curricular clubs. These include netball, football and choir.

The school ensures pupils have equal access to all these opportunities.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• Sometimes, the prior knowledge that pupils must embed to their long-term memory is not made explicitly clear.

Some content is not revisited frequently enough to commit key knowledge to pupils' long-term memory, and pupils forget what they have learned. As a result, some pupils have gaps in their knowledge. The school must ensure that the important knowledge pupils must remember long term is made explicitly clear, recalled and connected to current learning.

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