St Winifred’s RC Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Outcome

St Winifred's RC Primary School continues to be a good school.

What is it like to attend this school?

This is a happy, positive learning community for pupils. Pupils enjoy being at school and make positive progress. Pupils' experience reflects the school's core rules: to be 'ready, respectful, safe'.

Leaders have high expectations for pupils in all areas of their learning, starting in the early years. Pupils work hard and want to do well. They behave sensibly, are polite and show positive attitudes towards their learning.

Pupils understand their responsibility to behave with kindness and respect. This is underpinned by the school's Catholic ethos. Pupils said that bullying... is not tolerated.

On the rare occasions bullying does happen, staff deal with it quickly. This helps to ensure that pupils are kept safe and feel safe in school. One pupil summed up the view held by many: 'We know to be kind to each other here'.

All subjects contribute to the school's wide enrichment offer. There is an impressive range of sports available, including archery, and strong arts provision. A significant number of pupils benefit from individual music tuition.

Pupils are successfully prepared for their next steps at secondary school. By the end of Year 6, they have a well-developed body of knowledge in a range of subjects, especially reading and mathematics.

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

All pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), study a curriculum that matches the breadth and scope of the national curriculum.

Leaders have carefully set out the knowledge that they want pupils to learn, including in the early years provision. The curriculum in early years is designed so that children receive the right foundations to be successful in their learning in subsequent year groups. This ambition is supported by a very well-resourced and engaging learning environment.

Leaders prioritise reading from the moment children start school. The early reading curriculum is well structured and ambitious. As a result, a very large majority of pupils develop the phonics knowledge they need to read confidently and accurately.

Leaders make sure that books and other reading materials are carefully matched to the sounds that pupils learn. Teachers are able to spot and support pupils who are falling behind. Reading is well resourced, including having a member of staff in the library to develop pupils' reading habits.

Pupils enjoy reading, and by the end of Year 6, they have read a wide range of books and texts.The curriculum in most subjects is well designed. It includes carefully selected opportunities for pupils to revisit important knowledge.

In mathematics and phonics, for example, pupils regularly recap prior learning. This provides pupils, including disadvantaged pupils, with a solid foundation to build on for future learning. Leaders are developing strategies to ensure that this happens in other subjects with the same level of consistency.

Curriculum thinking is more established in some subjects than others. In a few areas, such as history and science, leaders are in the process of making sure that the curriculum gives pupils the building blocks of knowledge that they need to learn the subject successfully. This affects how well pupils' knowledge increases over time.

Pupils, too, find it harder to learn, remember and write about these subjects. Leaders are in the process of completing their work on the curriculum. They have clear plans to check how well the changes they make are working in practice.

Leaders provide teachers with helpful and regular training to support them in delivering the curriculum. This enables teachers to develop secure subject knowledge. Leaders make sure that teachers tackle any gaps or misconceptions in pupils' knowledge.

This includes for those pupils with SEND. However, sometimes teachers do not use what they know about pupils' learning in order to ensure that pupils build on what they have been taught previously. When this happens, it makes it harder for pupils to deepen their understanding successfully.

Staff expect pupils to behave well and to concentrate on their work. They deal with any off-task behaviour quickly and effectively. This ensures that classrooms are calm and purposeful places to learn.

The promotion of positive relationships is a strength of the school. Leaders prioritise attendance and communicate clear expectations to families about its importance. As a result, pupils are punctual and attend well.

The school provides a range of experiences to support pupils' wider development. These include taking on leadership responsibilities, such as being classroom monitors or buddy readers. Pupils support their community through charitable acts such as raising money for the local foodbank.

Staff offer a wide range of after-school activities, including sports and creative clubs. Pupils enjoy attending these and commented that the clubs help them to explore their different talents and interests.Leaders and governors help staff manage their workload effectively.

They promote staff well-being with thought and care. Staff said that they appreciate the support provided by school leaders.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

What does the school need to do to improve?

(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

• A few subjects are at an earlier stage of design and implementation in the school's review of the curriculum. In these instances, assessment is not used precisely to check what pupils know. As a result, errors are not consistently identified or addressed, leading to tasks being set that do not focus on the key knowledge still to be embedded.

This results in gaps in some pupils' understanding. The school should ensure that staff have sufficient subject knowledge across the curriculum to check pupils' understanding so that adaptations can be made where needed.

Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good.

This is called an ungraded inspection, and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which is carried out under section 5 of the Act.

Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

This is the first ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in October 2018.

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