St Joseph's Catholic Primary School
Catchment Area, Reviews and Key Information

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. Your school provides pupils with a calm, friendly and hard-working place to learn. The school’s family atmosphere is reflected in one pupil’s comment: ‘If you spend just one day here, you know everyone by the end of the day’. Pupils are welcoming, polite and well-behaved. They greet visitors warmly and speak enthusiastically about their school. You have addressed the key issues identified at the time of the previous inspection in full. You and your deputy headteacher, and your governors, have developed a strong team of leaders, teachers and teaching assistants who share your high aspirations for pupils’ learning and behaviour. At the time of the previous inspection, you were asked to develop teaching assistants’ roles. Teaching assistants are now much clearer about their roles and make a valuable contribution to teaching. They work closely and effectively alongside teachers to support pupils’ learning. The inspection team also asked you to give pupils more opportunities to use information and communication technology. You have updated the teaching of computing skills since the previous inspection to ensure that pupils use technology regularly to support their learning. Marked improvements in teaching since the previous inspection have strengthened pupils’ learning considerably during key stage 1. For example, changes to phonics teaching have generated good progress in developing pupils’ key reading and writing skills. The results of the Year 1 phonics check have doubled since the previous inspection and matched the national average in 2016. Rising standards at the end of key stage 1 have ensured that pupils are better prepared for the next stage of their learning. More-recent improvements in the quality of teaching during key stage 2 have already had a dramatic effect on pupils’ learning. Across the curriculum, pupils’ progress has accelerated rapidly since the start of this term. You and your team are keenly aware of the need to embed these improvements in teaching so that they are sustained, particularly in writing. You are rightly focusing on making sure that teaching during key stage 2 develops and extends pupils’ writing skills consistently well as they move up through the school. You have improved the accuracy of teachers’ assessments during the past year. This has given you and your leadership team a more reliable picture of pupils’ progress across the school. However, it is too soon for your subject leaders to have developed a sufficiently precise view of the quality of teaching and learning in different classes and year groups. Safeguarding is effective. Strong relationships throughout the school ensure that pupils feel secure and valued. Pupils feel comfortable talking to their teachers and do so confidently. This contributes well to their well-being and to their safety. Pupils feel very safe in school and say that they are getting on well with their learning. You and your team work closely with parents and agencies to support pupils’ personal development and wellbeing. Parents say that school leaders take good care of their children. You and your leadership team make sure that all safeguarding arrangements are robust and fit for purpose. You complete recruitment and safeguarding checks promptly when new members of staff are appointed and keep careful records. Upto-date safeguarding policies underpin the school’s work so that staff and pupils can work safely. You and your team make sure that the school is secure and wellorganised, so that pupils are safe. Effective policies, well-established procedures and clear lines of communication ensure that any concerns about pupils’ safety are quickly identified and addressed. Inspection findings During this inspection, I focused particularly on: – how successfully children in early years are prepared for the next stage of their learning – whether pupils of all abilities, including the most able, make sufficiently strong progress during key stage 2, particularly in writing – how effectively leaders secure pupils’ good attendance – how well leaders ensure that pupils acquire computing skills.