Blessed Thomas Holford Catholic College

Overview: Blessed Thomas Holford Catholic College is a good school, with a calm and joyful atmosphere, where pupils are clear about what is expected of them and live up to high standards. The school has high levels of ambition for pupils' academic achievement, and pupils, including those who are disadvantaged, achieve highly.

Strengths:

• Pupils regularly raise money for charity and live out the school's values of 'be kind, work hard, develop my whole self'.
• Relationships between staff and pupils have strengthened, with respectful interactions.
• The school has high levels of ambition for pupils' academic achievement, and pupils, including those who are disadvantaged, achieve highly.
• Students in the sixth form successfully develop their independent study skills and their attainment is high.
• The school's routines are firmly embedded, cultivating a culture where pupils are ready to learn and eager to succeed.

Areas to improve:

• In some subjects, assessment strategies are not used effectively to check what pupils know, preventing some misconceptions from being identified and occasionally pupils moving on to new learning before they are ready.
• From time to time, teachers do not use adaptive strategies effectively to adjust learning for some pupils, meaning that some pupils do not achieve as highly as they could.
• Some aspects of the school's quality assurance processes are not focused enough on its key priorities, meaning that the school does not have a clear understanding of what is working well and what needs further development.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.