St Anne's Catholic Primary School

Overview: St Anne's Catholic Primary School is an exceptional school that provides a strong standard of education and care for its pupils. The school has a calm and orderly culture with clear expectations, and pupils behave well, treat each other with respect, and show positive attitudes to learning.

Strengths:

• Leaders prioritise attendance and monitor it closely, establishing clear expectations for regular attendance and acting quickly when absence rises.
• The school has a calm and orderly culture with clear expectations, and pupils behave well, treat each other with respect, and show positive attitudes to learning.
• Leaders design and implement an ambitious curriculum that equips pupils with the knowledge and skills they need for the next stage of education.
• The school provides effective teaching of phonics, and staff match reading books closely to pupils' phonics knowledge.
• Leaders provide effective training that builds staff expertise, equipping staff to support pupils well in lessons and beyond.

Areas to improve:

• Leaders should continue to strengthen the consistency and precision of phonics and writing teaching so that more pupils, including those who speak English as an additional language and those who join mid-phase, secure essential knowledge quickly and a greater proportion reach higher standards over time.
• A small number of pupils do not consistently meet national expectations in phonics at the end of Year 1 or in writing at the end of key stage 2.

Safeguarding: The safeguarding standards are met, with leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfilling their specific responsibilities and having established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed.