St Augustine's Catholic College

Overview

St Augustine’s Catholic College is described as a “happy school community” where pupils and staff are proud to be members. The inspection found that the school provides a broad, ambitious curriculum and effective pastoral support, resulting in good overall effectiveness across all judged categories.

Strengths

• The curriculum is “broad and ambitious,” with subject experts delivering clear explanations and modelling that help pupils “remember their learning well over time.”
• A “highly inclusive culture” exists where bullying is rare, and pupils have the confidence to report incidents, knowing adults will ensure they stop.
• The Emmaus Centre provides effective pastoral and academic support, helping pupils with mental health needs, English as an additional language, and special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) to learn alongside their peers.
• Reading is “highly valued” through the Words, Wisdom and Worship programme, fostering tolerance and debate among pupils.
• Sixth-form students act as positive role models, providing mentorship and leading extra-curricular activities that enrich the school community.

Areas to improve

• The implementation of the curriculum is “not sufficiently adapted so that all pupils learn as well as they might,” requiring better understanding of pupil needs to address knowledge gaps or accelerate learning.
• High expectations for behaviour are “not upheld” on a few occasions, causing frustration for pupils; the trust must ensure behaviour systems are “consistently used” across all areas of school life.

Safeguarding

The report states that “the arrangements for safeguarding are effective.”