St Bartholomew's CofE VC Primary School

Overview

St Bartholomew’s CofE VC Primary School is described as a ‘happy, welcoming and inclusive place to learn’ where staff treat the community ‘as a family’. Leaders have established an ‘ambitious curriculum’ that helps pupils achieve well, supported by strong relationships with parents and effective support for those with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

Strengths

• Staff promote pupils’ well-being and teach them to be ‘courageous advocates’, resulting in polite behaviour and a sense of safety.
• Early reading provision is ‘well organised’, with logical phonics lessons and quick identification of children needing extra help.
• Children in the early years ‘get off to a super start’ through purposeful activities in a ‘supportive, caring environment’.
• Pupils with SEND are identified swiftly and supported skilfully to become ‘independent learners’ who access a broad curriculum.
• Leaders ensure staff workload is manageable and actively engage parents in their children’s learning.

Areas to improve

• Leaders should broaden the ‘range of genres and texts’ in the reading curriculum to enhance pupils’ reading experiences.
• The curriculum in a small number of subjects lacks ‘precise detail about the key knowledge pupils should learn and remember’, limiting depth of understanding.
• Leaders must continue working with families to ensure all pupils ‘attend school regularly’, as some still miss too much learning.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are ‘effective’, with a ‘strong culture of safeguarding’ throughout the school, regular staff training, and ‘robust’ systems to report concerns.