St Ethelbert's Catholic Primary School and Nursery

Overview

St Ethelbert’s Catholic Primary School has “taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.” The report describes a school where pupils “love, and feel loved by” the community, benefiting from a “broad and interesting” curriculum and “impeccably polite” behaviour. Leaders demonstrate a “sharp focus on attendance” and staff welfare, ensuring pupils are “fully prepared” for future education and life.

Strengths

• Pupils exhibit “excellent classroom behaviour” and “warm and caring relationships with staff,” feeling confident that adults will resolve concerns.
• The teaching of reading is a “strength,” with an “ambitious reading programme” ensuring pupils become “fluent readers” who possess a “potent love of reading.”
• Adaptations for pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are “very well considered and highly effective,” with swift identification of needs.
• Staff have “excellent professional skills and knowledge” due to comprehensive professional development, while their well-being remains a priority.
• Pupils show an “exceptional grasp of the idea of citizenship,” actively supporting local projects and demonstrating pride in the school’s diversity.

Areas to improve

• The school should ensure pupils have opportunities to “remember and apply learning sufficiently well” to address gaps in knowledge from previous years.
• Leaders must fully implement their plan to help pupils make “meaningful connections between their current topics and what they learned in previous years.”

Safeguarding

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