St Francis Catholic Primary School

Overview: St Francis Catholic Primary School is a thriving school that has made significant improvements since joining The Cardinal Newman Catholic Educational Trust in 2022. Pupils are well-prepared for their next stage of education, and the school has a nurturing ethos with a strong emphasis on contributing to society.

Strengths:

• Pupils are polite, courteous, and eloquent, and are ambassadors for their school.
• The school has a strong emphasis on pupils knowing the importance of contributing to society, with pupils raising money for charities and participating in events such as 'International Mass' days.
• Relationships with parents and carers are highly positive, with all parents who completed the Ofsted Parent View survey recommending the school.
• The school's Catholic ethos permeates its work, and pupils also experience other faiths and cultures.
• The trust has provided expertise to support staff in developing a well-thought-out, logically ordered curriculum.

Areas to improve:

• On some occasions, staff do not consider well enough what pupils can already do and provide them with tasks that do not sufficiently deepen their thinking.
• Historically, the implementation of the phonics curriculum has not been taught with the rigour and high expectations of more recent times, resulting in a few pupils having gaps in their phonics knowledge.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.