St James School

Overview: St James School continues to be a good school, with a calm and purposeful environment that enables pupils to focus on their learning. Pupils feel safe and supported by adults, and the school motto of 'work hard, be kind' is lived by the pupils and staff.

Strengths:

• The school has high expectations for behaviour, with pupils behaving well in lessons and around the school.
• Pupils have opportunities to have new experiences and develop their talents, with an extensive range of weekly creative, active and service electives.
• The school provides opportunities for pupils to engage with local employers and provides impartial careers advice for all pupils.
• The school actively promotes the importance of regular attendance, with staff working with pupils and their families to provide the support needed to overcome any barriers to coming to school.
• The school and trust are considerate of staff workload and well-being, with staff feeling proud to work at the school and well-supported in their roles.

Areas to improve:

• Some areas of the curriculum are not implemented effectively to ensure that all pupils are able to learn as well as they might.
• Disadvantaged pupils do not achieve as well as their peers.
• The curriculum is not consistently implemented effectively to ensure that pupils can learn as well as they might, resulting in outcomes that are not consistently high across all subject areas.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.