St Joseph's Roman Catholic Primary School, Hurst Green

Overview: St Joseph's Roman Catholic Primary School, Hurst Green is a good school with a personal development that is outstanding. Pupils are happy at school, value the encouragement and support they receive from staff, and enjoy learning during lessons and relaxing together at social times. The school provides a well-crafted and ambitious curriculum that captures pupils' interests and enhances their personal development.

Strengths:

• Pupils are happy at school and value the encouragement and support they receive from staff.
• The school provides a well-crafted and ambitious curriculum that captures pupils' interests and enhances their personal development.
• Pupils benefit from the range of thought-provoking topics they study, and by the end of key stage 2, they demonstrate a mature understanding of how their choices and actions impact on the natural world and on other people.
• The school has high expectations for the academic achievement of all pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), and pupils typically achieve well across the curriculum.

Areas to improve:

• The school does not ensure that teachers have a shared understanding of how to accurately identify different types of SEND, which reduces the timeliness and effectiveness of the support that teachers provide for these pupils.
• In a small number of subjects, at times, teachers do not check pupils' understanding well enough, which means that sometimes, pupils do not learn and remember the key information they need to be ready for their next steps in learning.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.