St Mary's CofE Primary School, East Barnet

Overview

St Mary’s is described as a “welcoming and inclusive school” where pupils are “valued and well supported.” The inspection highlights an “ambitious” curriculum and “exemplary” behaviour, noting that pupils are generally well prepared for their next stage of education.

Strengths

• Pupils are “exceptionally well behaved,” being “friendly, polite” and feeling “safe and well looked after.”
• Personal development is praised as “outstanding,” with staff celebrating diversity and teaching respect for different cultures and beliefs.
• The curriculum is “well sequenced,” allowing teachers to clearly identify what pupils need to learn, resulting in a “deep understanding of subject content” in most areas.
• Early reading and phonics provision is “well developed,” helping pupils learn to read with “accuracy and fluency” and fostering a “love of books.”
• Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities are “identified quickly” and “well supported,” typically accessing the same curriculum as their peers.

Areas to improve

• In a few subjects, the curriculum is at an “earlier stage of development” and is “not sufficiently embedded” to support deep understanding.
• Teachers’ subject knowledge is “less secure” in these developing areas, leading to inconsistent explanations of content.
• Leaders must ensure teachers receive “sufficient training and support” to strengthen their subject expertise and check that pupils have secured component knowledge.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are “effective,” with policies kept up to date, appropriate pre-employment checks carried out, and pupils at risk of harm “swiftly identified and supported well.”