St Mary's CofE Primary School

Overview: St Mary's CofE Primary School is a highly effective school where pupils are happy and joyful, with a strong Christian core value of 'koinonia' that knits everyone together. The school has a top-notch benchmark that pupils must rise to, with a focus on kindness, compassion, and resilience.

Strengths:

• Pupils are happy and joyful, with a strong sense of kindness and compassion.
• The school has a highly ambitious and well-thought-out curriculum, with a focus on developing each child personally.
• Teachers are well-supported and have access to professional development, with a focus on phonics and reading.
• The school has excellent facilities, including an elite running track, sports courts, and a swimming pool.
• Pupils have high esteem and complete the same work as their peers, with excellent transition work with feeder nurseries.

Areas to improve:

• In some subjects, leaders' curriculum thinking is not precise enough around the component knowledge that all pupils must learn.
• Pupils miss out on reaching the highest standards across the whole of the curriculum due to incomplete curriculum thinking.

Safeguarding: The arrangements for safeguarding are effective, with pupils' safety prioritised by leaders, perceptive adults trained to spot signs of need, and a culture where adults report everything.