St Patrick's Catholic Primary School, Consett

Overview

This ungraded inspection confirms that St Patrick’s Catholic Primary School has “taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.” The school provides a high-quality education where pupils are “happy, enthusiastic and motivated to learn,” benefiting from recent ambitious curriculum changes in mathematics and English. Leaders have successfully improved attendance and created a positive, safe environment where relationships between adults and pupils are strong.

Strengths

• Pupils feel “respected, safe and supported,” with positive relationships and effective peer support roles like ‘Friendship fixers’.
• A new mathematics curriculum has addressed previous gaps, helping pupils become “confident and proficient mathematicians.”
• The new English curriculum prioritises “high-quality literature,” placing reading at the heart of learning and improving pupils’ work.
• Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are “supported very well,” with learning adapted appropriately to access the same curriculum as peers.
• Leaders have taken “effective action to reduce pupils’ absence,” resulting in rising attendance through partnership with parents.

Areas to improve

• Teachers must better check pupils’ phonics knowledge to identify and address gaps before moving pupils on, as some misunderstandings are not resolved speedily enough.
• The school should ensure high expectations for spelling, punctuation and grammar are sustained across all subjects, as the quality of written work is currently variable and inconsistent outside of English lessons.

Safeguarding

The report states that “the arrangements for safeguarding are effective.”