St Roberts Catholic First School, Morpeth

Overview

This ungraded inspection confirms that St Roberts Catholic First School has “taken effective action to maintain the standards identified at the previous inspection.” The report describes a school where “pupils love attending” and demonstrate “exemplary attitudes to their education.” Leaders have implemented an “ambitious curriculum” that ensures pupils gain a “wide range of knowledge and skills,” with particularly strong outcomes in writing.

Strengths

• Pupils show “exemplary attitudes to their education,” respecting each other and listening attentively to staff.
• Teachers use “expert subject knowledge” to build pupils’ knowledge securely, effectively checking retention and correcting errors to prevent misconceptions.
• The school ensures all pupils learn to read, with a strong phonics programme and effective individual support for those who find reading tricky.
• Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are accurately assessed and supported to “learn alongside their peers,” achieving well.
• The school provides broad experiences, including an outdoor ‘forest’ provision and educational visits, helping pupils build confidence and understand values such as democracy.

Areas to improve

• Some activities and adult support in the early years do not help children develop knowledge and skills securely, missing opportunities to build on what they already know. The school should ensure early years activities allow children to practise learned content and build new learning on existing knowledge.

Safeguarding

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