St Sampson's Church of England Primary School

Overview: St Sampson's Church of England Primary School is a high-performing school with a strong sense of community and a focus on developing pupils' character and wellbeing. Pupils thrive in a calm and inclusive environment, with leaders and staff working together to ensure that all pupils achieve well.

Strengths:

• Attendance and behaviour are strong, with leaders addressing poor attendance and punctuality through consistent communication and individualised approaches.
• Pupils engage with their learning with enthusiasm and develop respectful and sensible behaviours.
• The school has a well-planned and sequenced curriculum that takes into account the needs of children in each cohort, with a strong emphasis on language and communication.
• The school's work to develop pupils' character is highly effective, with pupils taking on leadership roles and making valued contributions to school life.
• The school has a considered programme to develop teachers professionally, with staff having the required skill set and knowledge to teach the curriculum well across subjects.

Areas to improve:

• Leaders should ensure that teachers identify and address misconceptions so that pupils do not make repeated errors, particularly in their writing.
• Leaders should continue, and further strengthen, their work to ensure that disadvantaged pupils receive the support they need to attain as highly as possible in reading, writing and mathematics.

Safeguarding: The safeguarding standards are met, with leaders and/or those responsible for governance fulfilling their specific responsibilities and having established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed.