St James Church of England Primary School

Strengths

• Pupils achieve above national expectations in reading, writing and mathematics over time.
• Phonics teaching is highly effective, helping pupils become fluent and confident readers.
• Pupils produce high-quality writing and impressive artwork and design and technology work.
• Pupils with SEND make suitable progress from their starting points and receive adapted resources.
• Attendance is high, and persistent absence remains well below national averages.
• Pupils behave very well in lessons and social times, showing kindness and consideration.
• The curriculum is broad, carefully sequenced and taught with consistently high quality.
• Teachers use strong subject knowledge, skilful questioning and effective assessment to deepen learning.
• Early years provision is highly effective, with children achieving significantly above national expectations.
• Leadership and governance are highly effective, with rigorous evaluation and strong strategic oversight.
• Staff receive high-quality professional development and feel valued and well supported.
• The personal development and wellbeing programme is highly effective and prepares pupils well for life beyond school.
• A wide extracurricular offer, trips and leadership roles enrich pupils' learning and character.
• Safeguarding standards are met, with an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility.

Areas for Improvement

• Inclusion is the only area graded expected standard rather than strong.
• Some evaluations of pupil support in inclusion could be sharper, limiting refinement of strategies.
• Leaders should apply the same rigour of analysis and quality assurance to inclusion as across other areas.
• Disadvantaged pupils' attainment in reading, mathematics and combined reading, writing and mathematics is below national averages, with large gaps.
• A small group of disadvantaged pupils attend less often than their peers nationally.

• Primary Schools
• Secondary Schools