Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School, Barrow

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school The headteacher and deputy headteacher provide inspiring leadership.

Their love of the school and high ambition for the pupils motivate all staff. Leaders and governors have dealt with the areas that required improvement at the last inspection. They have improved teaching and raised pupils' achievement.

They have good capacity to continue to improve the school. Care and respect permeate the school. All staff do their utmost to make every pupil feel valued.

In this warm and nurturing environment, pupils grow in confidence and develop very positive attitudes to learning. Consistently good teaching, based on accurate assessment, cap...tures pupils' interest so pupils find learning exciting. Pupils are encouraged to have high aspirations and develop a 'can-do' approach.

Pupils' attainment in standardised assessments has risen. Pupils of all ability make good or better progress in each year group. Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, pupils with lower starting points and the most able pupils make especially good progress.

These groups are taught very effectively. Pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is a strength. Pupils' wonder and zest for life are encouraged at every opportunity.

Pupils feel and are safe in school. Their conduct around the school and at breaktimes is exemplary. The vast majority behave well in class.

Children make good progress in the early years. Provision in the well-established Reception class is outstanding. It is not yet an outstanding school because : Subject leadership is not developed to the same extent and as effectively as it could be in different subjects.

Pupils' written work is not of a consistently good standard as they do not always apply what they know when writing independently. Middle-ability pupils make generally good progress but do not make the same rapid progress as other ability groups. Some work is too difficult in mathematics, so pupils do not consolidate their learning as well as they could.

Early literacy skills are not developed as effectively in the new Nursery class as they are in the Reception class.

Information about this school

The school is smaller than the average-sized primary school. Pupils are taught in single age classes.

A Nursery class opened in September 2015, providing 24 places in the morning and 24 places in the afternoon. The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is well above average. The proportion of disadvantaged pupils who are eligible for support through the pupil premium (additional funding provided to the school for pupils who are known to be eligible for free school meals and those looked after by the local authority) is well above average.

The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic groups is well below average. A smaller than average proportion speaks English as an additional language. The school meets the current floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils' attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics.