St Bartholomew’s CofE Voluntary Controlled Primary School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school Existing leaders and managers are effectively addressing a number of challenges the school faces. Governors have recently become fully involved in school life.

This has put them in a strong position to provide effective support and challenge. Consistently good teaching ensures that, overall, pupils, including disadvantaged pupils, those who speak English as an additional language and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make good progress from generally low starting points. The promotion of spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is a strength of the school.

Pupils are extremely well prepared for life... in modern Britain. Pupils are well behaved and have very positive attitudes to learning. They are proud to belong to such a multicultural school community.

There is a strong culture of safeguarding across the school. Pupils make good progress from typically low starting points. Whenever pupils join the school, the caring staff make sure that children settle in well and enjoy their learning.

Over time, the proportion of children achieving a good level of development at the end of the early years has improved, but remains below the national average. Attainment in reading, writing and mathematics has been below the national averages at the end of key stage 1 for three years and fell to below at key stage 2 in reading and mathematics in 2018. Phonics teaching is well structured.

However, books are not well matched to phonics knowledge. Leaders carefully check progress in reading, writing, mathematics and science. Assessment in other subjects is not as well developed.

Attendance has not been recorded accurately in the school, which artificially inflated the figures. Leaders have acted to ensure that attendance is now recorded accurately. As a result, attendance has fallen to below the national average.

Information about this school

St Bartholomew's Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School is much larger than the average-sized primary school. The proportion of pupils supported by the pupil premium is much higher than that found nationally. The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is much higher than that found nationally.

The school has 14 out of 17 possible ethnic groups. The average number of groups for this phase of education is nine. The proportion of pupils with SEND is above average.

A higher than average proportion of pupils leave and join the school at other than normal times. The school runs breakfast, after-school and holiday clubs. The deputy headteacher became the acting headteacher in March 2019.