Holy Trinity CofE Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 2 July 2024

This school has a warm and nurturing environment and pupils are happy to attend. They enjoy their learning and time spent with their friends. Many pupils participate in clubs and activities that develop their talents and interests. Popular examples include sports clubs and competitions, coding club and book club. Pupils learn about the wide array of differences between people in the school community. They welcome new arrivals to the school. This includes the number of pupils that join the school at various points after the early years, many of whom speak English as an additional language. Most pupils behave well. They understand the importance of kindness and they show respect towards each other and to teachers. Pupils are well supported to recognise and regulate their own emotions. This particularly helps some pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) to establish a positive mindset for learning. The school recognises that some pupils do not achieve as well as they should. To address this, it has taken steps to increase its expectations for pupils' achievement by improving the curriculum. However, as many of these changes are recent, the impact cannot be measured. In the early years, where the curriculum is more established, children progress well from their starting points.

What the school should improve

• Some of the school's systems do not provide useful evaluations of the impact of its work. At times, staff do not know how well the school's strategies to improve pupils' progress and attainment are working. The school should strengthen its systems to monitor the quality of provision that pupils, including those with SEND, receive to ensure that it is as effective as it should be.
• Some pupils do not write as well as they should. They are hampered by weaknesses in their handwriting, spelling and grammar knowledge. This limits their success in English, and across other curriculum subjects. The school should ensure that staff better support pupils to develop these fundamental skills, so that they are well prepared for their next steps in education.
• At times, staff have lower expectations of what some pupils, including pupils with SEND, can achieve. Sometimes they do not support these pupils to access ambitious learning activities alongside their peers. This hampers their learning. The school should train staff to adapt their curriculum delivery, so that pupils with SEND benefit from high expectations of their learning.
• The school's approach to help older pupils who struggle with reading is not tailored well enough to swiftly address gaps in their reading knowledge and how fluently they read. For some pupils, these weaknesses persist over time, which hinders their ability to read and therefore to access the curriculum. The school should sharpen its approach in developing pupils' reading knowledge, so that pupils become fluent and confident readers.

Read the full Ofsted report (opens in a new tab)