Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 25 February 2025

This is a school with a strong sense of community, where pupils are happy and safe. The school lives out its mission 'that every child is provided with the best opportunities to be successful citizens of the future.' Pupils take part in a wide range of enrichment activities to gain valuable life experiences. They take part in trips, clubs, workshops and various charity drives. These provide pupils with a strong sense of responsibility and citizenship. Pupils are taught to aspire and aim high in their academic work. They enjoy careers week and talks from a range of inspiring speakers. The school holds pupils to high standards of behaviour and promotes both dignity and empathy. This helps to ensure that pupils' conduct is mature and highly respectful. They are calm and orderly around the school site and motivated to learn in class. The school provides a broad education. Pupils enjoy their learning and progress well through the curriculum. Pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), typically achieve in line with national outcomes. The school works closely with families. Parents and carers speak warmly of the school. They feel their children are known well and nurtured.

What the school should improve

• In some subjects, the curriculum does not consistently revisit prior knowledge, and teaching does not routinely check that knowledge is remembered by pupils before moving on to new content. As a result, pupils sometimes do not fully recall the key knowledge needed to make progress through the curriculum or draw detailed links and connections with prior learning. The school should ensure that the curriculum is designed to help pupils remember knowledge long term.
• The school's phonics programme is not fully embedded. Staff do not routinely ensure that pupils can apply their phonics knowledge to their reading or writing. This means that some pupils do not develop their reading or writing skills as well as they could. The school should ensure that staff have the expertise that they need to deliver the programme confidently and that they consistently encourage pupils to apply their skills, particularly to their spelling and writing.
• In the early years, some staff interactions with children are not of a consistently high quality and some of the activities are not designed carefully enough so that the intended learning is fully realised. This means that some children do not receive consistently high-quality learning experiences. The school should ensure that staff are clear about what children should learn from an activity and that their communications with children extend children's knowledge.

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