St Bede's Catholic Primary School, Newcastle

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 19 March 2024

The school strives to make all pupils and families feel welcome as valued members of the school community. Staff look after pupils well. They respond to pupils' needs effectively. Pupils trust staff to help them with their problems. This contributes to pupils feeling safe and happy. A high proportion of pupils speak English as an additional language. Many pupils and their families face wider challenges in everyday life. The school is ambitious in their expectations of what pupils should achieve. The school supports pupils well, so that most pupils meet the high expectations set by the school. Pupils typically achieve well in most subjects. This includes pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). In Reception, children quickly learn to play and learn together. As pupils move through school, staff build on this strong early start. They remind pupils of the behaviour expectations, so that pupils behave well in lessons. Pupils are effectively supported to resolve friendship issues at play times. The high levels of respect between pupils and staff are clear to see. Pupils enjoy the many leadership opportunities that the school offers. These include older pupils acting as buddies to help younger pupils. The school ensures that pupils develop positive character traits through charity work such as raising funds to support a church project in Kenya.

What the school should improve

• In mathematics, pupils do not have sufficient opportunity to apply their knowledge of mathematics through reasoning and problem solving. Pupils struggle to use what they know to work out what they do not know. The school must ensure that pupils have regular opportunities to use and apply mathematical knowledge across a range of purposeful contexts.
• In some foundation subjects, the school is unclear how well pupils remember important knowledge and vocabulary over time. This means that teachers are unable to identify and address any gaps in pupils' learning before they introduce new knowledge. The school needs to ensure that assessment effectively identifies any misconceptions or gaps in pupils' knowledge so that these can be quickly resolved.
• Some pupils' SEND support plans lack precise detail. They do not specify the exact support that these pupils need. This means that the needs of these pupils are not catered for as well as they could be in all aspects of provision. The school should ensure that the revised support plans are sufficiently detailed and implemented effectively for all pupils with SEND.

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