St Mark's West Essex Catholic School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 22 February 2023

Expectations of pupils at St Mark's are high. They celebrate their achievements and those of others. They know how to behave well. Pupils are consistently respectful and polite. Pupils are clear about what they are learning and why. They value feedback given in lessons and routinely use this to help them improve their work. Behaviour is calm and purposeful. Bullying rarely occurs. If it does, pupils know that leaders will resolve it quickly. They are confident to share concerns regarding this with school staff. Pupils enjoy a wide range of enrichment opportunities that link to the school's mission to ensure 'opportunities for all'. For example, pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) regularly win county boccia competitions. While the sixth-form curriculum is in most cases as effective as that in the rest of the school, for a significant part of the independent study programme, the guidance, content and expectations are not clear enough. This results in sixth-form students not achieving as well as they should.

What the school should improve

• Leaders have not considered carefully enough the whole-curriculum provision for sixth-form students. Expectations of what students should be doing when not being directly taught are unclear. This leads to students spending time in school not learning. Leaders need to ensure that they put in place well-thought-through curriculum provision that supplements appropriately the teaching students receive in class.
• The processes for monitoring the attendance and progress of sixth-form students who miss school are not effective. The work of form tutors and sixth-form leaders is inconsistent. There are no clear systems in place to ensure that when students miss school, they have the opportunity to catch up with their learning. This results in low attendance and students not being clear about the next steps they should take to improve. Leaders should consider what systems are required to ensure that staff understand and are well trained in how to check on students' academic progress if they are absent, and equally are able to improve the attendance of students so they do not miss their learning.

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