St Paul's Catholic Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 6 May 2026

This is a small school where every pupil is welcome. Its Catholic character is visible throughout school life and shapes the open-hearted community that pupils, families and staff experience. Pupils have warm relationships with staff and with one another. They move around school with confidence and engage positively with visitors. Too few pupils achieve as well as they could, particularly in writing and phonics. While leaders have taken meaningful action in some areas, progress is uneven. Children in the early years are not as well prepared for Year 1 as they should be. Leaders do not address gaps in important basic knowledge quickly enough. Pupils' attendance is below national averages. Leaders work hard to support families who face the greatest barriers to regular attendance. Too many pupils still miss too much school. Pupils feel safe and report feeling happy at school. Bullying is rare. Leaders deal with any incidents effectively. The youngest children benefit from a warm and welcoming start to school. Pupils enjoy their learning and benefit from enrichment opportunities that broaden their understanding of the wider world. Many experience visits and events that take them well beyond their local area for the first time. Leaders make sure that no pupil misses out on enrichment because of their circumstances. Pupils take on meaningful leadership roles and speak warmly about the responsibilities they hold. This helps pupils to develop leadership skills and resilience and to be well prepared for life beyond school. Staff prioritise pupils learning to read from the start in the youngest classes. A small number of pupils are beginning to read with greater accuracy as a result of recent improvements to the reading programme.

What the school should improve

• Leaders should ensure that the curriculum is designed to meet the different needs of pupils in mixed-age classes so that knowledge builds progressively between year groups.
• Leaders should ensure that teachers accurately identify and address errors in pupils' work so that gaps in knowledge do not persist, ensure that phonics teaching is accurate and effective across the school so that the proportion of pupils meeting the expected standard moves closer to national averages, and ensure that the teaching of writing is strengthened across the school so that pupils make better progress and more go on to achieve greater depth.
• Leaders should make sure that their attendance strategies have a clear and measurable impact so that overall attendance improves and persistent absence reduces.
• Leaders should prioritise providing staff in the early years with professional development to improve the frequency and quality of interactions that adults have with children.
• Governors should strengthen their ability to hold leaders more stringently to account for the progress pupils make in school, ensuring that their challenge supports improvement where it is most needed.

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