St Stephen's Catholic Primary School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 24 October 2023

St Stephen's Catholic Primary School is a welcoming place to be. The school provides a nurturing environment where pupils can learn well. Staff foster a keen sense of pride among pupils, ensuring that they feel happy, safe and secure. The school has established clear expectations for the behaviour of pupils, including for children in the early years. Pupils are polite and respectful to each other and to staff. Pupils are aspirational for their futures. They enjoy learning and they are keen to participate fully in lessons. Staff have high expectations of pupils' learning. They support pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), to achieve consistently well across the curriculum. Pupils benefit from a wide range of enrichment experiences, such as sports activities, board games and crochet clubs. Pupils have ample opportunities to develop their leadership skills and to learn how to work as part of a team. They thrive on earning badges for their achievements. Pupils are eager to take on a range of responsibilities within school. For example, some act as librarian leaders and relish the opportunity to help younger pupils select exciting books. Other pupils act as digital leaders or as members of the school council. Pupils enjoy supporting their community, for example by raising money for the local hospice.

What the school should improve

• In a small number of subjects, some teachers are not sufficiently clear about the important knowledge that they should teach and when this content should be taught. This hinders teachers in designing learning and prevents some pupils from gaining the depth of knowledge that they should. In these subjects, the school should finalise its curriculum thinking so that teachers are well informed about how to design learning for pupils.
• In a few subjects, the school's assessment systems do not support teachers well to check that pupils have learned the knowledge outlined in the curriculum. From time to time, this prevents teachers from remedying the gaps in pupils' learning swiftly. The school should ensure that teachers are fully supported to use assessment strategies well to identify and address the gaps in pupils' learning.

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