Primary's OFSTED upgrade

STAFF at a Stratford primary school have been praised for their hard work which has seen them take the school from ‘requires improvement’ to a ‘good’ Ofsted rating.

And Holy Trinity CE Primary School has achieved that despite the impact of the pandemic.

The school’s previous full inspection, which took place in 2017, had concluded it requires improvement.

But inspectors have now given Holy Trinity a ‘good’ rating right across the board – for the quality of education, behaviour and attitude of pupils, personal development, leadership and management and early years provision.

Inspectors found:

• Leaders are ambitious for all pupils and want them to do well.

• Parents are extremely positive about how their children have been supported during their early days at school.

• Leaders have made sure that the new curriculum in the early years is broad and carefully sequenced.

• Staff work in partnership with parents and give them the information they need.

• Teachers now have the knowledge needed to teach mathematics well. Pupils develop a good understanding of problem-solving, reasoning and how to apply their numeracy skills.

• The reading curriculum is well planned.

• Incidents of bullying are rare and leaders respond swiftly to any bullying concerns.

• Learning is carefully planned, allowing pupils to achieve increasingly well academically and develop personally.

To maintain and improve even further, the Ofsted inspection team said: “Leaders need to review their implementation and evaluate the impact of recent curriculum developments.

“Some pupils who have fallen behind in their reading due to the Covid-19 pandemic need to make rapid progress to catch up with their peers. Reading interventions need to be targeted to individual pupils to prevent the gaps widening. Leaders should make sure that those pupils who have fallen behind in their reading during the pandemic receive the focused support they need to catch up quickly.”