St Antony's Catholic Primary School

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 4234 www.gov.uk/ofsted

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Miss Chris Curtis Headteacher St Antony’s Catholic Primary School Mornington Road Woodford Green Essex IG8 0TX

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Short inspection of St Antony’s Catholic Primary School

Following my visit to the school on 28 February 2017, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. The visit was the first short inspection carried out since the school was judged to be good in July 2013.

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Short inspection of St Antony’s Catholic Primary School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. The recent appointments of a deputy headteacher, several middle leaders and governors have strengthened the leadership of the school. You have established a culture where everyone in your school is respected and valued. You are unequivocal in your commitment to ensuring that the potential of every child is realised. You are not complacent and are fully committed to ensuring that the school remains stable, has high expectations of both staff and pupils and continues to perform well.

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Short inspection of St Antony’s Catholic Primary School

Since the previous inspection, you have worked to ensure that the school’s high standards continue to improve. The school’s significant investment in training and support for leaders and teachers is having a very positive impact on improving the quality of teaching and learning in the vast majority of classes. You have also ensured that all school leaders have a firm grasp of current key school improvement priorities, together with their respective roles and responsibilities in realising these. For example, you and your leadership team recognised that outcomes for the most able pupils by the end of key stage 1 needed to be improved. Leaders have therefore acted swiftly and outcomes for these pupils are now improving.

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Short inspection of St Antony’s Catholic Primary School

You also receive well-considered support from school governors, who play a crucial role in helping you to plan, implement and deliver your school’s strategic plan. Resources are allocated appropriately to areas of need, informed by detailed and accurate analysis of school performance information. Governors fulfil their statutory duties effectively and have a good understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses.

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Short inspection of St Antony’s Catholic Primary School

You ensure that staff have all the relevant safeguarding training. Weekly meetings keep staff abreast of changes to safeguarding practice and additional training needs. This has included recent training on the ‘Prevent’ duty and e-safety. The school’s single central record of recruitment checks meets statutory requirements. The leadership team has ensured that safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are detailed and of high quality.

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Short inspection of St Antony’s Catholic Primary School

Alongside your two deputy designated safeguarding leads, you are very knowledgeable about the needs of your school community. The school has clearly understood procedures for reporting any safeguarding concerns, which are managed promptly. You and your staff also have a clear understanding of possible risks to potentially vulnerable groups of pupils.

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Short inspection of St Antony’s Catholic Primary School

Behaviour is exemplary throughout the school. Pupils conduct themselves very well and report that they feel safe and that incidents of bullying are extremely rare. This is reflected in the views provided by both parents and staff. Your older pupils are role-model ambassadors to younger pupils, both in and out of lessons. They are polite, courteous and respectful of each other. The promotion of pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development across the school is a strength of the school.

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Inspection findings

 You had previously recognised that outcomes for the most able pupils by the end of key stage 1 were not good enough. The 2016 published data for these pupils was well below national averages. You and your leadership team have taken swift and decisive action to tackle this issue. This has included providing teachers with effective support to improve the quality of teaching and learning. You are also ensuring that staff are given clear targets that focus on the needs of the most able pupils. However, while you remain optimistic that outcomes will improve, it is evident that the school’s new assessment procedures are not yet fully understood by staff. Currently, teachers do not use information on pupils’ progress well enough to plan activities that will enable the most able pupils to achieve their potential.  You and your leaders have created a strong culture of reading throughout the school. Pupils greatly enjoy reading and are able to talk confidently about their

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Inspection findings

author and reading preferences. Pupils are provided with a range of appropriately challenging texts, and when reading use a range of strategies to aid their reading fluency and comprehension.  Over time, standards attained by girls in mathematics at the end of key stage 1 have been consistently higher than those of boys. However, at key stage 2, boys make better progress than girls. Boys’ progress is above national averages while that of girls is broadly average. Leaders reported that this is because girls have historically lacked confidence in mathematics.  Evidence from visits to lessons shows that questioning in mathematics teaching was used to good effect and specifically targeted girls to explain fully their thinking. Pupils were able to talk clearly about what they were learning, with one girl reporting that she particularly enjoyed being provided with challenging activities. The school’s information shows that currently, girls are on track to

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Inspection findings

make better than expected progress in 2016. Also, girls’ progress in mathematics is now more in line with the progress of boys.  Pupils behave well in lessons. An ambitious outdoor mathematics lesson on fractions in Year 5 demonstrated pupils’ ability to work well on their own and with others. Pupils listen to and share each other’s views.  Teachers explain the work clearly so that pupils of all abilities understand what to do. Work in pupils’ books shows that pupils make at least good progress from their starting points.  By the end of key stage 2, the progress made by pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is broadly average. You and your leaders have an accurate understanding that, sometimes, their progress is not as rapid as that made by other groups. This is because the structure and organisation of some activities restrict pupils’ ability to work without support. You also

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Inspection findings

understand that low attendance rates affect the progress of these pupils.  Your widening leadership team is supporting you well to drive improvements throughout the school. They are ambitious and committed about their roles and responsibilities and draw inspiration from you and other senior leaders.

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Next steps for the school

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that:

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Next steps for the school

 outcomes for the most able key stage 1 pupils improve by ensuring that teachers use assessment information effectively to plan activities that enable pupils to make rapid progress  the provision for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities supports the development of their learning skills, enables them to make better progress and prepares them well for the next phase of their education  attendance rates for pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities improve.

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Next steps for the school

I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing board, the director of education for the Diocese of Brentwood, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for Redbridge. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

The inspector carried out the following activities during the inspection:

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Information about the inspection

 held meetings with the headteacher, senior and middle leaders, other staff, governors and a representative from the local authority  conducted joint visits to classrooms with senior leaders  conducted scrutiny of pupils’ work and discussions with pupils  listened to pupils read  considered the 59 responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View  analysed documents, the school’s website, the school’s self-evaluation, development plans, safeguarding information and data on pupils’ progress and achievement.

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