St Peter's School

Inspection of a good school: St Peter's School St Peter's Road, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire PE29 7DD

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Inspection dates: 21 and 22 September and 21 October 2022

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Outcome

St Peter’s School continues to be a good school.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils are confident and happy at school. They are polite to visitors. Pupils say that they feel safe and enjoy positive relationships with their teachers. They say that staff have high expectations of their behaviour and want them to be successful. Leaders have worked hard to improve behaviour across the school, and most pupils behave well. When bullying does occur, pupils say that staff resolve issues fully. Pupils say that staff would check to ensure any bullying issues had not resurfaced.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The curriculum pupils access considers their interests and needs. It is well taught by skilled staff. Typically, pupils access relevant lessons and experiences that help them to develop the secure knowledge they need for future study and long-term success. Pupils understand the value of accepting others and are taught to respect differences. There is a welcoming culture in lessons to include pupils who have complex learning needs.

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What is it like to attend this school?

Pupils, including those in the sixth form, are enthusiastic about the wide range of clubs and after-school activities. They benefit highly from their participation in weekly activities such as cadets, science clubs and a variety of sports. Learning outside the classroom and developing character through a bespoke programme are part of the school experience for all.

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What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

Leaders have a clear, shared vision to provide every pupil, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), the opportunity to achieve well. Leaders make sure that pupils starting the school with additional learning needs are well supported through a tailored curriculum programme. This provision includes access to effective nurture and emotional support. Leaders know that having expert staff is a crucial feature of a successful school. This has led to a culture where all staff can access impactful training and coaching support to help them do their work as well as possible. 21 and 22 September and 21 October 2022

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The content of the curriculum matches leaders’ ambitions and has high expectations for what pupils can achieve. Leaders monitor and evaluate the curriculum robustly and make changes where this will benefit pupils. This includes a focus on pupils building secure knowledge, and the ongoing development of teachers’ expertise.

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Leaders have established reliable assessment routines that check what pupils know. As a result, pupils get extra support if they have gaps in their core knowledge. Teachers adapt lessons and provide interventions that help pupils keep up. In a small number of subjects, teachers are not always effective at helping pupils to remember what they are learning. Leaders recognise this and have taken direct action to ensure pupils succeed in all areas of the curriculum.

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Teachers have strong subject knowledge. They encourage pupils to use subject-specific vocabulary effectively. Pupils in the sixth form especially benefit from this. Teachers are skilled at helping pupils learn broad and sometimes highly complex concepts in key stage 5.

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Leaders identify pupils who need additional support with their reading. Targeted intervention helps pupils in Year 7 with gaps in their knowledge to progress well with their reading. The English curriculum exposes pupils to an ambitious range of quality texts. This helps pupils to engage in reading activity. Across all subject areas, staff enhance this by providing meaningful opportunities for pupils to develop further confidence with reading.

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Leaders accurately identify pupils with SEND and provide training for staff on how best to support the specific needs pupils have. As a result, these pupils work towards the same goals as their peers. Recently the languages curriculum has been made accessible to all pupils, including those with some of the greatest barriers to learning.

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Behaviour across the school is good. This means poor conduct is managed well and leads to minimal disruption to lessons. The number of suspensions and referrals for poor behaviour has dramatically reduced over the past four years. Pupils said that school is calmer and they trust staff to deal with poor behaviour effectively.

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Pupils, including those in the sixth form, can access a range of opportunities to develop their understanding of the wider world. Pupils learn important communication and social skills by participating in the National Citizenship Service and the Duke of Edinburgh Award. Younger pupils also benefit from a dedicated cultural programme, that includes travel and tourism.

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Staff are positive about leaders’ efforts to support their well-being and ensure they have a reasonable workload.

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Governors provide expert support for leaders and hold them accountable for all aspects of school development. 21 and 22 September and 21 October 2022

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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Safeguarding

Leaders ensure staff are trained and kept up to date about the risks pupils may face. Staff know how to spot the signs that pupils may be at risk of harm and report their concerns quickly. Leaders ensure that pupils receive timely and appropriate help, including from outside agencies when needed.

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Safeguarding

The system of record-keeping supports a team of key staff to take shared responsibility for keeping the most vulnerable pupils safe. Staff within the safeguarding team are tenacious in ensuring that pupils get the help they need.

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Safeguarding

The curriculum provides pupils with important knowledge to help them make safe choices outside school, including when online.

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(Information for the school and appropriate authority)

 In a small number of curriculum areas, there is some minor variability in how effectively teachers support pupils to know and remember more. This means that pupils sometimes struggle to recall the key knowledge they have learned. Leaders must continue with their actions to develop the expertise of staff in this area. This is to ensure that pupils have regular opportunities to retrieve and practise applying the most important knowledge, to support them to be ready for future learning.

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Background

When we have judged a school to be good, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains good. This is called an ungraded inspection and it is carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. We do not give graded judgements on an ungraded inspection. However, if we find evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which is carried out under section 5 of the Act. Usually this is within one to two years of the date of the ungraded inspection. If we have serious concerns about safeguarding, behaviour or the quality of education, we will deem the ungraded inspection a graded inspection immediately.

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Background

This is the first ungraded inspection since we judged the school to be good in March 2017. 21 and 22 September and 21 October 2022

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How can I feed back my views?

find out what other parents and carers think. We use information from Ofsted Parent View when deciding which schools to inspect, when to inspect them and as part of their inspection.

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How can I feed back my views?

The Department for Education has further guidance on how to complain about a school.

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Further information

You can search for published performance information about the school.

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Further information

In the report, 'disadvantaged pupils' refers to those pupils who attract government pupil premium funding: pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years and pupils in care or who left care through adoption or another formal route. 21 and 22 September and 21 October 2022

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School details

Inspection number 10211535 Type of school Secondary Comprehensive

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School details

Gender of pupils in sixth-form provision Mixed

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School details

Number of pupils on the school roll 1330

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School details

Of which, number on roll in the sixth form 128

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Date of previous inspection 2 and 3 March 2017

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Information about this school

 Leaders use two registered alternative providers.

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Information about this inspection

 This was the first routine inspection the school received since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Inspectors discussed the impact of the pandemic with leaders and have taken that into account in their evaluation of the school.  Very occasionally, Ofsted’s quality assurance process may suggest gaps in the inspection evidence base, which will cause Ofsted to conclude that the inspection is incomplete. This happened at St Peter’s School. One of His Majesty’s Inspectors returned to the school on 21 October 2022, to gather additional information to secure the evidence base. In such cases, the inspection report is not published until Ofsted is satisfied that the inspection judgement is secure. 21 and 22 September and 21 October 2022

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 Inspectors met with the headteacher and other senior leaders, including those responsible for safeguarding. The lead inspector met with members of the governing board and the chief executive officer of the trust.  Inspectors carried out deep dives in these subjects: mathematics, science, history and English. For each deep dive, inspectors discussed the curriculum with subject leaders, visited a sample of lessons, spoke to teachers, spoke to some pupils about their learning and looked at samples of pupils’ work.  The lead inspector met with the designated safeguarding lead and reviewed the school’s safeguarding records.  A range of documentation was reviewed. This included minutes from governing board meetings, curriculum plans and behaviour records.  Inspectors considered the views given in Ofsted’s online surveys from 65 pupils and 69 members of staff. Inspectors also considered the views of 195 parents in the Ofsted Parent

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Inspection team

Diana Osagie, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector

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Inspection team

Kristian Hewitt, lead inspector His Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Shan Oswald Ofsted Inspector 21 and 22 September and 21 October 2022

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regulates and inspects to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children's services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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