St Joseph's Catholic Primary School

Inspection of St Joseph's Catholic Primary School Rosebank, West Street, Epsom, Surrey KT18 7RT

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Outcome

St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School continues to be an outstanding school.

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What is it like to attend this school?

St Joseph’s is a community where pupils thrive and feel safe. Leaders at all levels work constantly to improve this exceptional school, prioritising the care and welfare of pupils at all times.

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What is it like to attend this school?

All pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), live up to staff’s very high expectations. Pupils’ behaviour is excellent in classes and around school. They play and learn incredibly well together.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school plans its curriculum, lessons and support to make sure that pupils achieve exceptionally well across all subjects. This is particularly the case in national tests at the end of key stage 2. Pupils also excel in other areas of school life, such as providing a service to others, behaving responsibly, and developing their own talents and interests.

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What is it like to attend this school?

The school goes to great lengths to ensure that every pupil has the chance to flourish through leading reflection activities, sporting events or art clubs. They are well known in the community for their involvement in local life. Pupils are keen to be part of the school’s celebration of achievement, such as the wall of sporting records held by current and past pupils. They are proud and happy to attend this welcoming school.

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

The school’s extremely well-designed and carefully organised curriculum ensures that pupils learn a broad range of subjects and achieve exceptionally well, particularly in reading, writing and mathematics by the end of key stage 2. The curriculum exceeds the demands of the national curriculum in several respects and pupils are taught by highly skilled adults. This supports pupils in producing high-quality work across subjects.

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

Teachers structure learning incredibly well and ensure that pupils benefit from frequent opportunities to revisit and remember what they have been taught. Teachers design highly engaging activities that enthuse pupils to know more and to deepen their 5 and 6 December 2023

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understanding. Assessment is very well structured, and teachers use what they know about pupils’ learning to plan subsequent lessons with precision.

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The school prioritises reading and ensures that it is an integral part of the curriculum in every year group. Those who fall behind are helped to catch up extremely well. This means pupils become fluent and confident readers quickly. They then move on to a structured choice of books, which ensures that they continually find success in reading and strive to improve further. There are numerous libraries across the school located near each class with age-appropriate books. The non-fiction libraries contain a wealth of books directly related to what pupils learn in lessons.

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This school supports pupils who need extra help exceptionally well. Those who struggle are picked up quickly and their needs are identified precisely by well-trained staff. External help for pupils with SEND is provided when needed. Children thrive from the start in Reception. The vibrant environment and thoughtfully structured curriculum ensure that children are extremely well prepared to enter Year 1. Adults promote language development consistently by engaging children in conversations about learning. This continues throughout the rest of the school, where pupils begin to enjoy and learn from rich conversations about learning. For example, in an art lesson, Year 4 pupils found out how to mix the colour violet by discussing the options with their friends while using words such as ‘secondary’ and ‘tertiary’ to describe the different colour groups.

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Leaders prioritise pupils’ high attendance and this has ensured that pupils attend regularly. Few pupils are persistently absent. The school is tenacious in its determination to ensure that all families get the support they need if their children struggle to attend school. Staff have very high expectations of pupils’ behaviour. This helps pupils to concentrate very well in lessons. They are also extremely well mannered and welcoming to visitors. Any poor behaviour is dealt with quickly and appropriately.

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Extra-curricular clubs are numerous for all age groups and the uptake is high. These include Irish dancing, drama, netball, construction and robotics. Pupils develop their leadership skills by taking up positions of responsibility as they get older. Children of all ages take on leadership roles such as the Eco Warriors,, art ambassadors or become prayer leaders. The school takes part in many community events, including art exhibitions and charity fundraising.

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The school is led exceptionally well. The supportive and knowledgeable governors support school leaders in moving the school forward and promoting further improvements. Staff benefit from well organised and high-quality training. Staff feel that leaders make their workload manageable. Parents are extremely supportive of the school and are very happy with their child’s progress and development.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. 5 and 6 December 2023

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Background

When we have judged a school to be outstanding, we will then normally go into the school about once every four years to confirm that the school remains outstanding. 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 outstanding in November 2017.

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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' is used to mean pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND); pupils who meet the definition of children in need of help and protection ; pupils receiving statutory local authority support from a social worker; and pupils who otherwise meet the criteria used for deciding the school's pupil premium funding (this includes pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years, looked after children (children in local authority care) and/or children who left care through adoption or another formal route). 5 and 6 December 2023

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School details

Appropriate authority The governing body

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School details

Chair of governing body Christopher Donovan

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School details

Website www.stjosephs-epsom.surrey.sch.uk

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School details

Dates of previous inspection 21 and 22 November 2017, under section 8 of the Education Act 2005

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Information about this school

 The school is a voluntary aided catholic school. Its last section 48 inspection was in November 2018, and reinspection should be within three to five years of that date.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspections are a point-in-time judgement about the quality of a school's education provision.  This was the first routine inspection the school received since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The inspector discussed the impact of the pandemic with the school and has taken that into account in their evaluation of the school.  The inspector met with the headteacher, deputy headteacher, subject leaders, leaders of learning and the special educational needs coordinator. She also spoke to a representative from the local authority, the diocesan board of education, and met with a group of governors.  The inspector carried out deep dives in these subjects: early reading, science and art. For each deep dive the inspector held discussions about the curriculum, visited a 5 and 6 December 2023

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sample of lessons, spoke to teachers, spoke to some pupils about their learning and looked at samples of pupils’ work.  The inspector also looked at curriculum plans for Spanish and geography, as well as a sample of pupils’ work in Spanish, geography and mathematics.  The inspector spoke to groups of pupils and staff about the school, both in small groups and in the playground.

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Inspection team

Kate Owbridge, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector 5 and 6 December 2023

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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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