Here we will post our latest updates regarding progress since our latest Ofsted inspection. We hope you find this helpful.
February 2016
We have had a Teaching and Learning review, undertaken by the Local Authority and the Diocesan Board for Schools. As a result, we received a very positive report about the school, confirming the LA’s categorisation of the school as ‘Good’.
Some of the strengths in teaching they observed were:
- the pupils’ high level of engagement and involvement in lessons from Nursery up to Year 6
- the way pupils spoke articulately about their learning
- the teachers’ skilful questioning
- links made to real life contexts to make learning more meaningful
- displays of a wide range of pupils’ work, which were well used in lessons
- links made to previous and future learning
- the calm and purposeful learning environment across the school
- an increase in the quantity of writing, and writing across different subject areas
- the range of contributions to children’s Early Years profiles
Pupils were seen to be polite and well mannered. They enjoy coming to school and described the school as ‘fascinating, safe and respectful’. They were eager to share their views about the school, and show their appreciation for the creative lessons the teachers provide.
Parents were also very positive about the school, and consider themselves to be more involved in their children’s learning, with a better understanding of how to support their children. They feel that a real strength of the school is its nurturing and welcoming approach and that no child slips through the net.
We also received some feedback about aspects we could continue to develop, for example further improving the presentation of children’s work. Please see the presentation guidelines which are on display in Years 1 to 6 in school, and which have been sent to parents: Presentation Guidelines It would be great if parents could also encourage excellent handwriting at home.
January 2016
Our local authority (Tri-borough) has officially re-categorised us as a ‘Good’ school, based on all the evidence they have seen over the last two years. Here is an extract of their letter:
Parents - as you know, we are expecting Ofsted to visit us again soon. Please go on to the Ofsted website and complete a short questionnaire about the school:
December 2015
Our Autumn Term newsletter shows some of the highlights of the term: Autumn Term 2015
We have also:
- continued to improve the quality of the teaching across the school even further, particularly with regards to the feedback children receive on their work
- implemented Maths Mastery (Singapore Maths) in both KS1 and KS2, with excellent impact on their progress
- changed homework across the school, so it is more consistent
- changed the way we assess children, so that it helps teachers to plan lessons that challenge children even more effectively
- narrowed gaps in attainment between Pupil Premium children and other children in the majority of classes and in the majority of subjects
November 2015
A recent parent survey shows what parents think of the school. We are very pleased that all the parents who replied think the teaching is good quality and say that their children enjoy school!
Fantastic.
Here is a breakdown of the results, by key stage:
Parental questionnaire Oct 2015 results
We hope that more parents will come along to sessions the school is running about online safety, as not as many parents were sure about how the school teaches this. We will be holding special assemblies about this next term, too.
October 2015
Here are this year’s school Improvement Priorities:
2015-16 School Improvement Plan St Mary’s overview
We have looked carefully at what Ofsted expect for a school to be Good and Outstanding, and have carefully analysed our strengths and the areas where we need to do even better. Please support us to achieve our aims.
Particular ways that parents can help are:
- talk to your child about our school vision, values and golden rules
- make sure your child comes to school on time every day
- help your child with his/her homework, and ask the school for support if you would like it
- look at the Topic Webs and curriculum plans the teachers send home and research topics in advance to enhance your child’s learning
- come to one of our parent workshops about how to help your child with: Maths, Reading, online safety, road safety… These are usually on a Wednesday morning; details in the newsletters
- tell us straightaway if you have a problem, so we can help you sort it out as soon as possible
October 2015
We have undertaken a Governance Review, conducted by an external consultant. This found that the Governance of the school is effective at ensuring the school is delivering a high standard of education, and continually improving. The report also provided Governors with recommendations about how to do even better, eg visiting the school more frequently. Governors have special badges now, so do look out for them in the playground and visiting classes.
The Governing Body has now reconstituted, according to Government legislation, and we have a full complement of 12 Governors - please see our webpage to find out more about who they are: St Mary’s School Governors
September 2015
We have reviewed our School Improvement Plan from last year, and this shows how much we have achieved over the last year: 2014-15 School Improvement Plan July review - overview
We are now setting our priorities for the year ahead.
Our main priorities are:
- Continuing to raise standards in Maths
- Utilising a new system for assessment, which supports the new National Curriculum
- Achieving excellence in all areas of the curriculum
- Improving attendance for all groups of pupils
10th July - SATs results
This week, Year 6 received their SATs results. They have made tremendous progress this year and really pushed themselves. The results are broadly in line with national averages; above national in Writing (which has been our biggest focus this year).
Overall, 81% of children achieved L4 in Reading, Writing and Maths. This means we have maintained the improvement we made last year.
In Reading, 88% achieved Level 4, 58% achieved Level 5 and 4% achieved L6.
In English (Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling), 81% achieved Level 4, 58% achieved L5 and 8% achieved Level 6.
In Writing, 88% achieved Level 4, 52% achieved Level 5 and 8% achieved Level 6.
In Maths, 85% achieved Level 4, 23% achieved Level 5 and 8% achieved Level 6.
These results do not include pupils newly arrived into Year 6, but they do include statemented pupils and other pupils with Special Educational Needs. There are 4 children with statements of SEN in the class.
In Year 2, children continued to achieve broadly in line with the national average, again maintaining the improvement made last year:
In Reading, 88% achieved Level 2 and 46% achieved Level 3.
In Writing, 83% achieved Level 2 and 13% achieved Level 3.
In Maths, 92% achieved Level 2 and 29% achieved Level 3.
In Phonics, 86% of children in Year 1 passed the phonics test. This is above the national average. 92% of children in Year 2 have now passed the phonics test.
In EYFS, 61% of children achieved a Good Level of Development. This is in line with the national average for the first time and a huge improvement compared with the last two years.
18th May
We have been collating information about how we promote British Values at St Mary’s. You can see some of our ideas here: British Values
5th May 2015
This is our most recent School Improvement Plan update. We are making good progress in virtually all areas, and have highlighted the key areas where we want to improve further.
2014-15 School Improvement Plan St Mary’s April review
6th March 2015
We held a meeting for parents to provide an update on the great progress we’ve been making since our Ofsted inspection. For anyone who wasn’t able to attend, here are the notes:
5th March 2015
Here is our most recent review of our School Improvement Plan, which shows how we are developing towards meeting our targets for the end of the year. Each priority is assessed against stringent success criteria.
2014-15 School Improvement Plan St Mary’s Feb review
At the moment, we are particularly pleased with our progress in Writing, SEND, aspects of leadership including Governance, and RE and Worship. There are no areas where we are not yet seeing some progress.
23rd January 2015
We are delighted to publish our SIAMS report, which shows that St Mary’s is a Good Church School. You can read the report here: St Mary’s SIAMS report December 2014
January 2015
We are focusing particularly on attendance and punctuality in school. We have made changes to our timetables, with every class in Years 1 to 6 starting the day with Maths, and we are taking the register electronically to sharpen up our procedures. It is very important that children miss as little of their education as possible, so they can achieve the highest possible results.
December 2014
We have been inspected by the Church of England, on our effectiveness as a Church School. This includes how our Christian ethos helps us meet the needs of all pupils, the difference our Collective Worship makes (assemblies), how well RE is taught and how effective the leadership and management of the school are. We are pleased with the outcome and just waiting for the final report to be published.
November 2014
We have now moved from an Ofsted Action Plan to a full School Improvement Plan, as recommended by our HMI. The Governors have read, challenged and approved the School Improvement Plan. Here are the outcomes we are aiming to achieve by the end of this year:
School Improvement Outcomes 14-15
November 2014
We have had quite a few changes to our Governing Body, as a number of Governors reached the end of their terms of office. At our meeting on 11th November, we appointed Jon Ward to be our new Chair of Governors and Ameena Pirbhai to be our new Vice Chair. We also decided upon a new committee structure. Our committees are:
Achievement - looking at all aspects of pupil achievement, including Pupil Premium provision and SEND
Community and Values - looking at how the school demonstrates its Christian and British values, including admissions; pupil well-being, including safeguarding, behaviour and attendance
Resources - looking at the school’s finances, premises and staffing
October 2014
We have linked up with Gateway Academy this term to help us raise standards in Writing. They are a local outstanding school with lots of experience in raising standards. Some classes will be trialling a way of writing in a range of subjects (such as History or RE) to develop Writing skills further. They are also supporting us with SEND and EYFS provision.
6.10.14
Today we had a review of our SEND provision conducted by a lead Ofsted inspector. He looked at the evidence the school has about how well children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities progress through the school. This will help us to ensure the best possible outcomes for these children, and to help us demonstrate to Ofsted how effective our provision is.
29.9.14
Today, all the staff are receiving training from Alan Peat on successful ways to teach non-fiction Writing. We hope that is really going to help us improve the levels the children achieve in their Writing throughout the school. Watch this space…
15.7.14
We have completed our Pupil Premium Review, as instructed by Ofsted, and will make sure we implement the recommendations and suggestions to help children make even better progress in the new academic year.
Our SATs results show that both Pupil Premium and non Pupil Premium children in Year 6 made good progress - in some subjects, Pupil Premium children made even better progress than their peers to catch up and meet National Expectations. We now need to replicate this throughout the whole school.
10.7.14
Our KS2 SATs results came out this week.
At the end of KS2 (Year 6):
Reading: 100% of pupils achieved Level 4 and 41% achieved Level 5.
Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling: 89% achieved Level 4 and 63% achieved Level 5.
Writing: 81% achieved Level 4 and 19% achieved Level 5.
Maths: 96% achieved Level 4, 30% achieved Level 5 and 7% achieved Level 6.
Overall, 81% achieved Level 4 in Reading, Writing and Maths, compared with 70% last year.
30.6.14
Today our Monitoring Letter from HMI will be published. We sent it out to our parents on Friday. You can find it on the Ofsted website, or here it is: HMI Monitoring Letter
19.6.14
To date, we are still awaiting our monitoring report from HMI… We will send this out as soon as we have it!
9.6.14
We are now carrying out a series of surveys to help us complete our Pupil Premium Review. We are asking pupils, parents and staff to take part. Please click on the link below, answer the security question, then enter your special code (if you don’t have one please come and speak to us) to take part. Thank you!
Survey link:
21.5.14
Tomorrow, Ofsted will be returning to see how much progress we have made since our inspection in February. The inspector is an HMI (Her Majesty’s Inspector) and he will look at the children’s work, spend time in classrooms, talk to teachers, pupils, governors and advisors about the school and look at the school’s documents about how well the children are achieving. There will be a letter written as a result which says how well the school is doing in improving the school towards becoming ‘Good’ again.
16.5.14
Many of us have been visiting other schools to see what we can learn from seeing different ideas and ways of doing things. Here are some of the schools we have visited:
St George the Martyr, Camden
St Vincent’s
St Gabriel’s, Pimlico
St Peter’s Eaton Square
St Barnabas, Pimlico
Christchurch Bentinck School
St Matthew’s, Westminster
St Mary of the Angels
Tachbrook Nursery
We are also planning to visit All Souls School
We have really enjoyed our visits, and are very grateful to these schools for hosting us.
29.4.14
As we reached the end of last term, we looked at the assessments we had made of the children’s progress. We looked both at the average progress made by each class so far this year, and at children’s individual progress.
By this stage in the year, we would expect all Key Stage 2 classes’ average progress to be over 3 points or more. In Key Stage 1, we would expect around 4 points at this stage. In the vast majority of classes and in most subjects, this was the case. This helps us to know that we are on track for our targets of 4 (or more) points in Key Stage 2 by the end of the year, and 6 (or more) points in Key Stage 1.
In Foundation Stage, we looked at the number of children who are working at an age appropriate developmental level. Again, we were pleased with the way the children are progressing compared to where they were when they started school.
We are looking very carefully at any groups of children or subject areas where progress is not as strong to ensure we close any gaps we might have by the end of the year.
8.4.14
Today we started our Pupil Premium Review (as requested by Ofsted).
1.4.14
In KS1 and KS2, children now have target cards for Writing to use in all different subjects, so they can remember their personal targets whenever they write.
Please ask your child what their Writing targets are, and encourage them to use these at home too!
In EYFS, we are developing the use of online profiles, and where possible, emailing observations out to parents to keep you updated on your child’s progress. We hope you find this useful.
24.3.14
We are having a big focus in school on Mental Maths, using any spare time within each day to practise number facts and times tables.
Parents - please help us by encouraging your children to practise their number facts and times tables at home too.
14.3.14
We had a parents’ meeting to discuss the report and how we are addressing the key points.
Here are the slides from the presentation: Parents’ Meeting
9.3.14
The school Governors met to agree an action plan to help the school move forward. The action plan looks like this: Ofsted action plan SMBS 14
3.4.14
Here is our Ofsted Report from February: Ofsted Report 2014