11^th June 2024

We’re delighted to inform you that St James and St John Church of England Primary School has received a ‘good’ judgement with ‘outstanding’ Early years provision, by Ofsted in our latest inspection.

There’s been a lot of hard work behind the scenes to achieve this ‘good’ judgement since our ungraded inspection in September 2022, and we’re thrilled that the hard work of our staff has been recognised. I’m sure you’ll join me in congratulating everyone who works and volunteers at our school.

I wanted to draw your attention to the following feedback we received:

• Staff have high expectations of what pupils can achieve and pupils achieve well. They particularly love reading and enjoy, as one pupil said ‘getting lost in a world of books’.
• The school’s recent focus to improve pupil’s achievement in writing has been successful and pupils write with greater confidence and accuracy.
• The school has high aspirations that all pupils will succeed and play a full part in school life. Pupils with SEND are achieving well.
• The school teaches pupils to read very well. This has led to high achievement in reading in recent years… One of the main reasons for this high achievement in reading is the exceptional development of pupils’ speaking and listening skills in the Reception class. Skilled staff ensure that pupils learn phonics extremely well.
• Pupils enjoy school because they feel safe and well cared for.
• The school teaches pupils about equality and protected characteristics. Pupils are clear about what these are and about respecting people from different backgrounds.
• Leaders at all levels have a strong commitment to the school’s values, ethos and ambition. Governors … provide an appropriate level of challenge and support to help move the school forward.

I also wanted to personally thank everyone who completed Ofsted’s Parent View survey.

What this means for us now:

• • Our senior leadership team will be reviewing all the feedback we received over the course of the inspection in depth, and we’ll look to update our school improvement plan
  • We’ll update staff and governors in an upcoming staff/governing board meeting on how we’ll apply any feedback as part of our ongoing plan of action to improve the school
  • Our next inspection will be in approximately 4 years’ time.

Thank you once again for all the support you continue to give the school. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at office@stjamesjohn.bucks.sch.uk

Best wishes,

Mrs Louise Woods (Headteacher) and Mrs Jo Coxall (Chair of Governors)