We've been there for several years.
After they got the bad Ofsted result the school was academised and we got a new Headmaster and Deputy Headmistress. The Headmaster has been to a number of schools that needed improvement and so is very experienced. He is going a great job (in my opinion). The Deputy Headmistress is also great, and has been paying particular attention to discipline, as has the headmaster actually. There is also a new Senco who has been really super-helpful.
The security round the school was massively tightened after the ofsted report, as one of the problems before was people wandering in off the street. They now have big fences in place and double locked doors on the front of the school building.
Pre-covid, they've also been getting a lot of help from St John's College School, who send teachers to do special classes and also send buses sometimes to take classes to special activities at St John's School. That's been really quite exciting in the last year. Mostly it's been maths, drama and art, all a big hit with my offspring. The bus apparently was particularly exciting.
The school's been really good during lockdown with wonderful resources and great support from the teachers. Each child was sent home with jotters, bought workbooks and explanatory textbooks, pencils, rubber, rulers and coloured pens. We also had online support through studyladder and classdojo, which we still have now. We had daily contact with the teacher right through lockdown, and weekly zoom calls.
The covid safety at pickup and drop off time has also been brilliant as we have a big playground so with staggered drop-off time we hardly see anyone at our drop off/pick up time.
We get a lot of homework but it is all optional so we can just choose those bits where we know our child is struggling and ditch the rest. There is no pressure at all to actually do it.
From what I've seen, the experience varies a little bit depending on which teacher your child has each year, and whether there are any difficult children in that particular year group. If you find that a teacher or child combination is not working super-well for your child then the school is very approachable. There are certainly a lot of good teachers and we have had a lot of good years, and only two years that were a bit iffy (teacher slightly vague or a little tiny bit strict). I suppose that is probably the same at most schools.
From the difficult-children point of view, since the covid guidelines came in, everyone is each class plays as a bubble in the playground, and is closely supervised, so any risk of argy bargy has pretty much been shut down. I mentioned to a teacher that that seemed really good, and she commented that many of the covid-19 changes have been so positive that they are worth keeping even post-covid. I thought that was good thought.
Generally my understanding is that St Luke's is a more gentle, less acdemically pushy school, and more child-centred, whereas the more pushy parents tend to gravitate to Milton Road or Mayfield.
St Luke's is also single form entry (one class of 30 kids in each year) whereas Milton Road is 3 form entry (90 per year) and Mayfield is 2 form entry (60 per year). The small size of the school is helpful because it means that everyone knows everyone else, and bad behaviour cannot slip under the radar.
In pre-covid times, the playground was kept open for families to come and play, which was great for parent and kids all getting to know one another. I presume that that will come back post-covid.
After my several year's experience, if I had to choose again, I would still choose the same school.