‘Modest’ Blackburn primary school in top 14pc in UK

10:15am Wednesday 9th April 2008

Comments (4)   Have your say »

A PRIMARY school is "too modest" about its outstanding achievements, according to Ofsted.

Holy Souls RC Primary, Wilworth Crescent, Blackburn, has received a glowing report from the education watchdog, with particular praise for "the excellent leadership of the headteacher, who leads a relentless drive to raise standards".

Almost all aspects of school life are deemed outstanding, which puts the school in the top 14 per cent in the country.

Standards and achiev-ements are above average, largely thanks to pupils' excellent personal development, inspectors found.

The report said: "Pupils love coming to school because relation-ships are excellent and learning is fun and challenging.

"This helps them to develop high self-esteem and to approach learning confidently.

"One parent reflected that the widely held view that the school nurtures each child's talent whatever that may be'."

Both teaching and the curriculum are rated as excellent, with lessons that "capture the imagination" of pupils, and a particular strength in creative arts is identified.

Inspectors liken the school to "a very big family" due to the excellent care children receive, and the close links with parents, who are "overwhelmingly positive" about Holy Souls.

The one area identified for improvement is raising boys' standards in maths, which the school has already recognised and started to address.

Inspectors added: "Because the school is very self-critical it tends to be too modest in its grading of aspects of school life because it feels rightly that there is always something to improve or refine. Gov-ernance is excellent."

Headteacher Christine Davies said: "We are extremely pleased and proud of this wonderful acclamation of our school's many achieve-ments which have been made possible because of the strong partnerships within our school family.

"The report is a marvellous reflection of the hard work and determination to ensure every child in our school matters and that each child has the opportunity to develop their academic, social, phys-ical, emotional, creative and spiritual skills.

"I feel very privileged to be headteacher of such a marvellous school family."