South Gloucestershire Council

Published: 21/05/2015

Staff and pupils at St Chad’s Patchway CE VC Primary School are celebrating after receiving positive inspection reports from Ofsted and SIAMS (Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools).

Ofsted inspectors visited the school at the end of April and awarded an overall rating of ‘good’, with two of the five individual areas reviewed assessed as ‘outstanding’. This is an improvement since the previous Ofsted inspection (which took place in April 2013) when the school was rated as ‘requires improvement’.

Inspectors stated: “The headteacher provides exemplary leadership and is ably supported by a skilled deputy and well organised governing body. They have successfully steered the school through a significant period of change and improved the quality of teaching and pupils’ achievement since the previous inspection.”

Headteacher Darren Brown said: “We are delighted with the official recognition of our fantastic success. Our staff, governors, families and pupils have a lot to be proud of. Everyone works so hard to ensure our children get a first class education.

“We strive to enable all children to find their talents, build on their strengths, recognise where they may find something tricky and help them have the skills to move forward from this. We endeavour to create caring, thoughtful and passionate pupils who are proud of themselves and the communities they live in, and we are pleased that Ofsted and SIAMS recognised this in their reports, highly praising the school and the pupils for this. I know with the team we have in school and the support of the families we serve as well as the pupils’ deep desire to do their best, we will continue with this success.”

Chair of governors Elaine Tayler said: “I’m absolutely delighted that all of our hard work has been acknowledged and I am very proud of the heights teachers and the school community have climbed. It shows an uncompromising focus on academic, social, emotional and spiritual development which has been recognised by not one but two external inspections.”

The report also praised the school’s early years provision and the behaviour and safety of pupils, rating both as ‘outstanding’. Commenting on the pupils’ excellent behaviour around the school, inspectors said: “Their enthusiastic attitudes to learning significantly enhance their rapidly improving and now good progress.”

Leadership and management, quality of teaching and the achievement of pupils were individually rated as ‘good’. Noting the pupils’ achievement, inspectors said: “Across the school, pupils are working at levels in reading, writing and mathematics that are higher than those expected for their age. In relation to their starting points, the pupils’ skills reflect good progress over time.”

Ofsted applies an overall judgement of ‘good’ where a school is effective in delivering outcomes that provide well for all its pupils’ needs. Pupils in ‘good’ rated schools are considered to be well prepared for the next stage of their education.

SIAMS inspectors visited St Chad’s on 1 May and gave the school a grade of ‘outstanding’. The last SIAMS inspection took place in March 2010 and the school also received an ‘outstanding’ rating on that occasion.

The Ofsted report can be viewed online at Ofsted
The SIAMS report can be viewed online at www.churchofengland.org/education