Arundel school’s pride over its impressive inspection

Arundel CE Primary School has been given a glowing review during its latest inspection, with education watchdogs hailing the school as ‘good’ with ‘outstanding areas’.

As well as highlighting Arundel’s impressive leadership, inspectors also praised teachers, marking the overall quality of teaching as good, with some outstanding elements.

However, in spite of the Jarvis Road school’s solid performance, its head teacher Andrew Simpson said he was not prepared to rest on his laurels.

“I was really proud of the work that the staff have done, they have been amazing,” Mr Simpson said.

“But I am absolutely determined to continue to improve our school. I am not the sort of person who stands still. I want to learn from other locality schools who all do an excellent job.”

The findings of the latest report were released on Friday.

In it, inspectors described Arundel’s curriculum as ‘exciting’ and said early years provision for younger pupils was particularly good.

The outstanding leader-ship and ‘strong vision’ of Mr Simpson and the school’s leadership team was also praised, with the report saying: “Together, they have built an ethos and culture where good learning and excellent behaviour flourish and where further improvements to good teaching and learning are being systematically supported.”

Pupils all had a strong sense of community, the report said, with youngsters being given a range of exciting lessons and extracurricular activities to help them excel.

Dr Andy Mott, chairman of governors was delighted by the findings and praised the ‘first class’ support from parents.

He said: “We are blessed with talented and well-led staff, whose loyalty and commitment to the school are exemplary. The entire community has every right to be very proud of these inspector findings.”

The report did, however, highlight areas of improvement for the school to make the it an outstanding one.

Teaching was not consistently outstanding and because of this progress for some students was hindered slightly.

For the full report, see www.reports.ofsted.gov.uk