Great Meols primary school celebrates passing new tougher inspection with flying colours

Mar 31 2010 by Ben Turner, Heswall News

Great Meols primary school celebrates passing new tougher inspection with flying colours

A WIRRAL primary has proved its top class after becoming the first schools in the country to be branded outstanding under a new tougher inspection regime.

Great Meols Primary School in Meols is the school with reason to celebrate, believing it is the first in the borough to get Ofsted’s highest grade since the education inspectorate launched a new and more robust system of inspection.

Since September 2009 Ofsted inspectors now spend twice as long monitoring lessons and focus more on results.

Other priorities include checking schools’ procedures for safeguarding and keeping children from harm and taking into account the views of parents and pupils.

But despite the tougher regime, Great Meols primary passed with flying colours when government inspectors paid the school a two day visit at the end of January.

And now the school has officially been told it got the highest grade of outstanding with inspectors concluding: “The school provides an outstanding education for pupils. Standards in English, mathematics and science are high and throughout the school pupils make good and at times outstanding progress.

“Their overall achievement in both academic and personal development is excellent.”

Inspectors also praised the “positive relationships between staff and pupils” and noted that teaching was meticulously planned.

The top marks came after inspectors spent approximately 60% of their time inspecting pupils’ learning.

Staff and pupils were also asked to completed questionnaires and 124 questionnaires from parents and carers were also read and analysed.

A delighted headteacher Pip Shedden said she was thrilled the school had its first outstanding grade – particularly after being able to come through the more thorough inspection framework.

“We are absolutely delighted . We have a very good set of staff who work extremely hard and an excellent governing body who support everything we do. Our hugely supportive parents also do so much in school and with their children at home.”

Measures she cited for bringing about the success ranged from tracking pupils’ progress more and widening the curriculum such as inviting artists into school, more theatre visits and increasing sports, music and drama provision.