Headteacher Michelle Parker and pupils at St Bartholomew’s Primary School in West Pinchbeck, with the OFSTED report. Photo (NIKKI GRIFFIN): VNG171214-23

Village primary school edges closer to ‘outstanding’ rating

The primary school in West Pinchbeck has just four issues to address before it might be rated outstanding by education inspectors.

OFSTED says St Bartholomew’s has moved on even more since its previous “good” rating, which it was given again.
Headteacher Michelle Parker was praised in the report for her “relentless drive” towards raising expectations of pupils’ learning and achievement.

Mrs Parker says the school is “extremely delighted” with the outcome of the report.
She added: “When I joined the school, it was a ‘nice school’ where standards of attainment and achievement were much lower than other schools and national averages. This is no longer the case, the business of the school is learning and high achievement for all is at the centre of what we do.”

She added: “I am very proud of all the staff, they are dedicated to the children and work extremely hard to ensure the children enjoy learning.”

Areas for improvement highlighted in the report were:
support staff are not always used effectively to improve pupils’ learning
not enough pupils make more than expected progress in writing
not enough teaching is outstanding
a small minority of staff do not have consistently high enough expectations of themselves or their pupils.

Mrs Parker said: “We will be working hard in the future to work towards the targets set by Ofsted, to increase the amount of outstanding teaching throughout the school as well as increasing the impact that the teaching assistants, have on teaching and learning in every classroom.”

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