St John with St Mark Primary School praised by Ofsted for positive community relations

Date published: 18 December 2008

St John with St Mark CofE Primary School in Bury have received good news from their recent Oftsed report which took place in November 2008.

Inspectors praised the good start the school gave local pupils, especially those from ethnic minority backgrounds. Inspectors founds that the behaviour of challenging pupils was well managed and pupils at the school make an outstanding contribution to the life of the school and the wider community.

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) was found to be a key strength of the school as nursery children often came to the school with poor communication skills, but the school provided these pupils with the opportunity to make good or outstanding progress due to high paced quality teaching which met children’s specific needs.

The school can also celebrate it’s highest results ever for standards in reading and mathematics for Key Stage 1 and the school acknowledges that there is still a lot of work to be done.

Ofsted found that there was good provision for pupils with learning disabilities and the appointment of a bi-lingual classroom assistant was found to be a positive step in supporting pupils who may have English as a second language.
Older pupils have the opportunity to become prefects, play leaders, buddies or monitors and this allows them to help contribute to the running of the school. The school also has links to the wider community through charity initiatives and musical performances. The inspectors praised the outstanding schemes in place to ensure that pupils made a positive contribution to their local society and that community cohesion was promoted.

Janet Moore, Head teacher of St John with St Mark CofE Primary School, said: “We are delighted that our efforts have been rewarded with good judgements. We will continue to work hard to provide children with a quality education which is both creative and innovative”.