Last updated at 20:00, Thursday, 12 July 2012

A Workington headteacher said he was disappointed by the outcome of his secondary school’s latest Ofsted inspection.

Inspectors visited St Joseph’s Catholic High School in May and graded it as “satisfactory”.

The report said that although some teaching was good, and even outstanding, this was not consistent across the school and improvements were not being made quickly enough.

The school was graded good overall in its inspections in 2009 and 2005.

Tom Ryan, headteacher, said: “The fact is that the changes made to the Ofsted framework make it far harder for schools like ours, which face greater challenges than some schools, to be judged fairly.

“Our school’s results were compared against some of the most privileged schools in the country and I feel that such an approach is harsh.”

The school was rated as satisfactory in the achievement of pupils, quality of teaching and leadership and management and good in behaviour and safety of pupils

Alison Thompson, lead inspector, said in the report: “St Joseph’s is a satisfactory school, which is well thought of by parents and carers.

“However, the overall effectiveness of the school is not good because leaders and managers are not bringing about improvements as quickly as possible, particularly in relation to student achievement and the quality of teaching.”

The report gave two key areas for further improvement – raising student achievement through consistently good teaching and improving leadership and management to bring about improvements more quickly.

Mr Ryan said that the areas had already been identified and included in the school’s improvement plan.

He added: “I am delighted that the inspection team recognised the excellent behaviour of our pupils both in classrooms and around the school as well as their positive attitude to learning. They also judged spiritual development to be outstanding.”

First published at 19:25, Thursday, 12 July 2012
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk