Lone school is outstanding (From Oxford Mail)

Lone school is outstanding

6:30am Monday 1st December 2008 in

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Only one school in Oxford has been rated as outstanding in the past year, it was revealed last night.

Seventeen primary and secondary schools in the city were inspected by Ofsted last year but only one, The Cherwell School in Marston Ferry Road, gained the top mark.

Outside the city, 10 schools across the county were rated outstanding in the 2007-08 academic year.

But last night Michael Waine, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for schools improvement, said education in the city was not as bad as it appeared.

There are 49 schools in the city that fall under Ofsted’s jurisdiction and Mr Waine said: “There are schools in Oxford that in my view should and will be found outstanding when they are next inspected.

“It is a vastly improving position on the situation we were in three years ago, and I am confident we will see more schools getting that top ranking.”

Two other schools – Grandpont Nursery, Oxford, and Northern House Special School in Summertown – are rated as outstanding from inspections in previous years.

Cherwell School headteacher Jill Judson said: “We were thrilled to be graded as outstanding and we very much take that to be that we are doing well and that we have the capacity to improve.

“I think schools are at different points in their progress and development and I think there are a lot of schools who are doing really well.”

School achievement was criticised when Janet Tomlinson, the council’s head of children, school and families, blamed “complacency” in secondary schools for a failure to improve results.

But this year’s GCSE results countywide showed improvement, with a 2.3 per cent rise in the number of pupils gaining five good GCSEs, including English and maths.

Steve Lunt, headteacher at Oxford School, which received a satisfactory rating from Ofsted when last inspected in 2006, said: “I think we are looking to improve the quality of provision all the time.

“Ofsted is only a snapshot at a particular time and place but there are a whole range of measures that can be used to judge how well a school is doing.”

At Matthew Arnold School, the sixth form was ranked as outstanding and the school overall as good after an inspection in February.

Headteacher Katherine Ryan said: “If they came back to visit us tomorrow, they would have a different result because we have already improved enormously since last year.”

fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk