BURLEY and Woodhead CE Primary School in Burley-in-Wharfedale is celebrating a glowing Ofsted report, which described the school as ‘remarkable’ and said that inspectors were ‘bowled over’ by the quality of the children’s work.

The latest Ofsted report, published this week, agreed with the view expressed by parents that the school is ‘exceptional’ and heaped praised on both the teaching and the achievements of the children, who they summarise ‘are thriving at this remarkable school’.

Key areas highlighted included the ‘highly effective’ curriculum plans for all subjects and the way this was sustained throughout lockdown, the ‘exceptional’ curriculum for pupils’ wider development and the school’s approach to supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities.

Pupils' behaviour was described as ‘impeccable’ and inspectors said children were fully engaged and excited about their learning and achieving results well above the national averages for both English and maths.

Burley and Woodhead is a Department for Education designated ‘English Hub’ school and supports other schools in Bradford and North Yorkshire to provide excellent teaching in phonics and early language. This expertise was also recognised in the inspection, which found that “the teaching of early reading and phonics is exceptional.”

As this was an ungraded inspection, the school was not able to change its current grading of good. However, inspectors felt there was enough evidence to show the school is outstanding now so will be returning to do a graded inspection in the next one to two years.

Headteacher Mrs Joanne Siddall said: “We are absolutely delighted with the report and that the inspectors felt we are an outstanding school. We strive to inspire a love of learning in our children so it was particularly gratifying to see this recognised by the inspectors.

“We are also incredibly grateful that we have such supportive and involved parents at Burley Woodhead. The response to the parent survey was overwhelming and it meant a huge amount to all staff to know how highly parents valued the school.”

• When a school is rated as good, Ofsted return every four years to confirm they are maintaining this standard, which is known as an ungraded inspection.

• Graded judgements are not given on an ungraded inspection. However, if Ofsted finds evidence that a school would now receive a higher or lower grade, then the next inspection will be a graded inspection, which is carried out under section 5 of the Act.