Preston Ofsted ratings: Our Lady's Catholic High School in Fulwood drops from Outstanding to Good in its latest Ofsted report

Our Lady's Catholic High School was inspected on September 28-29, and was classed as ‘good’ for all categories in its report released on November 14. The school was rated ‘outstanding’ in its last full inspection in 2012, and ‘good’ in 2007.

What did Ofsted say was particularly good about Our Lady's?

Inspectors started the report by stating “Pupils are happy to belong to this warm school community where they are welcomed as ‘one of ours’. Pupils show kindness to each other. They celebrate differences between people. Pupils are confident that leaders will act to address any incidents of bullying quickly and effectively.”

The curriculum is described as being “well-thought-out” and “ambitious”, allowing all pupils – including SEND and those who are disadvantaged – to achieve well. Additionally, the reading curriculum has “improved” and its personal developmenet curriculum is “effective.”

Our Lady’s is also praised for its “wide range of clubs and activities“ which offer something for everyone, and the strong subject knowledge of its teachers.

What does Our Lady's need to improve on?

Inspectors said: “In a small number of subjects in key stage 3, leaders have not thought about the small building blocks of knowledge that are essential for pupils to learn the curriculum well”, meaning “teachers are not always aware when pupils’ knowledge is insecure.”

The report added that in some subjects “leaders’ approaches to assessment do not enable teachers to check how well pupils have learned the knowledge that they need to progress through the curriculum”, and so “learning is not as secure as it should be”.