A WEST Cumbrian village school is celebrating after it was rated”good” by the Government’s watchdog.

Ofsted inspectors published a report this week following a visit to Seaton St Paul’s CofE Junior School.

The watchdog rated the school good overall and judged personal development, behaviour and welfare as “outstanding”.

Headteacher Amanda Dickinson said: “All members of our school community are absolutely delighted with this report.

“It is testimony to the hard work and strong commitment of the staff and governors.

“We are pleased that the many strengths of our school have been duly recognised and praised. The school has had four inspections since 2008 and each time the Ofsted framework has been increasingly challenging. The targets for improvement are very minor and that is also an achievement.

“We were especially pleased with the children’s responses to Ofsted – they expressed that they were very proud of their school.

“A questionnaire demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of parents would recommend the school to someone else. That is great to hear.”

Inspectors said: “Leaders have established effective systems for holding teachers to account for pupils’ progress and attainment. They have put in place a range of measures to ensure that their assessment of pupils’ skills when they start at the school in Year 3 is as accurate as possible. This helps them to check that pupils are making enough progress over time. Teachers say that they value the opportunities that leaders provide for regular, detailed discussions about pupils’ progress. This helps them to take the right actions if

pupils are at risk of falling behind.”

Other aspects praised by inspectors include a culture of high expectation at the school as well pupils’ outstanding behaviour and impeccable conduct.

The report said that the school should improve on two aspects. Inspectors want the school to ensure governors have a greater involvement in the school’s self-evaluation and development planning process. The school should also improve pupils’ outcomes by ensuring that teaching promotes strong spelling and grammar skills and that younger pupils of lower ability are supported in developing better reasoning skills in mathematics. Mrs Dickinson said: “The inspector said that if there was a judgement for passion for educating children, the judgement For Seaton St Paul’s Junior School would be ‘stratospherically high’ – that surely says it all.”