Glaisdale School, near Whitby, delighted with Outstanding Ofsted report

The village school has earned Outstanding ratings for its quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management and early years provision.

Executive Headteacher Olly Cooper: “We are extremely proud to announce that Glaisdale School has been judged as Outstanding in all areas – the highest grading possible.

“This is a standard only achieved by approximately 10% of schools nationally and reflective of schools who have exceptional practice.

"This standard is also one which schools have found harder to achieve in recent years, with fewer attaining this, due to a shift in focus by Ofsted.

"This makes us even prouder of this achievement.”

Inspectors commented that the school – which is part of the Yorkshire Endeavour Academy Trust (YEAT) – is “a small school with big ambitions” for all of its pupils and that it provided youngsters with “an exceptional quality of education and a breadth of opportunities”.

“It has high expectations of all pupils, who produce work to a consistently high standard.

"They enjoy learning because lessons are interesting."

They said pupils, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), achieve very well, behaved extremely well in class and around school and demonstrated a mature attitude to their studies.

Inspectors said staff, pupils, parents and carers spoke “overwhelmingly positively” about the school and were proud to be part of its community.

"The school plays an active role in village life,” they noted.

"Pupils contribute positively to the area in which they live.

"Recent events include producing artwork for remembrance commemorations and planting trees in a Memory Wood.”

They also commented that the school had identified a range of experiences, or ‘oaths’, that pupils complete during their time at the school.

These enable pupils to learn about people, places and cultures beyond the school’s immediate locality.

Inspectors said pupils also benefit from regularly participating in ‘Moors School’ which helps pupils deepen their knowledge and appreciation of the area in which they live.

Mr Cooper said the outcome of the Ofsted inspection would not have been possible without the whole community rallying together over the years.

"We were blown away with the number of responses received from families to the Ofsted survey, as well as the feedback that was given directly to the inspectors,” he said.

“I must also give a huge amount of credit to our children, who, as usual, were fantastic ambassadors for our school and helped us show Glaisdale at its very best over the two inspection days.”

“Finally, I would like to share how lucky I feel to work in a school with such skilled, dedicated and hardworking staff and governors.

“Given that I have had the chance to work across numerous schools over the past few years, I can wholeheartedly say that our school has a fantastic team that we can all be proud of.

"This applies not only to team members in the school but also to those staff members who support us within our trust – this Ofsted outcome has very much been a team effort.”

Click here to read the school’s full report.