Manchester’s King David Primary has held on to the outstanding status it was first awarded seven years ago.
Although Ofsted predicted that fewer schools would be able to hang on to their top grade after the pandemic, King David excelled at its latest inspection.
KD headteacher Stacey Rosenberg told parents, “We are particularly proud that our subject leaders were praised for ensuring all pupils access an exciting and ambitious curriculum, that our pupils have a positive attitude to learning and that the children’s behaviour is described as ‘exemplary.’
“The inspector commented on the efforts we put into character development and that we place a high priority on the well-being of staff and pupils.”
The inspector clearly saw that pupils “understand and are proud of the middot (character traits) we teach and were eager to explain to her all about the biblical teaching veohavta lerayacha kamocha, ‘love your neighbour as yourself,’ which is at the heart of our school.”
The current Ofsted framework is “far more challenging than the previous one,” she noted.
Manchester City Council’s director of education, Amanda Corcoran, and strategic director of children’s services, Paul Marshall, sent their congratulations.
“Consistently achieving such high quality outcomes is a challenge for all schools in the city and the impact of your work in the school and in the community is a cause for celebration for us all,” they wrote. “You must be very proud of what you have achieved. I hope you have been able to take the time to enjoy and appreciate this achievement.”
*Meanwhile, Ofsted has announced changes to its inspection practice following criticism over the suicide of a headteacher whose school was downgraded.
It said that schools ranked inadequate over safeguarding procedures would be revisited within three months to see if improvements had been made. It is also consulting on introducing an independent complaints process.
The Jewish schools network, PaJeS, welcomed the moves as “an important initial step” but added that “there is still more that needs to be done in order to address concerns”.
