Bury St Edmunds school with ‘culture of high ambition’ celebrates ‘good’ Ofsted

A top Bury St Edmunds school is celebrating a ‘good’ rating from Ofsted after making significant improvements in the last two years.

The education watchdog said achievement at St Benedict’s Catholic School, in Beeton’s Way, has ‘risen annually’ since its last full inspection in 2014 when it was judged as ‘requires improvement’.

Its sixth form remains ‘outstanding’.

Inspectors praised new headteacher Kate Pereira who has ‘quickly established a culture of high ambition’ and ‘quickly identified the school’s strengths and weaknesses and begun to challenge areas of underperformance’.

Mrs Pereira said: “The staff and parents are delighted by the judgement and feel relieved that the school is out of the ‘requires improvement’ category.

“We were even happier that the sixth form has sustained its outstanding judgement.”

She said the improvements were the result of ‘lots of hard work’ by the school’s teachers and leadership.

On the school’s sixth form, Ofsted noted that value-added measures show that overall students’ performance is ‘similar to the results achieved in the top 10 per cent of schools nationally’.

Among the ways the school can improve further, inspectors said there should be more training and support to staff to establish procedures to accurately identify the needs of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. The school should also ensure ‘the consistent implementation’ of its marking and feedback policy.