All Whitworth schools celebrate Ofsted success

Celebrating success: Headteachers and students of Whitworth’s primary schools and high school celebrate all schools in their area being good or outstanding.

Headteachers and students in Whitworth are celebrating after all their schools were judged to be good or outstanding by Ofsted.

The Whitworth Cluster involves primary schools Tonacliffe, Our Lady and St Anselm’s, St John with St Michael and St Bartholomew’s along with Whitworth Community High School.

Headteacher of Whitworth Community High School Gill Middlemas said: “All our students are really fortunate that they go to a school that is good or outstanding. I think it is brilliant that all of our schools are achieving so well and, whether you live in Whitworth or on the outskirts, it is a very strong community and we all work together. When we achieved our “Good” we received so many messages from people in the community and people would stop our students and say well done.”

The latest school to gain a good Ofsted inspection was St Bartholomew’s, which had been satisfactory or requires improvement for many years.

Headteacher Nerys Ditchburn-Hughes said: “I took over in April 2013 and we were inspected a month later. Two years on and we were inspected again and now we have been judged good. We have a vision for our school and we work hard to make that come true for our children.”

Tonacliffe headteacher Joanne Heap said: “I think it is really good that parents have a good choice of schools close at hand and as a cluster we work really closely together – it is not about competition, it is about school to school support.”

St John with St Michael’s headteacher Kathryn Thomas explained how all the primaries have now formed an ‘eco-cluster’ of school councils.

“Representatives of all the school councils are present at the meetings, which we hold each term at Whitworth Town Council, and councillors are there too,” she said.

As well as giving their views on topical issues, like the windfarm, pupils also discuss how to take action in environmental issues and they’ve chosen a charity that they would all like to support.

Headteacher of Our Lady and St Anselm’s Joanne Rainey said: “It is about the children developing ownership and understanding about what is it like to be good citizens in their own area.”