PUPILS and teachers alike are celebrating at St Joseph’s Catholic Primary school in Nympsfield after they were given a much improved score in their latest Ofsted report.

The school, which has 103 children in its care, was rated as “satisfactory” in September 2012 but this has now been upgraded to “good” as the behaviour of pupils shone out to inspectors, rating that particular part as outstanding.

Lead inspector, Jeanne Simpson, said St Joseph’s was a rapidly improving school and achievement was good, especially in mathematics.

“All teaching is at least good and much is outstanding,” she said.

“Teachers plan work carefully to make sure that all pupils are given work which provides good challenge for their ability.

“Pupils’ attitudes to school and learning are exemplary. They are always polite and respectful to each other and to adults. They have excellent attitudes to their work and they are keen to do well.”

She also described the teaching assistants as “very skilled” and said pupils that are disabled or have special educational needs do well because of the high quality support they receive.

Headteacher Wendy D’arcy was described as having “a passion and commitment which are shared by all members of the school community, including governors; she has the full support of pupils, parents and staff.”

Ms D’Arcy said she was particularly pleased with how many times the inspector used the words outstanding and excellent in her report, believing they were not far off the top mark of outstanding.

“The report read better than the result we were given,” she said.

“The team here is superb, we have some lovely children that work really hard and it was great to identify that.

“I think the reason we did well was the focus we have and being driven to do thebest for the children, nothing else is good enough.”

Ms Simpson added the school was not yet an outstanding school because, over time, not all teachers have had consistently high enough expectations and achievement in reading was lagging behind writing and mathematics.

The inspector observed teaching and learning in eight lessons and held discussions with teachers, governors and children during the visit.

She also took account of 38 responses to the online questionnaire for parents as well as views of parents from informal discussions in school.