THE fortunes of the previously struggling school Wharton Church of England Primary School have been turned around thanks to the leadership of its head teacher.

The primary school in Greville Drive has been given glowing reviews by education regulator Ofsted with inspectors hailing the school and its head teacher, Claire Spinks, for guiding the school to what is described as its best period for a long while.

Each of the school’s previous three inspections between 2010 and 2014 were given a ‘requires improvement’ grade, but an inspection in July this year broke the unwanted trend with an overall ‘Good’ grade.

Joanne Olsson, lead inspector for Ofsted, did not hold back in her praise for Wharton Primary in her report.

Ms Olsson said: “Strong, steely and resilient leadership from the head teacher has turned the fortunes of Wharton Primary around. Swift, fundamental change means almost every aspect of the school is better than at the previous inspection.

“Wharton has been on a rocky and challenging journey since the last inspection. In rooting out endemic weaknesses, and dealing with staff turnaround, leaders have sometimes had to go backwards before establishing new ways of working. However, their perseverance has paid off; Wharton has turned the corner. Almost every aspect of school life is the best it has been for a long while.

“Much has been achieved at Wharton in a relatively short space of time. Effective action planning, and strong leadership capacity, is setting the school on the right track for an even brighter future.”

Despite taking heavy praise from the Ofsted inspection, Claire insisted that the turnaround was down to the hard work of her staff.

“Obviously everybody has worked really hard to turn the place around, it has been a real turning point for us,” Claire said.

“We listened to what we were told we needed to improve and we worked hard to do that and there has been lots of changes.

“I’m really proud of the staff and pupils here and we will all continue to go onwards and upwards.”

This also follows another recent successful report for the school from SIAMS (Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools).

The report gave a ‘Good’ judgement with ‘outstanding distinctive Christian character.’ It stated: “Distinctive Christian values permeate relationships throughout the school and result in the school being a happy place to learn and work.”