Tooting Islamic school rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted

Categories: Latest News
Wednesday April 02 2014
West London news portal, Your Local Guardian, reports that Gatton Primary School is the only Islamic voluntary aided school in the UK to be rated as ‘outstanding’ across all five areas assessed by Ofsted.
In an Ofsted inspection last month inspectors assessed the school for its overall effectiveness on the achievement of pupils, quality of teaching, behaviour and safety of pupils as well as leadership and management of the school.
Gatton Primary school in Tooting, which is larger than most primary schools, having 420 pupils aged between 4 and 11 on its school roll, has become one of only 17 per cent of primary schools in the country to have gained an ‘outstanding’ rating.
The Ofsted report concludes:
“All groups of pupils make outstanding progress in reading, writing and mathematics. Attainment is above average and rising as more pupils work at levels above those expected for their age.
“Pupils’ behaviour is outstanding. They take great pride in their school, their work and their appearance.
“The headteacher builds individual training programmes for teachers around the considerable expertise in the school. As a result, teaching has improved considerably and is now outstanding.”
Islamic faith schools have in the main received a lot of negative press including a Daily Telegraph article on the Department of Education’s memo expressing concerns about ‘socially conservative’ faith schools “where pupils may be encouraged to cut themselves off from mainstream society”.
On the contrary, the Ofsted report on Gatton Primary school welcomes the school’s active encouragement of pupils to “engage with a wide range of other faith groups” saying “They meet regularly with pupils from other schools, learning about other world religions while helping others to learn about Islam.”
The headteacher at Gatton Primary, Ms Rifat Batool, said: “I believe in delivering high quality learning experiences as well as developing pupils who are well grounded in strong moral values.
“It is to this end that the whole school community has been striving to deliver the best all day, every day.”