OKEHAMPTON Primary has had the best possible start to its new school year — it received a top national award for its arts programme and a rating of 'good' in its latest Ofsted report.

Pupils and staff are celebrating the school being awarded with the Artsmark Gold Award from Arts Council England's flagship programme, which enables schools and other organisations to evaluate, strengthen and celebrate their arts and cultural provision.

The award recognises a well planned, quality arts education that supports the cultural development of all pupils.

Normally, schools have to work their way through the bronze and silver awards before being considered for the top accolade. But the quality of music, drama and arts provision at the primary convinced the assessor, from Trinity College, London, to give them the gold award immediately.

The school will now hold the Artsmark Gold standard for the next three years.

Headteacher Hazel Fox was delighted for the school to receive the accolade, and has ambitions not only to keep improving the arts at the school, but also focus on sport provision following government funding.

She said: 'We employ arts specialist teachers here, so we have a specialist art teacher and drama teacher, and then the flourishing orchestra and music as well so we have full music provision too. The drama we do is quite top-spec stuff.

'We have it all covered and that's the thing about the school. Because we are a big school the children here have opportunities to really develop their talents. With the Government sport money coming in there will be a big focus on sports this year.

'We are going to particulary look into becoming specialists in outdoor sports and taking advantage of the local surroundings.'

The Ofsted report praised the school for providing pupils 'rich experiences . . . across the curriculum contribute strongly to their spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding'.

The school was rated good in all four inspection categories — achievement of pupils, quality of teaching, behaviour and safety of pupils, and leadership and management.

The report said: 'When asked to think of three words to sum up the school, the pupils responded with safe, exciting and challenging.

'That is the vision which the headteacher, together with other leaders in school, has created. She is passionate about making sure that the pupils get the very best opportunities to learn and flourish, and the improving standards demonstrate that she is successful.

'The quality of teaching has improved over time so that teaching is good and some is outstanding. Pupils come to lessons ready and eager to learn because they are confident that the learning will be interesting.

'Relationships between teachers and pupils are excellent and there is a very positive climate for learning where pupils are not afraid to ask questions or make mistakes.'

To improve further, assessors said that the amount of outstanding teaching should be increased by sharing the outstanding practice which already exists in the school.

Mrs Fox said: 'I'm particularly pleased the teaching is now good and outstanding throughout the school.

'A lot of our results are above national average. There's been a general upward trend this year and we have got the best results we have ever had. I think one of the highlights is the children describing the school as safe, exciting and challenging. As a headteacher, that is all we want really.

'The bar has been raised slightly, for what rates as good compared to the last time we got good two years ago. Personally, I am slightly gutted because if they had come next year I think we would have had a really good crack at getting outstanding, but the school is well on track.

'I am very ambitious to take the school to outstanding status. We have got a lot of strength in teaching now, and we just need to make that consistent across the school.'

Reflecting on the instant successes of the new school year, Mrs Fox said: 'It was a really lovely way to come back, and the kids have come back in great spirits with their new ties and things. They think it is a bit like Hogwarts!'