'Outstanding' Camden girls' school downgraded to 'good' by Ofsted

Camden School for Girls has slipped to "good" for the quality of its education and leadership and management but has retained its outstanding merits for behaviour and attitudes, and sixth form provision.

The school, recognised as the top performing schools for progress in the borough in 2018, was last inspected in 2011, when it was rated "outstanding" under a previous inspection framework.

It was was exempted by law from routine inspection until 2020, said Ofsted.

L-R Cllr Anna Wright, Kateryna Laws, Camden mayor Sabrina Francis and leader Cllr Georgia Gould in front of the Frances Mary Buss bust (Image: Nathalie Raffray)

"We were a little disappointed at the overall rating of 'good', as we know we have a very special school at Camden School for Girls. We knew, though, that the new Ofsted framework already meant that a large number of London’s top schools had received this assessment," said Kateryna Law, CSG headteacher.

"The school was rated as ‘good’, with outstanding features and of course that doesn’t mean much without context."

She said the inspection framework "did not take into account the school's outcomes, which this year, as with all other years, were exceptional and record breaking at the highest grades, bucking the national trend".

The Ofsted report said the school is a "calm, caring place where pupils aim high" and are "safe and well cared for by staff".

Pupils, including students in the sixth form, "are committed to their learning and achieve highly", the report said.

"They persevere when work is difficult," it said. "Attendance of all pupils is excellent."

Inspectors noted: "In some subjects, particularly in Years 7 to 9, leaders have not given careful thought to the essential knowledge and skills that pupils need to know and remember."

They said that assessment is not used consistently well across the school and that "leaders do not ensure that staff in all subjects routinely and carefully check pupils’ understanding".

"This means that teachers do not always have an accurate picture of what pupils know and remember, and pupils’ misunderstandings can be missed. Leaders must ensure that staff use assessment effectively across the school."

Ms Law said: "The best organisations in all walks of life see feedback as a chance to be even better. That’s exactly what we will do with these findings."