Burnley High School's top marks

The school, which is run by the private Chapel Street Trust, moved into a purpose-built home in Byron Street this April after spending its early life in the Parkhill Business Centre.

Although it currently has only three year groups, the school will welcome its biggest intake of Year 7s this September, with 124 pupils joining, up from the target of 90 due to popular demand.

Inspectors praised the school’s work in promoting pupils’ personal development and welfare.

Headteacher Victoria Povey said she was proud with the progress made in a short space of time and with the school’s first Ofsted report.

In particular, she was pleased that inspectors had noted that the school’s ethos of “grace, love and fellowship” permeates throughout every aspect of school life.

Relationships between staff and pupils was also said to be strong.

She said: “I am incredibly proud of our wonderful pupils, staff and families who have helped Burnley High School become the school it is today.

“We have overcome challenges with our building and facilities and it is absolutely wonderful that Ofsted recognised what we all already knew, that our ethos of love, grace and fellowship remains as strong as ever and that Burnley High School is a fantastic place to be.”

The report did highlight some areas where the school could improve.

Rates for pupils persistently absent was too high, while inspectors also noted that some middle leaders are not fully effective in driving improvements to teaching and learning in ensuring consistent application of the school’s feedback policy.

Miss Povey added that the school would not rest on its laurels and said staff would be striving to achieve an “outstanding” rating next time.

She said: “Obviously, we have not yet had any GCSE results, so this may influence future Ofsted reports.

“We know where we need to make improvements and we will be working hard to improve in all areas. We will have our fist set of GCSE results in 2019, which is very exciting.

“I think that, if anything, this Ofsted inspection was more rigorous because our three year groups meant there were fewer places for the inspectors to go around.”

Burnley High School operates independently of local authority control and operates a philosophy of “contextualised learning”, being more project-based