St Gregory the Great Catholic School

St Gregory the Great Catholic School is a mixed Roman Catholic all-through school with academy status, located in Cowley, Oxfordshire, England.

It is one of only two state-funded Catholic schools offering secondary education in that county, the other being Blessed George Napier Roman Catholic School in Banbury. The previous executive principal John Hussey, joined the school as acting headteacher in 2008. He later was appointed to the role of permanent headteacher in the spring term of 2009. The school converted to academy status in April 2013, and became the lead school in the Dominic Barberi Multi-Academy Company a month later. The Dominic Barberi Multi-Academy Company is now composed of seven Catholic schools in south Oxfordshire. St Gregory the Great is the only secondary school.^[2]

They include:

• St Gregory the Great Catholic All-Through School, Oxford
• St Thomas More Catholic Primary School, Kidlington
• St John Fisher Catholic Primary School, Oxford
• Our Lady's Catholic Primary School, Oxford
• St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, Thame
• St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, Carterton
• Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Primary School, Witney

In September 2013, the school became an all-through school, with pupils ranging from the ages of 4 to 18. However, the primary school only consists of foundation, year one and year two at this time. Dr McCarthy was appointed as Principal in 2015.

Funding for New Buildings

Until funding for the new buildings was finalized in 2006, the school existed on two sites: the Cardinal Newman Middle School on Cricket Road, and St Augustine's, Iffley Turn, Oxford. However, after receiving a £20,000,000 grant from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham, the current buildings were built. Work began in March 2014 on the adjacent former Cricket Road Centre to convert it into the school's new primary school, for children aged 4–11.^[2]

Progress

In the most recent Section 8 Ofsted report, in December 2015, the Inspector found that 'senior leaders and governors are taking effective action to tackle areas requiring improvement identified in the March 2015 Section 5 inspection in order to become a good school.' ^[3] In the earlier report published in April 2015, the school was described as "Requires Improvement", although Early Years provision and the sixth form were rated "Good". That report had cited low expectations of pupils as the reason for attainment being below the national average.^{[4] [5]} GCSE results released in January 2016 show the school has the lowest GCSE attainment out of all state schools in Oxfordshire by percentage of students receiving 5A* to C including English and Maths. This fell year on year to 43% of students achieving the government's GCSE benchmark.^[6]

References