‍

Schools in our Diocese are celebrating new figures published by Ofsted and compiled by The Sunday Times, which place diocesan schools at the top of tables comparing levels of student happiness in East Sussex, West Sussex, Surrey and joint top in Brighton and Hove

Ofsted's Parent View survey asks parents about various aspects of their children's schools and over 500,000 responses are received each year. One question relates to how happy parents feel their child is. The Sunday Times analysis focused on the percentage of parents who either "strongly agree" or "agree" that their child is happy at school. The national average is 83 per cent.

In East Sussex, St Richard's, Bexhill, led the table, with 97% of parents responding that their child was happy at the school, a figure matched by the highest-rated school in West Sussex, St Philip Howard High School, Barnham.

‍Salesian School, Chertsey, was ranked first in Surrey, with a 98% approval rating, while in Brighton & Hove, Cardinal Newman Catholic School tied for first place with 96%. Salesian School was also ranked the joint 8th happiest non-selective school in the country and joint 15th overall.

Other diocesan schools, including St Paul's, Burgess Hill (91%), St Wilfrid’s, Crawley (88%) and St Oscar Romero, Goring (88%) also ranked very highly, along with St Peter’s, Guildford; St Andrew’s, Leatherhead; St John the Baptist, Woking and St Bede’s, Redhill, who were also ranked as being amongst the happiest secondary schools in Surrey.

Reflecting on how these figures reflect the Catholic ethos of our diocesan schools and their commitment to student wellbeing, diocesan Director of Education, Julie Oldroyd, said:

‍

“We are delighted that strong academic outcomes and excellent pastoral care is matched by student happiness, which goes a long way to securing good attendance and enables our young people to flourish in these formative years.”

‍

‍

Sources: The Argus; ‍Salesian School; Sunday Times (paywall)