A SCHOOL in Hereford is celebrating after it was rated excellent by inspectors.

Pupils' attitude in lessons at St James CE Primary School, in Vicarage Road, was praised by church inspectors during the inspection.

The school, led by headteacher Ben Caldicott and rated as good by school inspectorate Ofsted, also had good plans for finding strengths and areas to improve, inspectors said.

The Statutory Inspection of Anglican and Methodist Schools inspections, known as SIAMS for short, focuses on the impact of the Church school's Christian vision on pupils and adults.

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It involves looking at the school’s Christian vision, the provision the school makes because of this vision and how effective this provision is in enabling all pupils to flourish.

Giving the school an overall grade of excellent, which the headteacher said he was thrilled with, the inspector Daphne Spitzer said: “The high quality of teaching and learning in RE in St James’ is excellent.

"This is recognised and celebrated nationally and locally within the diocese."

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She added: "Strategies for identifying strengths and areas for development are extremely rigorous.

"As a result, pupils respond enthusiastically making exceptional progress in their learning.”

Mr Caldicott said it was an outstanding achievement following recent changes to the grading system, which meant schools could also be judged as good or ineffective.

He said it was expected that most schools would be rated as good, which he said was counted as the "gold standard".

“I am thrilled to announce that after the inspector spent the day at St James, going into lessons, talking to children, staff, governors, and reviewing many documents, she felt St James was Excellent in all areas," he added.