A PRIMARY school has been praised for making a positive difference in the lives of its pupils, despite major upheavals caused when part of the building was found to be unsafe.

Education watchdogs OFSTED concluded that Holy Trinity CE Primary School, Darwen, "provides a very good ethos for success and achievement within the supporting 'family' of the school community. The inspectors said overall progress that pupils make over time is good and that, when compared with schools of a similar type, pupils make very good progress to have higher than average levels of attainment.

Other areas where the school does well include the promotion of higher attainment through excellent partnership with parents, local business and the community, providing an exceptional range of extra-curricular activities, environmental projects links with other countries and achieving excellence in a wide range of sporting activities.

Weaknesses were said to exist in ensuring a consistent quality of teaching and rate of progress in every class, in empowering subject co-ordinators to take responsibility for improving standards, providing for the professional development of staff and in the standards pupils attain in information and communication technology skills, despite the improvements made. The report stated: "The strengths outweigh the weaknesses and the school is successful in making a positive difference in the lives of the pupils." Holy Trinity was awarded £1.5m to build a replacement for the original Victorian building, which was abandoned last year and some lessons now take place in temporary classrooms.

Design and planning for the new site is on-going and it is expected to be ready by September 2000.

Chairman of governors Bernard Lloyd, added: "I am pleased that OFSTED valued the wonderful partnership the school has with its parents and the Darwen community.

"To receive a very successful report reflects on the dedication and hard work that both the staff and school governors put into the school."

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