St Gregory the Great Catholic School is a mixedRoman Catholicall-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. They include:
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. In January 2018 the school announced that the Principal and Vice Principal were "currently on leave", with a new temporary head standing in.
Until funding for the new buildings was finalized in 2006, the school existed on two sites: the Cardinal NewmanMiddle 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.
Progress
In a 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.' 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. 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. In May 2017 the school was placed into Special Measures by Ofsted Inspectors found that a 'small minority of pupils seriously misbehave and a greater number regularly disrupt lessons'.
