It was a double celebration for a Marlow primary school this week as they held their annual festival and received their first ever ‘outstanding’ Ofsted inspection. 

Danesfield School in Henley Road invited hundreds of members of public to Danesfest, their second annual festival on Saturday afternoon. 

The celebration, which featured activities and attractions like interactive storytelling on the Once Upon a Time bus, space workshops, an inflatable slide, music, food and drink, came just days before their impressive Ofsted inspection report was published. 

The school was last found to be a ‘good’ school, but inspectors from the education watchdog visited on June 7 and 8 and found the pupils to be “exceptionally well-behaved” and praised their abilities in reading, writing and maths - upgrading their rating to ‘outstanding’. 

Teachers were observed providing “good support” for pupils with special needs or disabilities and said they take pride in their teaching. 

The pupils’ behaviour was described as “exemplary” and inspectors found that they work “very hard” and demonstrate “excellent attitudes to learning”. 

School attendance is also said to be above average and incidents of bad behaviour were rare.

Mrs Sarah Morgan, Danesfield head teacher since 2015, was also highlighted as a “dedicated” head teacher with “absolute determination that all pupils can achieve highly” in the report. 

Speaking after the inspection results were published, she said: “Danesfield has never been graded as outstanding in an Ofsted inspection so this is a huge achievement for the school and I would like to thank everyone for the part they have played in our journey.” 

Saturday’s festival celebration saw more than 400 visitors help the school mark the occasion and culminated in crowds watching a movie under the stars.

The outdoor cinema was provided by Firefly Events, a local start-up company. 

Alice Collins, co-founder of the business, said: “We’re delighted to be supporting Danesfest this year.”

Festival-goers also enjoyed Reggae aerobics, lessons from the Great Big Tree Climbing Company and a show-jumping course.

All profits raised from the spectacular festival will go to Danesfield School PTA.