A West Norfolk primary school has been ordered to improve its teaching and leadership after being downgraded by education inspectors.
Runcton Holme Primary School has been stripped of its ‘good’ rating following an Ofsted inspection last month.
It has now been judged to ‘require improvement’, which replaced Ofsted’s ‘satisfactory’ grade in September last year.
A report published on Friday said achievement of pupils, quality of teaching and leadership and management all needed improvement, with behaviour and safety of pupils being the only area to maintain a ‘good’ standard.
Headteacher Georgina Earl, who took up the post in September last year, said: “Although to move from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’ is a difficult thing to have happened, we accept what the report has raised and are working on issues.
“It has been a helpful and supportive process to have gone through and clarifies our thinking about the school and has given us a solid basis to work from.
“We are looking ahead to the exciting future the school has.”
The school was rated as ‘good’ overall in 2008, and maintained the grade following an interim inspection in April 2011.
But the school has now been given guidance to improve.
The report said the quality of teaching varies, the progress pupils make in English and maths is uneven, and teaching in the Early Years Foundation Stage is not always pitched at a suitable level.
It added: “Pupils’ use of the sounds that letters make (phonics) to help them read and spell is not consistent.”
It also said that subject leaders and governors were not fully clear about the school’s strengths and weaknesses.
However, the report does praise some areas, including being united in supporting the new headteacher in bringing about improvement in pupils’ progress, teaching assistants effectively supporting disabled pupils and those with special needs and allowing pupils to participate in musical and sporting events.
Areas to improve include assessing pupils’ work accurately and teaching phonics.
Staff and governors are also expected to be given the skills to assess how well the school is doing.
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