Ofsted have released their latest inspection report for Wootton Primary School.
The school was deemed Inadequate when is was inspected in May 2013, but following three Section 8 inspections and a recent Section 5 inspection has now been rated as ‘Requires Improvement’ – one notch up on the standards ratings.
Strengths of school
Several strengths were highlighted by the inspector
- Teaching has improved over the past year; any inadequate teaching is tackled quickly. Teachers understand more clearly what they need to do to ensure good learning, particular for older pupils.
- Since the previous inspection, most pupils have started to make faster progress. At the end of Year 6 in 2014, standards improved and were in line with national figures.
- The school keeps pupils safe and secure. Pupils are polite and courteous around the school and know how to keep themselves safe.
- Actions to improve the Early Years Foundation Stage have been effective and this aspect of the school is now good. Children make a good start in developing their skills in learning.
- Governors have an accurate understanding of where the school needs to improve further, and have been a key factor in bringing about improvements over the past year.
Failures
The inspector says is not good because
- Until very recently, turbulence in staffing has hampered the efforts of senior leaders to make sure that actions taken have led to consistent improvements.
- There have not been enough middle leaders at the school to support senior leaders to bring about improvements as quickly as needed.
- Some leaders are not making sure that planned changes are taking place and resulting in improvements required.
- Behaviour requires improvement because pupils too readily wait for adults to help them when they get stuck. Pupils do not make enough effort to work hard, grapple with challenging tasks or improve the work they have done. At times they are too easily distracted.
- Teaching has too few strengths. Some teachers do not expect pupils to work hard enough or quickly enough and this slows the progress pupils make.
- Marking sometimes lacks detail and does not help pupils improve.
- At times, adults provide answers too quickly and pupils are not encouraged to think for themselves.
- Pupils do not always make as much progress as they could. In particular, the most able pupils are often set work which is not challenging enough. As a result, too many pupils do not reach the standards they are capable of, particularly in Years 1 and 2 and in their writing.
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Image: Nick Amoscato under CC BY 2.0
