Headteacher hits back over school report
The executive headteacher of a Grantham school has defended her school against criticism from Ofsted.
The school inspectors visited National Junior School at Castlegate last month and said the school, which teaches 474 pupils aged 7 to 11, ‘requires improvement.’
Ofsted also said the school ‘requires improvement’ for the effectiveness of its leadership and management, the quality of its teaching, learning and assessment and its outcomes for pupils.
But it rated the school ‘good’ for its personal development, behaviour and welfare.
The report said despite improvements, “teaching is not yet consistently good.”
It continued: “Over time, senior leaders have not addressed effectively all of the weaknesses found at the last inspection.”
Pupils who needed to catch up or were disadvantaged did not make enough progress, and the most able were not “constantly challenged.”
Teachers also did not give enough information on what work was needed next and were not consistently told they had made errors, so they kept making them.
Teachers also do not expect pupils to present work neatly, with some work looking “messy and hurried.”
However, Ofsted said the school had strengths with the pupils’ spiritual, moral and social development; staff teach fundamental British values consistently well, their overall behaviour and its provision of music teaching is very good.
Executive headteacher Anne Platt said school leaders are ‘proud’ the pupils were praised as “highly reflective, thoughtful, caring young people who co-operate with others very well.”
Mrs Platt also said she and deputy head Jayne Watson and other leaders had been identified by Ofsted as “driving up the quality of teaching across the school.”
She continued: “All school staff are aware of the strengths and areas for development and have been working hard to make improvements, particularly around quality of teaching and learning. The report is accurate and useful in helping to endorse the improvements the school is undertaking.
“We believe that the strong team we have in place will ensure that we can deliver the required improvements to the school before Ofsted return for another two day inspection.
“Leaders and trustees have now been tasked with ensuring all pupils receive clear guidance on what they need to do to improve and pupil’s presentation is consistent across all classes.”