Ofsted says Wellingborough primary school needs to improve

Croyland Primary School in Croyland Road has gone from a good rating to requiring improvement following an Ofsted inspection carried out last month.

While the school was rated as good for early years provision, inspectors said the school needs to improve in the other four areas of effectiveness of leadership and management; quality of teaching, learning and assessment; personal development, behaviour and welfare, and outcomes for pupils.

The summary of key findings for parents and pupils said: “Leaders have not ensured that the quality of teaching is consistently good throughout the school.

“The governing body has not held leaders to account effectively.

“It has not challenged leaders well enough on the school’s performance.

“Leaders’ action plans do not contain measurable success criteria in order to judge if their actions have been successful or not.

“Leaders have not checked closely on the progress of disadvantaged pupils.”

It also said teachers’ expectations of what pupils can achieve are too low, the teaching of reading requires improvement and pupils’ attainment at the end of Key Stage 2 in 2017 was below the national average in all subjects.

However, the inspectors also noted a number of strengths.

They said the school is a very caring and happy place, the relationships between adults and pupils are very positive, pupils behave well and pupils’ personal, social and emotional well-being is promoted well.

They also said attainment at the end of Key Stage 1 has been in line or above the national average in all subjects for the past four years and pupils’ writing skills are developed well.

In the school’s January newsletter, headteacher Lucy Deakin wrote about the recent Ofsted report and said: “We have already began our improvement journey - we are never a school that sits still.

“You can see that the inspection judgement has changed from good to requires improvement.

“Whilst this is not the outcome we wanted, I am proud that every year, over the last three years, end of year school outcomes in foundation stage, Year 1 phonics, Year 2 and Year 6 have improved year on year.

“This information is shared continually with the governing body who see for themselves the positive changes within our school.

“Our goal now is to achieve national benchmarks.

“We are not quite there yet.

“When we do, I will be sure to let you know.”

The school has 417 children aged between four and 11 on its roll.

To read the report in full, click here