The standard of leadership and teaching at a primary school in Clevedon is not good enough and must improve.
St Nicholas Chantry Primary School in Highdale Avenue was inspected by Ofsted, with its report this week highlighting that the school was falling short in all five of the key categories including quality of teaching, pupils’ personal development and behaviour.
Ofsted was also critical of the leadership and governance at the school, stating ‘plans to improve the school are not precise enough to support rapid progress’ and that safeguarding concerns raised by teachers are not recorded appropriately.
The ‘inconsistent’ quality of teaching was also highlighted as an area of weakness with the consequence that pupils do not make sufficient progress through the school.
Headteacher Peter Treasure-Smith has vowed to make improvements.
He said: “We are extremely disappointed with the report and are working hard to address the areas of weakness identified.
“We are taking a number of steps to make improvements including a revised and comprehensive school improvement plan has been drafted to address the highlighted issues. This has been agreed by the governing body and North Somerset Council and will be published once it has been agreed by Ofsted.
“A formal independent external governance review has been carried out this term which will help us improve our governance.
“New guidance has been put in place to ensure all staff apply the school behaviour policy in the most effective manner to address any low level disruptive behaviour that might occur.”
A governor with the responsibility of ensuring the school’s most able children make good progress will also be appointed and parents will be kept updated on these actions.
Ofsted’s report states: “Teaching does not deepen and extend pupils’ learning to enable them to achieve as well as they can because the work is not well matched to what pupils already know, understand and can do.
“The teaching of writing requires improvement.
“Not all teachers have sufficiently high expectations, particularly regarding the quality of grammar, punctuation and spelling.”
Inspectors did praise the ‘supportive and nurturing environment’ and the way in which pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural knowledge is promoted.
The support given to pupils with special educational needs and disabilities was also marked as good while the teaching of phonics and numeracy is of ‘high quality’.
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