AN Abingdon school judged to require improvement earlier this year has been told it needs to take action faster.

Larkmead School was told after a February inspection by Ofsted that grades and leadership had to improve.

Inspectors visited again last month and praised progress, but said the school needed to speed up.

Inspector Christine Raeside said: “Action is being taken, much of it focused on the right priorities.

“However, some key levers for improvement are happening too slowly or are obscured by policy, rather than getting down to the business of improving what goes on in the classroom.”

Initiatives like plans for more regular monitoring of teaching were praised but were “too late”.

She said: “Students cannot wait this long for teaching to improve.”

And she criticised the school for tackling inconsistent marking and assessment by evaluating the policies rather than by actual marking.

Improvements included science teachers visiting schools that were rated outstanding by Ofsted and an overhaul of science courses.

Extra English teaching groups had been created and a “strongly focused intervention” in Year 11 was likely to improve grades, she said.

She said monitoring had to happen now, an improvement plan should be reviewed and another governing body consulted to make improvements.

Headteacher Chris Harris said the school had been keen to ensure changes were right but progress had speeded up.

Some 150 class observations had been carried out in the last three weeks, and he added: “We had completely revised the structure for monitoring teaching and the approach to assessment.

“We had a governance review, we had created an improved literacy strategy and new programme for entrance in Year 7. All those things had happened, but her (Christine Raeside) feeling was that it should start sooner.”

Teaching staff had been broken down into five groups, each with one outstanding teacher and managed by a member of the leadership team.

He said: “Where we think somebody would benefit from support, the outstanding teacher in that group would be the coach who supports them to get better.”

When the first inspection report was revealed in March, he said national changes to English grade boundaries contributed to Oftsed’s ruling.

It expected 54 per cent of students to get at least five GCSEs grades A* to C including English and Maths last year, but the figure was 48 per cent.