5:00pm Thursday 29th July 2010
By Fran Bardsley
THE headteacher of a primary school previously rated as outstanding has questioned it being marked down to “satisfactory” in a new report.
Fritwell Primary School, near Bicester, was rated outstanding when Ofsted inspected it in February 2007.
But when inspectors returned last month, the rating for the school was just satisfactory, a drop of two grades.
Headteacher Joanne Daly, who took over after the 2007 inspection, said: “I don’t think the recent Ofsted report truly reflects our school.
“The framework and criteria of inspections have changed considerably since Ofsted’s previous visit.
“Our statutory inspection of church schools report, carried out shortly afterwards, stated that we are ‘outstanding’ in all areas, including meeting the needs of all learners and the effectiveness of leadership and management.”
Despite the overall Ofsted rating, two areas were deemed outstanding, healthy lifestyles and contribution to the wider community, and nine aspects of the school were good, with the rest satisfactory.
The report said there had been several changes of staff recently, and that parents had expressed concerns about the turnover of teaching staff.
In his report, Ofsted inspector Nick Butt said not all pupils were sufficiently challenged and children were too often unclear about where they needed to do to improve.
He also described self-evaluation as too generous, and attainment and progress targets as not sufficiently challenging.
But he said the school provided a good level of care and helped overcome barriers to learning, along with reducing persistent absence through working with families.
He also remarked on recent improvements in writing, following a focus on the subject.
In terms of leadership, he said: “Inaccuracies in self-evaluation arose as a result of weaknesses in the school’s monitoring systems.
“Monitoring is not rigorous enough and its scope has been too narrow this year.”
Mrs Daly said the school’s SATs results showed the number of children achieving Level 4 or above – the level which all children are expected to reach by age 11 – rose to 93 per cent in maths and science and 89 per cent in English.
That was an increase of six per cent in English and maths, with the proportion of children making the grade in reading rising by 12 per cent.
Mrs Daly said: “The school looks forward to working on the areas identified to continue to develop and improve, and ensuring that our children remain confident, happy, secure and well-rounded.”
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