TWO schools in the town have been criticised for not encouraging students to achieve their full potential and have been told to improve following an inspection by Ofsted.

Grange Junior School and Kingsdown School, both in Stratton St Margaret, came under fire by the education watchdog in reports published this week, which has rated them as ‘requires improvement’.

Grange Junior School, which has almost 360 pupils aged seven to 11, was inspected last month and while the three inspectors praised new headteacher Louise Seavill for making improvements after a period of “uncertainty and changes in staffing,” they still felt there was more to be done.

The report states: “Teachers’ and pupils’ own expectations of what pupils should achieve are not always high enough. As a result, pupils’ progress is not improving quickly enough and requires improvement.

“Pupils say that behaviour is better now than in the past. Most parents who responded to Parent View expressed agreement with this view, but several still have concerns about behaviour and how it dealt with.”

But the report also added that pupils enjoy coming to school and their rate of attendance is above average.

Headteacher Louise Seavill said: “Although the overall judgement of our school continues to be ‘requires improvement’, we are really pleased that the Ofsted team acknowledged our strengths and all of the positive changes made to our school since the last inspection.

“We are confident that are ongoing work will lead to an improved judgement in the near future.”

Meanwhile Kingsdown, which has more than 1,000 students age 11 to 16, was visited by five inspectors in February and rated as ‘requiring improvement’ in the five categories reviewed.

The report states the quality of teaching had not improved since the previous inspection and pupils’ achievement in maths and modern foreign languages was “not good enough”.

It added: “The headteacher has taken effective action to tackle some of the weakest teaching, but is facing challenges to recruit teachers in certain subjects.”

However, the report praised the addition of the new chair of the governing body and personal development and welfare of the students, who said they felt safe at school.

Headteacher Wendy Conaghan was unable to speak to the Adver today but in a letter to parents she said: “The outcome of the inspection is disappointing for us all; we have however already made a number of changes following the inspection that are having a positive impact and have a detailed plan in place that addresses all the inspectors comments which will be reviewed regularly.

“I am committed to working with the staff at Kingsdown School to achieve an Ofsted grade of Outstanding and feel that this is realistic and achievable.”