TAKING action to improve pupils’ achievements will be top of the agenda for Noremarsh Community Junior School after Ofsted inspectors judged the school as inadequate.

Government officals, who visited the school earlier this year, said the children’s behaviour and safety was good and the teaching and leadership of the school was satisfactory, but that the pupils’ achievements at the school were inadequate.

The school has now been given a notice to improve and headteacher of six years Andy Simpson said they had already started making improvements and had an action plan in place.

“As head of this school I would like to reassure the children, parents and local communities that the staff and I are committed to addressing the key priorities identified by Ofsted,” he said.

“The big issue was the progress of the children from Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 2. This is something we are aware of and we have got quite a lot in place to address that.

“The issues identified in the report are very much issues that we are working on. We want to reassure everybody we are going in the right direction.”

As part of the process HM Inspectorate of Education will visit the school and a further inspection from Ofsted should take place in 12 to 14 months with an aim to remove the notice to improve.

Chairman of governors Jason Cook said: “We take Ofsted’s comments very seriously and have immediately put in measures to address the issues raised.

“We would like to assure everyone that actions are being put into place to get the school out of this category as soon as possible.”

In the report, inspectors praised pupil behaviour, relationships between teachers and other adults and pupil safety.

But they said the school needed to raise achievement, particularly in Year 3 to Year 5, that teachers needed to make sure the pace of learning was suitably challenging, and that school leaders needed to focus on pupil progress.

Inspectors said: “The school’s overall effectiveness is inadequate, because of pupils’ inadequate achievement. At the time of the last inspection, attainment in English and mathematics was above average, but since then it has declined and largely been broadly average.

“Pupils made inadequate progress from their starting points in each of the last two years, especially in English. Inspection evidence shows that pupils’ progress is currently typically satisfactory with occasionally good progress being made where teaching is good.”