New staff members with £80,000 support for troubled primary school

Work is already under way to turn around a school deemed to “require improvement” in its latest inspection, the new executive headteacher has said.

School inspectors said “pupils have not reached the standards they are capable of” by the time they leave Gosberton Academy.

A just-published Ofsted report said: “Senior leaders have not secured consistently good teaching across the school.
“As a result, pupils have not reached the standards they are capable of by the end of key stage two (age 11).

“Senior leaders have not rigorously checked the progress made by groups of pupils. Consequently, boys and the most able pupils are not achieving as well as they could.
“Not all teachers have high enough expectations of what pupils can achieve, particularly in key stage 2. As a result, pupils have not made good progress from their starting points.

“Pupils misspell too many words that they should know.
“Pupils’ skills to reason and problem solve mathematically are underdeveloped.

“Leaders have not ensured that all teachers apply the school’s assessment procedures to help pupils improve their work.
“Middle leaders have not been effective in raising standards in their subjects.

“The progress of disadvantaged pupils is inconsistent. Consequently, they do not reach the standards of other pupils nationally.

“Pupils do not have enough opportunities to investigate in science, including planning their own investigations. Leaders have not allocated all the sports premium funding, or evaluated the impact of the funding to check whether it is increasing pupils’ participation in sport.”

Sarah Gray took over as headteacher in September last year and the report said she has had a positive impact.
From the start of this academic year the school has become part of Boston Witham Academies Federation (BWAF), which has a record of turning around struggling schools.

Adrian Reed, chief executive of BWAF and now executive headteacher for Gosberton Academy, said £80,000 investment was agreed this week “to support the good work already being done with the relatively new head to rapidly close the gaps and bring these children on.”

He added: “We are determined that in as short a time as possible we are going to make this school good and that’s only a stopping point on the journey to outstanding.”

The investment will provide a new teacher with leadership responsibilities and a high level teaching assistant, who have been appointed from elsewhere in the trust and will start at the school after October half term holidays, plus resources in literacy and reading.

The report said the school, in High Street, which has 138 children on roll, does have a number of strengths.

It said the new headteacher has had a positive impact since her arrival and pupils are now making better progress with their work, new teaching appointments have increased the proportion of good teaching and pupils enjoy their school and focus well on their learning.

It also said pupils’ behaviour is good and children have a good start in the early years.