School ‘rising to challenge’ in bid to drive up standards

Staff and governors at Warboys Community Primary School have “accelerated the pace of change” in a bid to bring about improvements in the standard of teaching.

Inspectors from Ofsted said governors were asking more challenging questions of senior leaders and staff had raised expectations of pupils as the effort is made to reverse the school’s fortunes.

The school, in Humberdale Way, was rated as requiring improvement by Ofsted in an inspection carried out in November last year, but, during a follow-up visit carried out in July, inspectors noted that improvements were already being made.

In the latest report, inspector Kim Hall noted: “Governors were disappointed with the outcome of the last inspection but have wasted no time in rising to the challenge of accelerating the pace of change at the school so that it is judged to be good at the next inspection.

“The minutes of governor meetings clearly show that they now ask more challenging questions of school leaders so that leaders are held to account for the accelerated progress that pupils make.

“As a result, everyone has higher expectations of what the pupils at Warboys Primary School can achieve.”

Ms Hall noted also that there had been improvements made in mathematics and writing and that pupils were showing signs of “perseverance and determination” when challenged.

In order to continue to improve, Ms Hall said that the school would need to focus on raising standards in science, history, and geography, to match the improvements made in other areas of the curriculum.