Kingsclere Primary School needs to improve further, Ofsted report reveals

The 215-pupil school, for children aged from four to 11, received an overall ‘requires improvement’ (grade 3), marking in a recently published Ofsted report, following a two- day inspection at the school, in Ash Grove, in February.
Pupils’ achievement, along with leadership and management and the quality of teaching were all marked as ‘requires improvement’ in the inspectors’ report.
However, the report is an improvement on last year, when the school received an ‘inadequate’ (grade 4) marking, following a similar two-day inspection.
This year’s report says that the school is on an “upward trajectory”, with standards rising, but, despite this, pupils did not make enough progress at Key Stage I in reading, writing and mathematics.
Teaching for the younger children, particularly pupils at Key Stage 1, was not consistently good and initiatives introduced by the school to help raise standards have yet to be firmly embedded. These include how teachers check on pupils’ learning and the teaching of letters and sounds (phonics).
The role of some leaders, managers and school governors was also found to be underdeveloped, limiting their involvement in helping the school to raise standards.
Teaching at Key Stage 2 was mostly good, according to the report and last year a high proportion of pupils reached and exceeded the levels expected for their age, particularly in reading and mathematics.
Pupils’ behaviour and safety were marked as good and pupils said that they felt safe in school. Staff were reported to be very hard-working and strongly committed to the school.
Although “pupils and most parents are proud of their school”, the report said that to improve further, the school needed to ensure that the quality of teaching, particularly at Key Stage 1 and in the Early Years Foundation Stage, was consistently good, or better, and raise the achievement of pupils in reading, writing and mathematics, particularly at Key Stage 1.
It also needed to develop leadership and management at all levels.
The former headteacher, Duncan Wood, left the school at the end of July 2012, and the former deputy headteacher, Steve Wells, has since been appointed headteacher, replacing interim headteacher Lucy Chambers.
Nicola Wallace has taken on the role of interim deputy headteacher.