THE head and governors of a school told it required improvement have acted swiftly to make progress according to an interim inspection by Ofsted.

School inspectors returned to St Nicholas CE Middle School in Pinvin to monitor the school in March after it was told it required improvement following an inspection in January.

The report said the highly knowledgeable and experienced governing body had established an effective system of holding leaders to account.

A better system of judging the quality of teaching was in place along with a new marking policy.

Members of a large senior team were undertaking more monitoring activities but were not yet sufficiently involved with formal observations of teaching or giving individual feedback to teachers.

Inspectors said new ideas introduced to engage boys in writing were being well received and booster groups led by senior leaders were helping encourage pupils to reach the highest possible levels.

Inspectors found pupils were unanimous that RE was not taught as well as other subjects and said their concerns should be followed up.

The accuracy of the teachers' assessments had also not been externally validated but school figures showed year 5 overall progress was in line with other year groups.

There had been a change in leadership in literacy since the previous inspection but inspectors said it was too early to see if that had led to any change.

As we reported, the school lodged a formal complaint against Ofsted's judgement following the January inspection.

Headteacher David Snell said sections of the original report were wrong particularly concerning pupils' progress.

The school also pointed out it was in the top 20 schools for progress and attainment in reading nationally, and the third best for progress and attainment in maths of the 21 local middle schools.