A PRIMARY school has been told it ‘requires improvement’ after a visit by Ofsted inspectors.

Rushwick CE Primary School, in Upper Wick Lane, Rushwick, Worcester, slipped from its previous ‘good’ rating with teaching found to not be ‘securely good’.

The school, which has 151 pupils on the roll, was visited by inspectors Jeremy Bird and Amanda Clugston on May 2 and 3.

It was judged to be requiring improvement for the effectiveness of leadership and management, quality of teaching, learning and assessment and for the outcomes for pupils. But the personal development, behaviour and welfare and the early years provision was found to be good.

The report read: “Teaching is not yet securely good. This is owing to weaker teaching of reading and writing. Senior leaders and governors do not thoroughly check that the school is performing sufficiently well. Senior leaders do not have a clear understanding of how well different groups, including the most able pupils and those who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities, are achieving.

“Pupils do not apply skills taught in reading lessons well when reading harder books. Pupils capable of attaining high standards in writing are not as well challenged as they could be. Outcomes last year were weaker than in previous years. This was most notably seen in pupils’ progress through key stage 2. This year, despite pupils making better progress, outcomes are yet to be securely good.”

In order to achieve a higher rating, the school needs to improve teaching, so that more pupils make better progress in English throughout each year group, critically evaluate school performance to enable them to have a more accurate view of pupils’ academic progress and evaluate the effectiveness of subject leaders.

Headteacher Geoff Jeffrey said: “Given the strong position the school is in were are disappointed with Ofsted’s decision to grade us as ‘requiring improvement’ but, given the number of previously vulnerable cohorts and the disruption of recent building work, it became difficult for us to do ourselves justice. However, I was pleased to see the report mentioned our strengths - including the early years provision, relationship with parents as is the wellbeing of our pupils.”