Watton school can improve - head teacher

A WATTON headteacher has said he is confident his school can improve after an Ofsted monitoring visit found the school was making inadequate progress in three areas.

Watton Junior School, in Brandon Road, was given a satisfactory rating for the overall effectiveness of the school following an Ofsted inspection in 2008.

The 2008 inspection report listed three areas for improvement but an Ofsted monitoring visit last month found that these were not being fully addressed.

The three areas are: improving the teaching of investigation and problem solving work in maths and science; spreading good practice in teaching, including marking, to subjects and year groups where good practice is not as strong; and looking at information about pupils' work more closely to determine what needs to be done to increase the children's rate of progress.

A letter sent to the school following the monitoring visit and posted on the Ofsted website also said standards at the school had been falling over the last four years and that some year groups have been making better progress than others.

It said students are attentive in lessons, that staff are committed to supporting pupils, and helping ethnic minority pupils and those that do not speak English as a first language. It also highlighted how the school's new creative curriculum was helping to promote learning.

Headteacher Patrick Whitty said: 'We are developing our curriculum and trying to provide the best education we can for the children. We have got a very detailed action plan and are working very closely with the authorities, and we are confident that we can deal with all of the issues that Ofsted has raised.'

Chairman of governors Jo Myers stressed the monitoring visit in February was focussed on three main issues and was not a general inspection of the school.

'The school is still satisfactory but we need to up our rate of progress,' she said.

She said the school had been working extremely hard to create a new thematic based curriculum and promote social cohesion within the wider community and said that all of this would provide a solid framework to improve the school's standards in the long run.