Children at a Rastrick infant school are not learning the three Rs quickly enough.
Pupils’ progress in writing and maths is not consistently good, more able pupils don’t move forward as fast as they should in writing and maths, and boys’ writing and reading is worse than their maths.
Ofsted has just graded Castlefields Infant School, Field Top Road, as 3- Requires Improvement. Pupil behaviour was, however, rated as Good.
The 158-pupil school was previously graded as 3 some 18 months ago. This was regarded as Satisfactory back then, but the Government inspectorate has since toughened the criteria.
The Ofsted report added: “Teaching requires improvement overall because it does not lead to all groups of pupils making good or better progress in their studies.
“Progress across the Reception classes is inconsistent.
“Middle leaders do not always analyse their information well enough to identify shortcomings in pupils’ attainment.
“Leaders’ records of lesson observations do not look closely enough at the quality and speed of learning by different groups of pupils and how to improve the quality of teaching.”
Inspectors also criticised teachers for their lesson planning and lack of follow-up and guidance after marking pupils’ work.
On the positive side, they praised senior leaders who had started to speed up the progress of pupils, all of whom generally enjoyed school.
They also said: “The school takes very good care of its pupils and there are excellent relationships between adults and pupils.
“The good curriculum and wide range of clubs provide memorable experiences and make learning fun.”
