Gatten and Lake Primary School.
LESS than five years after coming out of special measures, an Island primary school has failed its latest Ofsted inspection.
It has plunged Gatten and Lake Primary School back into special measures, highlighting inadequacies across the board, in achievement, teaching, leadership and management, and significant weaknesses in other areas.
Inspectors who visited the school in February gave bottom marks in the categories of overall effectiveness, achievement of pupils, quality of teaching, behaviour and safety of pupils and leadership and management.
They did, however, highlight strengths in the Early Years Foundation Stage and in Years 1, 2 and 6, where pupils make satisfactory progress. They said pupils achieve as well as most children did nationally in reading.
There was also praise for teachers’ planning in Years 1, 2 and 6 with good support for disabled pupils and those with special educational needs.
Since the inspection, Janet Newton, the Isle of Wight Council’s deputy director for schools and education services, said measures had been put in place to raise standards and there had already been considerable improvement.
She said: "The acting headteacher who, even before the inspection, had identified and begun to address a number of the issues subsequently highlighted, will remain in place to continue this work.
"The council is currently leading the governing body and additional educational support is being provided.
"We are confident that with the measures that have been put in place, the school will exit special measures as soon as possible."
The Ofsted report, published in March, said the school, which has 168 children on its roll, was failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education.
Inspectors, who observed 15 lessons taught by seven teachers, said achievement was inadequate because pupils in Years 3, 4 and 5 were not making sufficient progress, particularly in writing and mathematics.
Significant weaknesses, including in lesson planning and the marking and assessment of pupils’ work in Years 3, 4 and 5, were said to contribute to teaching that was inadequate overall.
The findings came just three years after Ofsted judged the school good, with many outstanding features.
At that time, the then headteacher, Karen Bartlett, and her senior managers were praised for their exceptionally clear direction for the school, which had come out of special measures in 2007.
But Ofsted said the school had not ensured a trend of sustained improvement in pupils’ achievement.
It recognised the school had experienced a period of instability in leadership and management but said it had not focussed rigorously enough on pupils’ learning and the quality of teaching.
Mrs Bartlett resigned in December last year and Margaret Henshaw, who joined the school in October last year as a consultant headteacher, became acting headteacher in November, when the then acting headteacher went on maternity leave.
Because school performance data is now collected differently, the council warned in September last year it expected some schools to go into special measures over the next couple of years.
Reporter: martinn@iwcpmail.co.uk