Infant school rated '˜good' four years after being placed into special measures

Staff and pupils at Manor Infant School and Nursery are enjoying the spoils of their efforts after Ofsted declared they are ‘good’.

It comes four years after the school was placed into special measures by the education watchdog – after deeming its overall effectiveness to be ‘inadequate’.

Speaking after his school received the good news, headteacher Ashley Howard said: ‘This is a fantastic achievement and it has been quite a journey. I have been at the school for four years, having arrived just after it was placed into special measures. Now, I am proud to say that it has been graded good across all areas.

‘I am incredibly proud of the work of our staff, parents, pupils and the local community.

‘In getting to this point, we have really focussed on the education that every individual child is getting and that has been picked out in the Ofsted report.’

While staff across the school are overjoyed, Mr Howard says they will not be resting on their laurels.

He said: ‘I always say to the staff this is a great achievement, but now we have to move on – we want to improve further, we want to be outstanding.’

‘However, we were only given the results of this inspection when the pupils returned back to school after the holidays.

‘So, we couldn’t ask for a better start to the new term really.’

Manor Infant School and Nursery was rated good by Ofsted across five areas – effectiveness of leadership, quality of teaching, personal development, outcomes of pupils and early years provision.

In the watchdog’s full report – which is published on Manor Infant School and Nursery’s website – inspectors said: ‘The headteacher has maintained a relentless successful drive to raise standards. Most pupils with low starting points make rapid progress.’

Advising the school how it could further improve, inspectors say that staff could ‘strengthen the quality of leadership and management’ and ‘strengthen the quality of teaching and learning.’