Quarry Hill Primary School in Grays was already working hard to tackle problems identified in its latest Ofsted report which says it has “capacity to improve”.
The head teacher Martin Cowpland said, “Although results at both schools have been close to the national average before, the 2011 results — just two terms after the amalgamation — were well below this. However we are confident that assessments at the end of this year will show an improvement on the 2011 levels”
Quarry Hill Junior and Infant schools amalgamated in 2011 and Mr Cowpland has been in place as the substantive head since then — before that, he was interim head of the junior school since it was put into Special Measures in March 2009. The Junior School moved swiftly out of the category with rapid improvement identified by Ofsted.
Both schools received satisfactory Ofsted reports in the autumn term proceeding amalgamation; the infant school in September 2010, and the Junior School came out of Special Measures with a satisfactory report in November of that year.
Mr Cowpland said: “Since amalgamation a great deal of positive improvements have been made across the school, in particular to raise the standards of teaching phonics, and reading generally, in Reception and Key Stage 1 with good support from the council and the school’s senior leadership.
“Another positive outcome from the amalgamation has been the continuation of phonics teaching this year, from Year 2 into Year 3.
“A great deal of progress has also been made in developing good provision in the Reception year since September 2011, again with good support from the local authority and a close partnership working arrangement.
“We have a lot of good practice across the new primary school, with recent developments in assessment practice in KS1, and marking and feedback in both Key Stages, and this is noted in the report. However these aren’t yet embedded well enough to ensure the consistency across the school that is needed to improve outcomes for our children.”
The Ofsted report states the “school requires significant improvement because it is performing significantly less well than in all the circumstances it could reasonably be expected to perform. The school is therefore given a notice to improve.”
It adds: “Though there is some evidence of improvement this year, attainment remains too low”, and: “Although there is good teaching in some year groups, particularly in Year 6, there remain too many lessons where pupils make insufficient progress or where progress is satisfactory.”
It says: “Although they recognise that the school has further to go, leaders and managers have already secured some key improvements to teaching, assessment, and provision for children in the Reception Year classes. These improvements show the school’s satisfactory capacity for continued improvement.”
Maybe this shows that the amalgamation of the two schools was not the correct thing to do. Two wonderful schools doing well are now one failing school. Such a shame.