A Suffolk primary school that undergone a period of "significant change" is celebrating after it received glowing praise in an Ofsted report.
Southwold Primary School earned ‘good’ in all areas - quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management and early years provision - following a watchdog inspection at the beginning of October.
This is a marked change since February 2022 when the education watchdog deemed the school 'requires improvement'.
Part of the Consortium Trust, and with 65 pupils aged from two to 11, the report states the school has "undergone significant change since the previous inspection" with a new headteacher, Katy Last, appointed in September 2023.
Inspectors found leaders have designed an "ambitious curriculum that generally supports pupils to build their knowledge and skills" with the school prioritising learning to read and significant improvements in early years reading.
The school is said to accurately identify all pupils with SEND as soon as they join, with appropriate support then being quickly put in place and reviewed regularly.
The report states the school promotes pupils' personal development and celebrates diversity through their personal, social and health education curriculum.
Staff were said to enjoy working at Southwold Primary School and leaders were described as "considerate" of their workload and wellbeing.
Inspectors found that, where the curriculum has more recently been implemented, "teachers do not routinely provide enough opportunities to consolidate and extend pupils’ learning."
They said leaders should ensure that teachers continue to receive the appropriate training and embed these regular opportunities so pupils can achieve as highly as possible.
They also found sometimes pupils are not remembering to take care with their punctuation and grammar in their writing, and said leaders must prioritise writing skills.
Katy Last, academy head, said she is “absolutely delighted with the outcome”.
She also recognised that this has been "a journey started by the previous head" and a result of "hard work and dedication" by a team of colleagues.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here