HEADTEACHER Caroline Spindlow is confident that St Peter’s School has made the necessary changes to achieve a ‘good’ rating after its most recent Ofsted report said the school ‘requires improvement’.

This is the same judgement as its previous inspection in 2013, although leadership and management have improved, according to the report.

Although the school was rated ‘good’ for leadership and management and behaviour and safety of pupils, the quality of teaching and achievement of pupils was judged as ‘requires improvement’.

Mrs Spindlow explained that there have been staff changes and more training for teachers which is aiding the progress of the school.

She said: “We felt we would be given a good rating but we will continue to strive for it in the future.

“We’ve come such a long way and the staff we’ve got now are cracking.

“There has been bad teaching in the past but that is not the case anymore. Unfortunately some of the data taken into account is quite old but we’ve shown with our Year 6 SATs results last year just what we are capable of achieving.

“The inspectors said our school improvement plan is excellent and to carry on with the way we are going.”

The report states that pupils do not achieve as well as they should during their time in school.

It reads: “The most able pupils do not make as much progress as they should as they move up through the school. The work is not always sufficiently challenging.

“Some disabled pupils and those who have special educational needs do not make good progress.

“Over time, teaching has not been effective enough to ensure that pupils make good progress.”

According to Mrs Spindlow, one of the problems they face is that there are discrepancies in their assessments and those of the feeder school, St Mary’s.

Recently the long-running bid to amalgamate St Peter’s and St Mary’s Schools was approved by Wiltshire Council’s cabinet member for children’s services Laura Mayes and the new building is set to open in September 2016.

Mrs Spindlow has been in discussions with the headteacher of St Mary’s, Anne Schwodler, to make sure discrepancies are ironed out before the schools merge.

She said: “It has been very challenging for St Peter’s to show progress being maintained from the infant baseline.

“This is particularly true for the most able pupils. This is an area that both the headteachers have focused on and with the amalgamation of the schools agreed for the new school will soon no longer be an issue.

“While the Ofsted report says requires improvement – they did also make it clear that the school had come a long way in the last two years and were certain that we had the capacity to improve.”

During the a two day visit to the school on January 21 and 22, two inspectors observed 11 lessons taught by 11 teachers, held meetings with pupils, staff and members of the governing body.

One of the inspectors met with a representative from the local authority and an inspector had a telephone conversation with the headteacher of another local school and both spoke to parents.

Inspectors took account of 84 responses to the Ofsted online questionnaire ParentView and 28 staff questionnaires.

The school will receive a full inspection within 24 months from the date of this inspection.