School praised for '˜absolute turnaround'School praised for '˜absolute turnaround'

A school has been praised by parents and Ofsted for an 'absolute turnaround' since its last inspection.
Plumpton Primary School was rated 'good' by Ofsted SUS-170726-102351001Plumpton Primary School was rated 'good' by Ofsted SUS-170726-102351001
Plumpton Primary School was rated 'good' by Ofsted SUS-170726-102351001

Plumpton Primary was told to improve following an inspection in 2015 – and staff and leaders have proved themselves worthy of the task. Following a recent two-day inspection, the school was rated ‘good’, leaving staff “incredibly proud”.

A report by inspector Julie Sackett praised the “exceptional” leadership of executive headteacher Stewart James.

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Ms Sackett said: “He and his leadership team have rapidly secured substantial and sustained improvements in the quality of teaching, learning and assessment during the past year.

“The quality of pupils’ learning is significantly better than at the time of the previous inspection. As a result, standards are rising across the school and are much higher than in 2016.”

Her enthusiasm was shared by parents, one of whom said: “Hats off to the school – what an absolute turnaround!”

The school acknowledged it had been a “challenging” year. Plumpton has been working with Barcombe Primary and Hamsey Primary, and recently joined them in the Skylark Federation.

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In addition, almost all of its current teachers were appointed after the previous inspection.

A letter to parents from Mr James, along with advisory head Caitlin Yapp and head of school Richard Wilkins, said: “Whilst we celebrate the achievements made this year, and are proud of the progress we have made thus far, we must also remember that this is not ‘goal achieved’.

“We are very much on a journey and there is still a lot of work to be done as we continue to develop and improve.”

Over the past year, the focus of that work has been to raise standards and achievement primarily in maths and English.

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Leaders said the next step was to continue to develop the high level of expectation in areas such as science, geography and history.

They added: “Plumpton is a forward-thinking and progressive school and we are looking forward to seeing how the next few years pan out for all of us.”

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