BENTHAM Community Primary School has lived out its motto - "building our future, step by step".

It has just received a good rating from Ofsted inspector Dr Michael Wardle, who said the head teacher, assistant headteacher and governing body had created a strong team which had rapidly improved the quality of teaching and learning.

Its previous rating was "requires improvement".

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And Dr Wardle judged the school's early years provision as outstanding, saying children developed a deep curiosity and a love of learning under a very strong leadership.

His report added: "Outcomes for pupils have improved and continue to do so. The progress pupils make across the curriculum, including in reading, writing and mathematics, is good. Pupils' progress accelerates in year six and is outstanding in this year.

"The behaviour of pupils is good, as is their attitude to learning. Pupils are kind and considerate. Attendance has improved because pupils enjoy school. Parents are increasingly supportive of the school."

Head teacher Catherine Boocock said she was thrilled by the latest report.

“The inspector saw our school as we see it," she said. "The areas he wanted us to improve were ones we had already recognised.

"High expectations and determination have led to an improvement in outcomes for all pupils and much higher quality teaching at school.

“Everyone has put in tremendous time, thought and energy to bring the school to this stage in its development. We were told that it is almost impossible to move a school from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good with outstanding features’ but we have done it.”

Governor spokesman Helen Jarvis said: "There have been many changes to get the school from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good with outstanding’.

“The governing body has changed radically, the teaching team has also changed and Claire Pearson, our assistant head teacher, has been pivotal in developing the school’s self-evaluation and improvement planning."

The inspector highlighted several areas for improvement, including increasing the opportunities for pupils to write at length in different topic areas, improving pupils' spelling, developing pupils' mental arithmetic skills and increasing the number of opportunities for pupils to become independent in their learning.