NORTH Nibley’s primary school has proven itself once again to be good across the board, with the headteacher and staff lauded for their hard work and children praised for their good behaviour.

Ofsted inspector Marion Hobbs, who visited North Nibley Church of England School in the middle of June for two days, said the well-planned range of subjects and activities ensured the children found their work interesting.

“Children in the Early Years Foundation Stage make good progress because of the good teaching they receive and the high quality resources available to them,” she said.

“Teaching assistants work effectively alongside teachers to provide additional support where it is needed in reading, writing or maths.

“Every pupil is known as an individual and this means their personal and learning needs are well understood.”

The inspector also praised the efforts of the headteacher, the leadership team and the board of governors who have worked closely to improve the school, which looks after 106 pupils.

She added parents and carers were positive about the school’s work with their children.

The school's headteacher for the last four years, Paul Batchelor, said staff and governors were delighted that the body had agreed with their own self-evaluation, saying the school had notable strengths and some outstanding features.

“We have achieved good in every category, and all of us, including our hard-working, engaging and well-behaved children, can be very proud of this fact,” he said.

“The report identifies ways in which we can build on this, towards making our school outstanding.

"Further ways of challenging the most able will be developed, and this will form the top priority in our next school improvement plan. Overall, it’s a great way to end the year.”

He added that since the school was last inspected, the Ofsted framework had been rewritten four times, and the standard required for a “good” outcome had become harder to achieve each time but the school had risen to the challenge each time.

The school has been told that for it to make the next step up to achieve an “outstanding” rating, it needs to ensure computing skills across subjects are developed and ensure teaching is consistently at outstanding level.

It also needs to provide better planning to ensure more able students are given activities that are challenging enough.

As part of the inspection, nine lessons were visited and observations were carried out jointly with the headteacher.

In addition she talked to parents and carers and took into account of the 44 responses to an online questionnaire.