Portfield Primary School on Road to Recovery

Portfield Primary School in east Chichester was placed in

special measures last year but is improving according to inspectors.

The school was placed in special measures last March and has

since received three monitoring inspections, one in May and October last year

and one this February. In order to improve, the school was required to do the

following:

Raise attainment and rate of progress in Key Stage 2

English, maths and science;

Improve attendance;

Develop leadership throughout the school, and;

Improve the safeguarding procedures in line with government

requirements.

Some of the blame was credited to the high turnover of staff

and poor quality of teaching in the past. This week however, the chairman of

the school’s governors, Geoff Hand said everyone was doing what they could to

help the school make positive progress. He said: “We are pleased with the help

from the inspectors and the local authority. The whole school, including staff,

pupils, parents and governors are working hard.”

Mr Hand has says the leadership and management are now in a

strong positions and while it can’t all change overnight, the pupils are making

good progress academically.

A number of different methods have been applied such as ‘Bring

Your Mum to Maths Day’ and the school’s website has been revamped in order to

keep parents more informed. Clearly from these two methods alone, getting the

parents involved in a push to save the school has been of high priority.

In his report, Ofsted inspector Stephen Long reported a

number of positive changes in the schools but none seem more important to me

than improvement in the pupils work and that they are also enjoying their

learning more.

What do you think of this latest report from Portfield

Primary School? Maybe you are a parent of a pupil at the school? Let us know

whatever you think!

Click here for the school's latest Ofstead report and click here for the school website.