TWO primary schools in the Taunton area have been told to improve in their latest Ofsted reports. 

Curry Rivel Primary School and Wellsprings Primary School were both given a "requires improvement" rating in the reports that were published on April 25.

Wellsprings Primary School, on Crowcombe Road, was rated as requiring improvements for four of the five categories, and "good" in one. 

The school was previously inspected as overall "good". The latest inspection took place on March 15-16. 

The report highlighted that the school's senior leaders' plans for improving the school have not been precise enough to bring about the "necessary improvements" quickly. 

It stated: "Leaders’ analysis of the quality of teaching, learning and assessment has been overgenerous. This has masked underachievement.

"The school’s analysis of the impact of the pupil premium funding is not sharp enough. This hinders leaders’ and governors’ ability to check which strategies are working best and which need refining.

"Results are improving, historically too few pupils reach a high standard; in particular, middle-ability pupils in mathematics.

"Teachers’ expectations for pupils’ writing in subjects other than English are not consistently high, and in many year groups they are too low."

A number of strengths were also recognised in the reports including the early years progress, the school's caring ethos, and the pupils' attitude towards learning. 

Headteacher, Mark Lunn, said: “Everyone involved at the school is very disappointed by the report because we don’t think it is a true reflection of the school, how it is performing and the hard work of staff, pupils and parents.

"We have a track record of impressive SAT results and although last year’s results were not as good as we would have hoped, this was the same for many schools  and the report acknowledges the changes we have made and that these changes are already having a positive impact.

“Wellsprings is a wonderful place to learn and teach and the report also highlights many positives to be proud of, such as our caring ethos, skilled teaching assistants and well-behaved pupils.  We of course accept there are areas for improvements and I and my staff will be working to address these with the full support of the whole school community.”

Curry Rivel Primary School also received a "requires improvement" rating, but says it plans to appeal the report. 

The report said that pupils progress in key stage two is not as good as it should be and that the changes in staffing since the last inspection had a negative impact on leaders.

The school said in a letter: "We have submitted a formal complaint regarding the Ofsted inspection. The wholegoverning body and staff team have unanimously approved the complaint."

Headteacher, Mr Staddon, said: "As a school we find this result very disappointing, however, we feel that for a number of reasons the report is not a fair reflection of the school at the present time. 

"We believe the inspection failed to meet their duties as directed in The Ofsted Code of Conduct and consequently we have made a formal complaint.

"However the Ofsted report has based its judgement on historic Year 6 examination results and from a selection of 10 Key Stage 2 books (from a possible 60). This is because Year 4, 5 and 6 children were on a residential trip for the entire inspection and none of these children were spoken to, asked for their opinions or given the chance to discuss their learning.

"No lessons were observed in this key area of the school. In fact only two lessons out of a possible 40 were observed. Therefore, Inspectors were not able to see for themselves the full extent of the improvements we had already made in this academic year.

"From their own conclusion, Ofsted agreed that 74% had ‘strongly good’ or ‘good’ teaching yet we were given a judgement of ‘Requires improvement’."

Click here to read the full Wellsprings report. 

Click here to read the full Curry Rivel report.