Brighton school promises to improve after disappointing Ofsted report

A Brighton primary school has promised to become better after a “disappointing” Ofsted report said that it requires improvement.

Inspectors gave the Bilingual Primary School Brighton and Hove the third grade out of four, the grade termed “satisfactory” until the current school year.

At a meeting with parents the school said that it was committed to improving although it criticised the way in which judgments had been reached about Spanish teaching.

Ofsted said: “Pupils’ skills in Spanish are not well developed.”

But the school said: “The inspectors did not hear children read in Spanish, they did not ask the children to translate and they did not ask the children to write in Spanish.

“These are the usual ways to check children’s language skills.

“They didn’t see a Spanish lesson and they didn’t speak to the dedicated Spanish teacher.”

The report also said: “Pupils are developing a basic vocabulary and understanding of Spanish, but are not developing bilingual skills well.

“This is because teaching of Spanish is not sufficiently well thought out.”

Ironically, in the Ofsted report “thought out” was mis-spelt.

It also said: “English and Spanish are often used side by side.”

The school said: “Of course English and Spanish are often used side by side – it’s a bilingual school although we are required to give primacy to English.

“It is hard to understand how Ofsted reached its judgement.

“Ofsted and the Department for Education have no benchmark for judging the achievement and progress of children as young as ours.

“We are working with a university to develop a suitable framework because nothing currently exists.”

But children aged 4 to 7 years old are working at a level not usually found until key stage 2 – that is, when they are between 7 and 11 years old.

The school also pointed out that in key stage 1 tests its children outperformed the national average by at least 14 percentage points.

In writing 97 per cent of children were at level 2b or above compared with the national average of 68 per cent.

In reading 93 per cent of children were at level 2b or above compared with the national average of 79 per cent.

And in maths 97 per cent were at level 2b or above compared with the national average of 79 per cent.

The school said: “We don’t believe that Ofsted’s verdict is a true reflection of our school.

“As a new school we have had a series of inspections and visits by Ofsted-trained experts. They all agreed with our judgment.

“We have a small but dedicated team of staff and have been operating from a temporary home since we opened.

“We had already identified some of the areas for improvement in our self evaluation and we are determined that the next time Ofsted inspectors visit they will judge the school to be good.

“Among the key findings are that standards are above those typical for pupils’ ages, pupils achieve well in reading, pupils enjoy coming to school and parents and carers are confident that their children are happy and safe at school.”

To read the Ofsted report, click here.