A PRIMARY school has been praised a matter of months after being told it required improvement by Ofsted.

Briercliffe Primary School was criticised by inspectors in June after concluding that standards in reading, writing and maths were not high enough.

The Delamere Road school was also told that too few pupils made more than the expected rate of progress.

Ofsted inspectors returned to the school at the start of October for a follow up visit under section eight of the Education Act 2005.

Inspector Shirley Gornall praised headteacher Robert Blanchet and the senior leadership team for how they responded to the report in the summer.

In a letter to the headteacher she said: “You and your deputy have developed the leadership skills of other staff through modelling behaviours and putting in place clear systems and procedures to ensure that teachers use the data available to them to evaluate pupil’s progress.

“You combine steely determination with humanity and are working hard to coach staff in order that they can realise the school as a place where ‘in work and play we are our best’.

“The school improvement plan includes precise detail of actions to be taken, by whom and with what intended impact.

“The roles of the senior leadership team have been realigned to ensure that workloads are equitable and that the school’s efforts to improve the quality of teaching are shared.”

Mr Blanchet said: “This is a very positive monitoring inspection report and we welcome its findings and helpful recommendations.

“We are all working extremely hard to continue to move the school forward and I'm confident that we are improving all the time.

“I believe that this report provides a clear statement that we are doing the right things and doing them quickly in order to ensure that we will deliver good outcomes for the children at our school.”