A PENDLE secondary school has taken a step in the right direction after Ofsted inspectors ruled that it was no longer ‘inadequate’.

Colne Primet Academy has been upgraded by the education watchdog to ‘requires improvement’ following an inspection last month.

Run by the Pendle Education Trust, the school’s leadership and management was considered to be ‘good’ while its teaching, personal development, behaviour and welfare as well as the pupils’ outcomes were concluded to be needing improvement.

Head teacher Lynne Blomley said: “We are pleased to see that Ofsted have recognised the improvements that have been made here at Colne Primet Academy, and are confident that we are moving in the right direction towards an overall ‘good’ grade.

“We received very pleasing feedback – including our ‘career-focused’ vision, the spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development of our students, and our broad curriculum.

“Students, their learning, and their welfare, is at our very heart and our aim is to ensure they are as prepared as possible for their next step after school – be it college or an apprenticeship.

“We take everything that has been said in the latest report very seriously, and already have strong actions in place that respond to Ofsted’s recommendations for improvement.

“This includes a rigorous self-evaluation, with a focus on ‘pace and challenge’, a 1-8 grading system on ‘attitudes to learning’, and a learning mentor scheme.”

Ofsted says has said that the headteacher and other members of the senior leadership team have ‘transformed the culture and ethos of the school so that the school’s vision of achievement for all is now being realised’, the gap in achievement between disadvantaged pupils and others has ‘narrowed substantially’ while the attainment of pupils has ‘risen steadily’.

A Pendle Education Trust spokesman said: “It is good to see that Ofsted have recognised the positive steps Colne Primet Academy is taking.

“We are confident that the academy will continue to improve over the coming months, and that strong actions are in place to help Primet reach a ‘good’ rating in its next Ofsted.”

However lead inspector Judith Straw said that the quality of teaching, while improving, is ‘not consistently leading’ to all groups of pupils making good progress. She said that not enough of the most-able pupils make the progress they should and that the proportion of pupils achieving A* and A grades at GCSE is low.

Mrs Straw said: “The pace of learning is sometimes too slow because teachers do not challenge all pupils well enough. Attendance is improving, but a minority of pupils still do not attend the school regularly enough.

“The behaviour of some pupils is not good enough in some lessons because the teaching they receive does not motivate them to learn.”