Praise for school at heart of community

A West Norfolk village school is celebrating after receiving a glowing report by Ofsted.

Inspectors visited Castle Acre Primary School last month and graded it good in every area.

The report by inspector Sue Hall said: “This is a happy school that provides a good quality of education.

“The school is at the heart of the local community and provides good value for money.

“The headteacher is very enthusiastic and supportive of both staff and pupils.”

The school, which has just 62 pupils, aged four to nine, was praised in a number of key areas.

It recently became a primary, having previously been a first school, and as yet, there are no pupils in year six.

The inspectors said the school received a good grading for all key areas such as achievements and standards, personal development and well-being, teaching and learning and leadership and management.

The report said: “The leadership and management of the school are good. There has been effective improvement since the last inspection.

“A pivotal influence has been the very enthusiastic work of the headteacher.”

There was also praise for the staff and their teaching, and also their warmth and kindness.

However, the inspector said to further improve the school, there needed to be more work with the pupils in their writing skills and to also the develop the role of the governors.

Headteacher Christopher Allen, said: “We are really very pleased with the Ofsted report and it confirms what we already knew about the school.

“It also shows things which we can work on in order to be even better.”

The school is set to move to a brand new building in 2008.

Proposals have been drawn up for a new £1.7m primary school, under the Norfolk Schools Project.

The work planned at Castle Acre falls into the first phase of the programme, which is concentrating on schools needing extra accommodation to support the reorganisation of Norfolk's education structure.

The new accommodation will include three classrooms, library facilities for individual or group work, provision for children with special educational needs, a 90sqm hall, offices, toilets and servery for school meals.