OFSTED inspectors praised the head of a Fenland school for making significant improvements to the teaching quality in just nine months since she took over.

Joanne Tomlins was appointed head teacher at Coates Primary School in January and inspector Ronald Hall believes that under her leadership, pupils’ learning had increased following since the last inspection in 2009.

“The good leadership and management of the school, and especially the leadership of the head teacher, have created a strong staff team that has made significant improvements to provision,” he said.

“As a result, pupils’ attainment has risen since the last inspection, particularly in English and maths. This is a direct result of leaders’ detailed and accurate self-evaluation and good planning for improvement.

“The quality of teaching and learning has improved sharply and is now good. However, it does not as yet provide sufficient opportunities for the pupils to mix with a wide range of pupils from other cultural and ethnic backgrounds.”

The report, from the inspection in September, also said that pupils were happy at the school which was highlighted by the school’s “Outstanding” attendance. The school received “Good” marks for all other parts of the report except it was only “Satisfactory” at promoting community cohesion.

Mrs Tomlins said: “Everyone in school is over the moon with the report from Ofsted. I’ve only been here since January and when I got the call to say we were going to be visited I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“But, I had full confidence in the staff and pupils here, and knew that we’d made considerable changes to improve our school in the last nine months; changes that were highlighted by the inspection.”