Elm Road Primary School is heading in the right direction but could do more to make use of its best teachers, an Ofsted inspector has found.

An initial inspection in March concluded, while pupils behaved well and enjoyed school, teaching required improvement and pupils’ progress across the school was “not consistently strong”.

But Christopher Moodie, who carried out a monitoring inspection on September 11, said there are “clear signs” pupils’ learning is improving.

In the report, he said: “You have identified the right areas in need of improvement and are acting to tackle them.

“Your plans are clear and actions already taken to improve teaching have successfully halted the decline in achievement. “Importantly, there are clear signs that pupils’ learning is improving. Pupils in Year 6 left the school in July with

standards in reading and writing that were in line with the national average.

“Standards in mathematics were above the national average. This is a significant improvement on the previous years’ outcomes.

“Your current assessment information indicates that standards in reading and mathematics are in line with age related

expectations in all year groups other than Year 4, where they are above average.

“Standards in writing are also broadly average in all year groups other than in Year 6, where standards are lower than they should be.”

However, some teachers are still not doing enough checking of work during lessons, the inspector warned.

He said: “Teaching is improving but there is more to be done. Some teachers are making very good use of assessment during lessons to gauge understanding and support pupils who are struggling, or extend the learning of the more-able. This is not consistent across classes.

“Other teachers are not checking on pupils’ learning often enough during lessons. This means that pupils’ progress in these classes is too variable.

“The school is making insufficient use of its best teachers to improve teaching and promote better learning in other classes.”