PARENTS, governors, teachers and children working together are the key to success, a primary headteacher says.

Helen Crolla said that was how Benson CofE Primary School achieved more than 90 per cent success in maths and reading SATs – despite being given notice to improve by Ofsted last year.

But after lots of hard work, not just from pupils and staff, but also the support of their community, the school is on the up.

She said: “I am very pleased with our SATs results.

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“I have got an extremely hard-working and talented teaching team and teaching assistants who are all very committed to offering the best provision.

“We talk to children about learning all the time so they are responsible for understanding what their next steps will be.

“We also have parents supporting children and governors supporting the school – the key to success is working together as a community.”

Overall 81 per cent of year 6 students received Level 4 or above in reading, writing and maths – the Government guideline – up on 76 per cent in 2013.

All children taking their Year 6 SATs in 2014 managed to go up by two levels in maths and reading from their Key Stage One results.

In February 2013 inspectors from education watchdog Ofsted told the school in Oxford Road, Benson, it must improve.

Their report said pupils’ behaviour was good, but their achievement and teaching quality, leadership and management all needed to improve.

At their last monitoring visit, in February, Ofsted inspectors said “senior leaders and governors were taking effective action to tackle areas requiring improvement”.

They said: “Work to improve the ethos of the school and pupils’ behaviour has been successful”.

But they said the school should take further action to “ensure all staff are held to account routinely and work as a team to refine their own and each other’s teaching, paying close attention to detail and the learning of individual children”.

Mrs Crolla said the 160-pupil school was well on its way to getting a good rating at the next full inspection, due in 2015. And it helped that children were enthusiastic about learning and very well-behaved.

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