Bramfield Primary School has been praised by Ofsted for its efforts to improve after being given an ‘inadequate’ rating earlier this year.

The school, in Bridge Street, near Halesworth, received the lowest of the education watchdog’s ratings following an inspection in January.

The regulator found that the achievement of pupils was inadequate and the leadership and management and quality of teaching both required improvement.

While Ofsted considered the safety and behaviour of pupils and early years provision to be good, the lower ratings in other areas required the school to put together an action plan for improvements.

However, the school is deemed to have made great progress since new interim executive headteacher Lee Regan took over in September.

Following Bramfield School’s most recent monitoring inspection by Ofsted, on October 13, inspector Wendy Varney compiled a report which praised his work, which includes enforcing positions of status within the school, with children no longer addressing any staff by their first names.

The school’s previous executive headteacher, Cathryn Benefer, retired at the end of the summer term in July.

Ms Varney’s report read: “Leaders and managers are taking effective actions towards the removal of the serious weaknesses designation.

“The quality of leadership and management at the school has improved since the last inspection.

“The interim executive headteacher has made a prompt start to addressing the school’s weaknesses since he joined in September.

“He has employed a teaching and learning lead to work with individual teachers and provide coaching based on their specific needs. Pupils expressed very positive opinions about the new headteacher.

“Action planning has improved. The strategic development plan includes measurable success criteria, clear monitoring activity, and specific and appropriate actions.

“There is now a much greater emphasis on improving the quality of teaching in the school.”

It was the second monitoring inspection since the school was judged to have “serious weaknesses” by Ofsted in January. It had previously been criticised by Ofsted by not having an action plan that could be effectively enforced and progress assessed.

Mr Regan was not available for comment at the time of going to press.