A NEW academy in Ipswich must improve the quality of its teaching and raise students’ achievement in order to make the required level of progress, Ofsted has said.

Ormiston Endeavour Academy opened in January 2012 and was inspected for the first time in March.

The opening of the academy came after the closure of Thurleston High School, which had been given a “satisfactory” rating by Ofsted following its final inspection in 2011 – a grade that has now been replaced by the “requires improvement” judgment in Ofsted’s new framework.

The academy’s principal Samantha Penn and her senior team were praised by the three inspectors for their “good” leadership and management but the overall rating was “requires improvement”.

In a change to the old Ofsted framework, the academy will now be visited more regularly to ensure progress is made.

The report said: “The principal’s drive and ambition for the students is at the heart of the improvement seen in the academy over the past year.

“GCSE results in 2012 and students’ current work show that standards are rising.” It adds: “Students’ behaviour is not consistently good. Students are too often passive in lessons because there are not enough opportunities to ask or answer questions, work independently or collaboratively, or lead the learning, for example by demonstrating to their peers. When tasks are engaging, students participate fully. The capacity of the academy to improve further is good because senior and middle leaders are clear about their roles and responsibilities, are sharply focused on raising standards and are effective in tackling the things that need to be done.

“A key issue in 2011 when the predecessor school was inspected was to raise standards in mathematics. This has been addressed systematically and effectively.”

Ms Penn welcomed the report and said she was confident that progress would continue to be made.

She said: “I’m pleased with the results of the report overall – achievement has improved tremendously, but there is still work to do. Leadership and management have received a ‘good’ grading which demonstrates we have the capacity to achieve all we have set out to do.

“We are all focused on achieving ‘outstanding’ next time – and the inspection team were confident we will get there.”