There have been rapid improvements at Teignmouth Community School, according to a recent Ofsted inspection. However, there is still more work to do, particularly to address poor attendance, bullying and the quality of education.

Ofsted inspectors visited TCS at the beginning of October and rated the school as ‘Good’ in the areas of personal development, leadership and management, and sixth form provision. Previously, these areas were rated as ‘Inadequate’ (personal development) and ‘Requires improvement’ (leadership and management, and sixth form provision).

‘The school has significantly improved the curriculum to make sure it is broad and ambitious for all learners,’ inspectors said. ‘The school recognises that there is more work to do to further raise the achievement of pupils,’ they added.

However, inspectors still have concerns about the quality of education and behaviour and attitudes; both were areas were marked as ‘requires improvement’.

‘Bullying remains a concern for some pupils at this school,’ inspectors noted. ‘They [pupils] are starting to understand what behaviour is unacceptable and are increasingly prepared to share concerns with adults. However, for some pupils, incidents are not resolved swiftly enough to reassure them that they will not reoccur.’

However the inspection team did note that ‘the school has clear expectations for the behaviour of pupils’ acknowledging that while some pupils have ‘found it challenging to adapt their behaviour to meet these higher expectations’, the school is providing support to help reduce the number of pupil suspensions.

Areas praised by the inspectors included school trips ‘to bring the curriculum to life’, opportunities provided for students to develop leadership skills, such as through the Duke of Edinburgh Award and the charity committee, careers guidance, and the way the school addresses staff wellbeing and provides staff development opportunities.

TCS headteacher Rachel Wickham was pleased that the inspectors recognised the speed of progress being made in the school. ‘Returning to inspect a school judged to be ‘inadequate’ within a 19-month timeframe is highly irregular – it is normally around 36 months,’ she said.

‘We acknowledge that there is still work to do and the inspection findings accurately reflect our own evaluation and judgement of where we currently are on our school improvement journey. Whilst the school is no longer ‘inadequate’, and has plenty of strengths to celebrate and be proud of, we do not consider ourselves to be the finished article, yet,’ she added.

‘Reassuringly, all of the areas identified as requiring improvement were already in hand as part of our school improvement plan and are being addressed at speed,’ she continued.

The TCS head is particularly pleased that the inspection team recognised ‘how our clear behaviour expectations and a significantly improved, broad and ambitious curriculum means that pupils and sixth-form students are now better prepared for their next steps’.

 ‘We would like to thank our parents, carers, pupils, staff and wider Trust community for their continued support. We are proud to be Teignmouth Community School,’ Mrs Wickham concluded.