'Inadequate' Somerset primary school to become academy

An "inadequate" school in Somerset will become an academy in a bid to improve its performance.

Lydeard St Lawrence Community Primary School was found wanting by Ofsted at an inspection in November 2021.

Education secretary James Cleverly MP has since signed off plans for the school - which has some 50 pupils - to become part of the Bath and Wells Diocesan Academies Trust.

The school, near Taunton, will officially join the trust on 1 October.

After it joins the trust in the autumn term, all of its staff will move across and the school's buildings will be leased from Somerset County Council for 125 years, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reported.

Elizabeth Smith, the council's service manager for schools commissioning, said that trade unions representing staff working in Somerset schools "have been consulted about the proposals".

She told LDRS that staff "will be seeking assurance that all employer responsibilities in respect of staff transfers and more general staff consultation requirements are met".

"The academy will receive the equivalent level of funding per pupil (directly from the Department for Education) to that which it would receive from the council as a maintained school."

The change was pushed through because the Education and Adoption Act 2016 rules that all schools judged to be "inadequate" or "coasting" schools by Ofsted have to become academies.

Ofsted's 2021 report found that its "quality of education" and "personal development" required improvement while its "behaviour and attitudes" and "leadership and management" were inadequate.

In its report, inspectors said that school leaders "allowed poor behaviour to spread" and that "sometimes, learning opportunities are cut short or cancelled so that staff can respond to behaviour incidents".

It added: "Pupils do not feel safe in school due to the poor, often aggressive, behaviour of a small minority of pupils.

"Teachers reassure and protect pupils, but in doing so, put themselves in harm's way.

"Several members of staff have chosen to leave the school."

There are currently 130 academies in Somerset, of which 90 are "convertor academies", where the governing body has decided to seek academy status to improve results.

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