Ingrow Primary School is improving rapidly and will continue its upward rise, say Ofsted inspectors.

They say the school has successfully emerged from an unsettled period affected by staff and leadership changes.

Following a two-day inspection the school received several “good” grades.

But it was classed a grade lower, “satisfactory”, in overall effectiveness, as well as pupils’ achievement, quality of teaching and effectiveness of the early years foundation stage.

Ingrow has improved on its last full Ofsted inspection, in 2008, when almost all grades were “satisfactory”.

The most recent improvements follow the school becoming a federation with Long Lee Primary School last April, with a new head of school, Angela Wilkinson, and executive headteacher Louise Smith.

This time Ofsted gave good grades for pupils’ behaviour, health and safety, how well pupils contributed to the school and wider community, effectiveness of care and guidance, links with parents and partnerships.

The effectiveness of leadership and management was also judged to be good, as was the effectiveness of the governing body in challenging and supporting the school.

The Ofsted inspectors said: “Common strengths include classroom organisation, behaviour management and clarity of learning objectives.

“Pupils comment that they find learning enjoyable and this was evident in many of the lessons observed during the inspection.”

The Ofsted inspectors made suggestions for improvements including giving pupils appropriately challenging work and improving pupils’ communication skills and independent learning.

Executive head Mrs Smith said she was delighted that the Ingrow head and staff had worked so hard to rapidly improve the school’s Ofsted grades.

She said: “Progress is on an upward trend and inspectors acknowledged that attainment would be at Grade 2 by the end of the summer term, based on their observations of pupils’ work in lessons.

“We will continue to work hard on ensuring that the quality of teaching and learning is the best that it can be.”

Mrs Smith said the school was celebrating the positive outcome with several Ingrow and Long Lee events for staff and pupils.