A GORLESTON primary school is celebrating after Ofsted said it no longer required notice to improve and praised its leadership, ambition and improved teaching.

Inspectors said Herman Community Primary School had “good capacity to improve”, and that persistent absence had fallen “very significantly” since the school’s last inspection in March 2010.

They praised care, guidance and support and were particularly positive about the support to the youngest pupils, who they said, make “rapid gains in their personal and social development.”

Ofsted said: “Herman Community Primary School provides a satisfactory quality of education. It is an improving school. Decisive and robust action has been effective in raising attendance, which is now average.

“Pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities make satisfactory academic progress and the good quality of support they receive has contributed to rapid progress in improving their speech and their ability to manage their own challenging behaviours associated with their needs.

“The headteacher drives improvement forward well. Decisive actions following detailed analysis have brought about a number of significant improvements since the previous inspection.”

Inspectors added that all groups of pupils made at least satisfactory progress in lessons, with standards rising in the Early Years Foundation Stage and in writing in Year 1. However, they said, more work is needed to improve attainment in English and maths by the end of Year 6.

The school was given a notice to improve in March 2010 and, since then, has been working to improve teaching and learning and raise levels of achievement.

Kate Rutherford, headteacher, said: “Everyone involved with the school has a shared ambition to make this the best school possible, and we have been working intensively over the last 15 months to improve our monitoring of teaching and learning and to better track pupils’ progress.

“It is fantastic that the hard work of teachers, governors, support staff and parents has paid off, and we are now making strong progress.

“There is still more work to do in ensuring consistency across the school, but we are confident we know what needs to be done to support further improvement.”