A SCHOOL in Rochford has been told it must improve.

The King Edmund School has now been rated as “requires improvement” overall, even though the school was rated “good” in four out of five key inspection categories.

The report concluded “teachers have strong subject knowledge” and “current pupils progress well”, and in English and Geography “pupils learn well” and “their work is of a good quality”.

However, “in other subjects, pupils are not learning the vocabulary that they need to achieve well.”

Inspectors identified that “leaders have taken action to develop pupils’ literacy skills” but that, “it is too soon to assess the impact of this work.”

Headteacher Jonathan Osborn, said: “This report recognises that students feel happy and safe at the school, and identifies many of the positive aspects of life at KES. These are reflected in the inspection judgements of good for behaviour and attitudes and personal development, highlighting the way that we support students to became well-grounded and good citizens – a comment made by the lead inspector in feedback at the end of the inspection.”

He said areas raised in the report that require improvement were already being addressed prior to the inspection.

He added: “This work is continuing. Following the introduction of the new GCSEs, all schools have been engaged in a process of developing the curriculum in all subjects.

“Our head of science had already increased the pace of this development work prior to the inspection and we will see the fruits of this as the year progresses. Ensuring students have excellent literacy skills is a priority for many schools and we are no different.

“As acknowledged by the inspectors, we have been working hard on this area and the impact of this work will be seen increasingly over the next couple of years. We continue to work hard to ensure the excellence that is seen in many aspects of KES is consistently in place across the whole school.”