MINEHEAD Middle School is a good school and offers outstanding care, guidance and support for its pupils, according to its latest Ofsted report.

Inspectors judged 31 lessons and 26 teachers during their time at the school and concluded there was good capacity for improvement.

They found significant improvements had been made since the last inspection, the quality of teaching was good and some lessons were outstanding.

There was praise, too, for the "strong and determined leadership" and the "astute" governing body.

Reporting inspector Mark Sims said: "The headteacher, senior leaders and leaders of the core subjects of English, mathematics and science provide good leadership.

"In particular, they evaluate the work of the school well, accurately plan important improvements and are supported and challenged by the outstanding governing body.

"The school provides an exceptional level of care for its pupils and ensures that it does everything possible to ensure, through excellent rigorous safeguarding procedures, that its pupils are kept safe, a view shared by most pupils and by parents and carers."

He said pupils joined the school mid-way through key stage two with below the expected level of attainment for their age in English, mathematics and science.

But because of the good progress made, they were either above or at the required level of attainment by the time they left at the end of year eight.

Pupils enjoyed going to school and their behaviour was good, while they also made a valuable contribution to community life.

Mr Sims said both teaching and learning was good, particularly when pupils were given the opportunity for independent learning.

But he said not all teaching consistently planned for the needs of different groups, such as higher attaining pupils and younger pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities in mathematics.

"Teachers assess accurately what pupils have achieved and set written targets for pupils but these are not always followed up by teachers or pupils.

"In outstanding lessons, teachers are able to spark pupils' enthusiasm for learning and through high expectations and rapid pace ensure they get the very best out of them.

"In some other lessons, learning is restricted by a slower pace caused by over-directed teaching and limited independent work.

"At the moment, overall, there are only a few outstanding lessons and leaders are ambitious to increase the proportion," Mr Sims said.

He said some teachers did not sufficiently challenge high attaining students in mathematics but said, overall, the curriculum was broad and balanced and included a range of additional, extracurricular activities.

Care, guidance and support was hailed as a particular strength of school, while families were felt to be "well engaged" and pupils were praised for the enthusiasm with which they took on additional roles.

Mr Sims noted: "They are involved in fundraising for charity and more widely show care and consideration for the environment.

"They are prepared well for their next steps through the progress they make in literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology and have enterprise opportunities through, for example, selling garden produce which they grow themselves."

He said relationships were strong between teachers and pupils and strong and determined leadership had enabled the school to improve.

"The impact of leadership on improving the quality of teaching and learning is clearly evident in lessons and improved achievement.

"The school is striving to improve this further by bringing teachers together in groups of three to share and support each other's practice.

"The role of subject co-ordinators in English, mathematics and science focuses clearly on achievement and these leaders use the wealth of data available on pupils' progress to good effect allowing groups and individual pupils to be supported when necessary.

"There is not yet a similar focus across all middle leaders," Mr Sims said.

The inspectors said it was important the school established consistently good leadership among middle leaders by ensuring all subject leaders had a sharper focus on monitoring and evaluating achievement.

Ofsted also called for the school to share the best features of teaching and learning more widely and to ensure more lessons were outstanding.

Mr Sims said consistent planning was needed to ensure the needs were met of all pupils, more opportunities should be given to allow pupils to take responsibility for their own learning and more use made of assessment information to show pupils how they could improve their work.

But he noted the school already had an accurate view of its own strengths and weaknesses.

He concluded: "The school benefits from a very impressive and astute governing body that supports and challenges all aspects of school life.

"Parents and carers are kept well informed, including through newsletters and the school's effective website, and their views are regularly sought and acted upon.

"Most parents spoke favourably about how their children had settled in.

"They commented that their children are well looked after but a few raised concerns about the school not dealing effectively with bullying or not responding to parents' telephone calls and messages.

"Inspectors agreed with the very large majority of parents and pupils who told us that care, guidance and support were a significant strength in the school and that misbehaviour and any bullying are dealt with effectively."

Geoff Lloyd, the chairman of governors, said the school was pleased to have received a good grading with outstanding features.

He said: "This excellent report is a tribute to the strong leadership and fine teamwork of all the staff, the support of parents and the commitment and enthusiasm of all the pupils.

"Our slogan must now be 'Onwards to Excellence'."