A PRIMARY school near Chard is set to become an academy due to a poor Ofsted rating.

Winsham Primary School was rated ‘inadequate’ in September 2017 and placed into ‘special measures’.

It’s one of seven Somerset schools to be made into an academy in the New Year - and one of two doing so because of poor Ofsted results.

The other school transitioning after low Ofsted results is King Arthur’s Community School in Wincanton.

Elizabeth Smith, Somerset County Council’s service manager for schools commissioning, said: “King Arthur’s Community School and Winsham Primary School will become sponsored academies due to their Ofsted inadequate inspection outcome.”

Both schools have had monitoring visits by Ofsted inspectors since they were placed into special measures.

In both cases, the inspectors said the school’s leaders were “taking effective action” to come out of special measures, and improvement plans put in place were “fit for purpose”.

However, neither school will be allowed to recruit any newly qualified teachers until another monitoring inspection has taken place.

The primary school is set to join the Redstart Learning Partnership Trust, which runs the Redstart School in Chard, on February 1.

Somerset currently has 96 academies – 65 primary schools, six middle schools, 22 secondary schools, two ‘all-through’ schools and one special school.

The changes being enacted by the council, on behalf of the Department for Education (DfE), will bring the total number of academies in the county to 103.