A SCHOOL was marked down by inspectors because children did not spend enough time playing outdoors.

K-BIS Theatre School in Cumberland Road, Brighton, was criticised by Ofsted inspectors for keeping children indoors.

The school was graded good by Ofsted after it was inspected on January 13 and 15, but a previous inspection in 2008 found the £5,000-a-term school had outstanding features.

Inspectors blamed children not playing outside enough for the drop in score and said that in order to become outstanding school must “provide more opportunities for pupils to be outdoors and for younger pupils to play outside more often to extend their learning or social times”.

Flora Bean, who led the inspection, said: “Pupils, particularly younger pupils, have too few opportunities to be outdoors or to play outside to extend their learning.

“The quality of teaching is not always checked rigorously enough.

“The principal observes teaching informally, but this process does not include clear target setting or follow-on checks to help staff improve their teaching to be consistently outstanding.

“Teachers know their pupils well, give individual support and check pupils’ progress in lessons.

“However, there is no systematic recording of progress and attainment for staff and pupils to use to develop teaching and learning further.”

Principal and owner of the specialist performing arts school Marcia King said that although the school does not have a playground, students are regularly taken to Preston Park and pupils get a lot of their exercise through dance during the day.

Ms King added: “I don’t know of any other theatrical schools that have play areas, so we were relieved we got good from the new Ofsted.

“We don’t feel aggrieved, we feel lucky to have been get the good and that the report found us to be a caring and nurturing school.

“We’re not complaining at all. The new policies are huge and it was incredibly stressful.

“We couldn’t have done more.

“We even have a sports day, which is always a worry for us because the last thing we want is for our dancers to get injured, but it’s always a great day.

“We were very, very pleased with our good rating because it’s such a different process to the old system.

“The old Ofsted was completely different to this new one.”