Education Secretary Michael Gove has approved an Interim Executive Board at Bradford Moor Community Primary, months after steps were made to remove the governing body following a damning report by the education watchdog.

The IEB will replace the governing body and work with head teacher Janet Relton and Nick Weller, Executive Principal of the Dixons Academies and the National Leader for Education at the school, to bring about rapid improvement since Ofsted placed it in special measures.

An IEB is a type of governing body appointed for a temporary period in exceptional circumstances by the local authority and tasked with bringing about improvements to a school.

The Telegraph & Argus exclusively reported in April how inspectors had condemned governors for a long-standing failure to ensure the school was being properly run as they put it into special measures.

But in marked contrast, they praised head teacher Mrs Relton for her strong leadership and determination to drive up standards since her appoint-ment last September.

The Chair of the new IEB is Ros Garside, who has worked in Bradford for the last ten years.

Other members include Jo Williams, who is currently Chair of the Dixons Group of Academies, Mike Latham, who has recently retired as head teacher at Newby Primary and Ruby Bhatti, who is a solicitor and who has good knowledge of the local community.

Mrs Relton said: “We welcome the decision to approve the Interim Executive Board and look forward to working with them to bring about rapid improvements. The Ofsted report acknowledged that some progress was being made with some pupils but the inspection team wanted to see evidence of more widespread and rapid progress by the pupils.”

As previously reported, the IEB will be tasked with bringing about rapid improvement at the school by providing extra support and challenge. Board members were hand-picked and the school hosted meetings with parents to let them know what was happening.

The governing body had also been told of the plan, and had agreed it was in the best interests of pupils.

Councillor Ralph Berry, Executive Member for Children’s Services, said: “I welcome the decision to approve an IEB at Bradford Moor Primary. A lot of hard work is taking place to put things in place which will bring about rapid improvement at the school so that it comes out of the special measures category as swiftly as possible.”

The news that the governing body was being replaced was welcomed by the Bradford Moor Parents' Group, which led a protest about standards earlier this year.

The school has 98 per cent of pupils who do not speak English as their first language.

The Ofsted inspectors’ findings included: The governing body had failed to check the work of the school or hold the leadership to account for many years and that had contributed to its decline, standards in mathematics and English were low and pupils in each key stage made inadequate progress. Those who are disabled and those with special educational needs made the least progress.