A PRIMARY school has been placed in special measures after inspectors found it had failed to prepare students for secondary school.

High Crags Primary School in Windhill, Shipley, was judged inadequate in a report published by Ofsted released yesterday.

The school says it fully accepts the findings, but that steps were already being taken to improve the school before last month's inspection.

Despite the critical report of the school, which has 447 pupils, inspectors did praise its early years facility, which was judged good.

High Crags is based on Crag Road, and was given a "requires improvement" rating at its last inspection in 2013. The latest report says the school has failed to improve performance of its pupils in the past two years.

It says there is an "above average" proportion of children from disadvantaged families attending the school, and that the majority of pupils are white.

In the past two years the school has failed to meet government targets for attainment and progress in English and mathematics by the end of Year 6.

Detailing what the school is doing to improve performance, the report says an executive head, Malcolm Campbell, who is also head of Denholme Primary School, was appointed in April. A new permanent head will start in September. And the school is currently being supported by a top education leader and staff from Iqra Academy, based in Drummond Road, Bradford.

Inspectors have called for an external review of governance and another of how the school spends pupil premium - money allocated to help disadvantaged pupils.

The report says: "Over time, leaders and governors have been too slow to remedy weaknesses identified at the previous inspection. They have not tackled weaknesses in teaching with enough rigour. Their expectations of pupils’ achievement have been too low and they have not ensured that pupils’ attitudes to learning are consistently good.

"Standards by the end of Year 6 are significantly below average and show too little sign of improvement. Pupils are not prepared with the skills they need to do well at secondary school."

Mr Campbell said: "The school fully accepts Ofsted's findings.

"The governors took decisive action to appoint me as Executive Headteacher from April to start to take the actions required to improve the school, prior to the arrival of the newly appointed headteacher in September from the national Talented Leaders programme. The journey towards improvement has begun.

"Governors and staff are working in close partnership with the local authority to take all the necessary actions to raise standards as quickly as possible.”

Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, executive for education at Bradford Council and a Windhill councillor, said: "Even before Ofsted came, the school had acknowledged its challenges and started to take action to deliver more rapid improvement. Significantly, the school appointed a new interim Executive Headteacher who leads another good school and he quickly identified what needs to be done.

"With a strengthened team in place, the school is well positioned to swiftly improve.”