THE head of a school which has dropped from Outstanding to Requires Improvement following a recent Ofsted inspection said the rating “does not reflect where we are at as a school”.

Ofsted visited St Stephen’s CofE Primary School in Gaythorne Road, West Bowling last month, nine years on from its last visit.

During the inspection, it found pupil progress to be poor, low expectations from teachers, a lack of subject knowledge in some teachers, and some issues with attendance and behaviour.

However headteacher Paul Urry, who was described as a “tour de force” in the report, said the report is a “snap shot” of the school, and is not an indication of the direction the school is headed in after four years of “turbulence”.

He said: “Obviously we accept the findings of the report, particularly that it is at a point in time when we are on a journey.

“We’re looking forward to continuing the development to better our pupils and the community.

“This is a very exciting school; there is so much in the pipeline to create that buzz for learning, it is an amazing place and the rating doesn’t really reflect that.

“In the past teachers have been given mixed messages which has affected progress, but we are on a fixed journey and seeing rapid progress.

“Being Outstanding again would be nice, but we want to be a centre for excellence.”

The report said: “The headteacher is a ‘tour de force’.

“He arrived in school with a comprehensive understanding of the issues he was facing and set about introducing policies, systems and procedures that made his expectations crystal clear.

“The headteacher has taken effective action to eradicate inadequate teaching.

“There has been much turbulence in staffing over the last four years. This has led to a decline in the quality of teaching over time, such that it no longer ensures that all pupils make consistently good progress.

“The expectations of some teachers are still not high enough. Consequently, some pupils, particularly boys, do not complete their work sufficiently well.

“Current pupils’ progress in reading, writing and mathematics is not good enough.”

Early years education and safeguarding were also praised by inspectors.