THE headteacher of a Kidderminster primary school has described its “inadequate” Ofsted rating as “extremely disappointing”.

Inspectors visited Birchen Coppice Primary School, in Woodbury Avenue, in July and rated the school “inadequate” in all areas. It had previously been rated as “requires improvement” in 2014.

The report stated the school’s standards in reading, writing and mathematics had been too low for a number of years and were not rising fast enough, and that pupils’ achievements in key stage 2 was not as good as it should be.

It added: “The culture and ethos of the school has not been developed sufficiently to ensure that good behaviour is the norm. While some aspects of behaviour are improving, low-level disruption is not challenged by some teachers.

“Leaders’ actions to improve the quality of teaching and the outcomes for pupils have had too little impact. The school should not appoint newly qualified teachers.

“The quality of teaching, learning and assessment is inconsistent across the school. Overall, it is too weak to have the necessary impact on raising standards.

“Teachers’ marking is improving but does not follow the school’s policy with consistency. Common errors and basic punctuation mistakes are not routinely picked up by all teachers.

“The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate. Arrangements for safeguarding are ineffective.

“Exclusion rates have increased this year and are well above the national average. Attendance rates have declined this year and rates of persistent absence are above the national average.

“Pupils’ progress across the school is too slow. There have been insufficient improvements in recent years.

“As a result of low attainment over time, pupils are not fully prepared for the next stage of their education. When pupils leave at the end of year six, many lack some important basic skills.”

Despite the damming report, the school was praised for its recent appointments helping to improve the quality of teaching and capacity in leadership, and that the early years provision was a strength to the school.

Kay Butler, Birchen Coppice headteacher, said: “We are extremely disappointed with the results of the recent Ofsted inspection.

“Over the last two years sour school has made good progress and our monitoring reports have been very positive.

“We accept there is work to do to make continued improvement, but feel very good steps have been taken so far that have been overlooked by inspectors.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff for all their hard work. I would also ask the parents for their continued support and ask them to bear with us and keep up the strong sense of community we have.

“There are plenty of positive elements documented in our inspection report, and with the support of our local authority, I am confident that we can continue to build on the progress we already made.

“We aim to provide every pupil with a school they can be proud of and a primary education which will stand them in good stead for the future.”

However, the school has been told they can improve further by urgently improving procedures to safeguard the welfare of pupils and improving the impact leaders and governors have on pupils’ outcomes, behaviour and attendance.

The overall quality of teaching, learning and assessment should also be improved, as well as the standards of behaviour, personal development and welfare.