A NELSON primary school has been placed in special measures after failing government education requirements.
Castercliff Community Primary School received the worst Ofsted grading of inadequate following an inspection by Ofsted.
Inspectors found teaching to be inadequate and numeracy and literacy standards to be poor. The school was also heavily marked down for historical administrative errors with safeguarding children through criminal records checks on staff.
Ofsted said the school's records were not well kept because prior to September 2013 they had only been countersigned with typed initials rather than given a full signature and date.
Headteacher Victoria Milne, who was new to the school last September, said they accepted the criticisms but remained confident about the future.
She said: “All of us are committed to making long-term sustainable improvements as quickly as we can to become a good school.
"We accept the inspectors' judgement and welcome their suggestions. However, this is not where we want to be. Everyone is working hard to turn around our school and we're already making progress.
"For example, we're confident that this year's test results will show an improvement, and the end of Year 2 data is already showing a significant rise from the previous five years.
“As someone who's relatively new to the school I'm impressed by the enthusiasm of the staff and their willingness to pull together as a team to get the school back on track, and we have some staff joining us in September who have outstanding credentials.
"I was pleased to see that the inspectors identified a number of strengths at Castercliff, such as better attendance, good care for pupils and families facing difficulties, some good and outstanding teaching, and strong leadership.
"We have shared the findings of the report with our parents and I am grateful for their support.”
Lead Ofsted inspector Clare Henderson said: “The school’s work to safeguard pupils is inadequate. Leaders’ and governors’ checks on safeguarding fail to meet government requirements.
She added: “Pupils in all year groups across the school make inadequate progress. Standards by Year 6 in English and mathematics have been very low for several years and show too little sign of improving."