A KIDDERMINSTER primary school has been placed in special measures after it was rated "inadequate" by Ofsted.

Inspectors visited St John's CE Primary School, in Blakebrook, in February and rated the school as "inadequate" overall. The school was judged "requires improvement" in four areas, but was also found to have "inadequate" leadership.

The new report is a far cry from its previous rating of "good" in 2013.

The report stated that the headteacher had not taken effective action to address low pupil outcomes across the school since the last inspection and that there was a lack of strong and incisive leadership.

It added: "School leaders have an unrealistic view of the school's strengths and weaknesses.

"Information from the recently introduced assessment system is not used accurately by leaders to identify the impact of teaching on pupils' outcomes.

"Teachers do not have consistently high expectations of what pupils should achieve and they set tasks that are not well matched to pupils' abilities.

"The curriculum has not been developed sufficiently well to ensure that pupils make good progress across all subjects.

"The attendance of disadvantaged pupils and pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is too low. This affects the progress and attainment of some pupils."

Despite the damning report, the school was praised for a high priority being placed on pupils' wellbeing and safety and that the school promotes pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development well.

Inspectors also praised the teaching of phonics in reading, describing it as "effective".

Headteacher Lawrence Gittins, previously credited for moving the school out of special measures in 2011, said strategies were already being put in place to address the decline in pupil outcomes but these had not yet had time to become embedded and to show impact.

Rev Tim Williams, chairman of the governors, said: "Schools deemed as "good" by Ofsted get little support and over the last two years we struggled with the implementation of new teaching strategies, new curriculum and new assessment criteria.

"Since the new year, local authority support has been given to us and the special measures judgement enables us to access even more.

"We are also looking to join a multi-academy trust, to create an outstanding partnership to ensure excellent outcomes for all our pupils."

The school has been told it should improve the quality of leadership and management, and improve the quality of teaching so that all teaching is consistently good or better and raises outcomes for all pupils, including children in the early years.