A WORCESTER school that was deemed to be failing its pupils is celebrating after its progress was praised by the schools watchdog.

Ofsted inspectors visited Warndon Primary School in September for the third time since it was placed in special measures in June 2011.

At the time, the school was told to raise attainment, improve attendance and improve the effectiveness of leaders. According to the latest report, the Edgeworth Close school had made good progress in all areas since its last inspection. It said the most recent Key Stage 1 assessments had the highest outcomes in reading, writing and maths for five years.

Some quality of teaching is occasionally still inadequate, but the majority was satisfactory and an increasing proportion was good.

There has been rapid improvements from specific instances where teaching was identified as inadequate during the previous visit, and through good support and monitoring from senior leaders and the local authority it had improved to be at least satisfactory and good in instances.

The large majority of pupils behaved well in lessons and around the school, and the overwhelming majority of teachers and teaching assistants had good approaches to positive behaviour management. Attendance has continued to improve and the number of pupils achieving 100 per cent attendance was almost double the previous year’s total. Inspectors also praised leadership at the school, saying senior leaders had secured improvements through rigorous monitoring and support.

The impact of the governing body had been enhanced significantly and it is planning well for the future direction of the school. Support from the local authority was also deemed to be good. Di Smith, headteacher, said: “Everyone connected with Warndon Primary School is delighted with another excellent outcome. Good progress has been made with each key issue and therefore the journey out of special measures continues to accelerate.

“This is the result of the hard work and dedication of all stakeholders, which resulted in the pupils in Key Stage 2 Sats outperforming their peers nationally at Level 4 in English and matching them in maths.”