STANDARDS of education at a Worcester primary school have slipped so far that Government inspectors have placed it on Special Measures.

Nunnery Wood Primary School was found to have a number of weaknesses during its inspection in May.

The Ofsted report, published this week, said the school needed to raise standards in the core subjects.

It also needed to improve the quality of teaching, improve leadership and review the roles and responsibilities of staff.

"Standards throughout the school are too low, although the work of pupils in Years 4 and 5 is more promising," said the report.

"Pupils, particularly the more able, do not make consistent progress through the school and the school's results in the national tests at the ages of seven and 11 are not high enough, given the pupils' levels of attainment on entry."

In the 2001 national tests, standards were below the national average at Key Stage 1.

At Key Stage 2 the scores were well below the average for similar schools and fell within the bottom five per cent nationally.

The report said the Key Stage 2 results had been consistently low over a three-year period.

Inspectors who visited the school found that the quality of teaching was good or very good in four of the lessons observed.

But six of the 17 lessons were deemed to be of an unsatisfactory standard, having a negative impact on standards and the progress pupils made through the school.

"In the unsatisfactory lessons, learning was impaired by weak planning, resulting in insufficient challenge for the more able and the setting of work which was too hard for the less able," said the report.

There were significant weaknesses in short-term planning, restricting the quality of assessment.

But inspectors said curriculum planning and guidance had improved. Target setting was also being given a higher profile.

They found that the leadership and management of the school was poor at the time of the inspection.

"The headteacher has failed to respond with urgency to the weaknesses identified in the inspection report of October 2000," they said.

"Systems for development planning, monitoring and evaluation are weak. Management structures throughout the school are weak."

The school is now led by a new headteacher, following the retirement of the previous head, Keith Paterson.