A PRIMARY school which was given notice to improve is making inadequate progress, according to government inspectors.

Rishton Methodist Primary School, in George Street, which was graded ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted officials, earlier this year has been re-inspected.

The new report concluded that inadequate progress had been made in the last seven months.

The school, with 200 pupils, was first assessed by Ofsted in February and the report said the primary was just one grade away from being placed in special measures.

Inspectors told the school to: • raise standards and improve achievement throughout the school.

• to improve the planning of the curriculum to show clearly what pupils should learn each year and how their progress will be tracked • improve teachers’ understanding of standards expected of pupils in each age group and their skills in assessing pupils’ learning.

But in the new report Inspector Sonya Williamson said this had not happened.

She said: “Having considered all the evidence I am of the opinion that at this time the school is making inadequate progress in addressing the issues for improvement and in raising the pupils’ achievement.

“Overall, standards remain very low. The progress that most pupils make in their lessons is insufficient to enable them to catch up in their learning so that their standards are closer to those expected of similar pupils nationally.

“Data analysed and pupils’ work seen indicate that more than a third of pupils made little or no progress in the second part of the last academic year.

“Pupils in all classes underachieved but in each class there was a minority of pupils whose achievement was better, particularly pupils in Year 6 and those who benefited from targeted intervention strategies.”