A PRIMARY school requires improvement in all areas, inspectors have found.

St Catherine's Primary School, Bridport, has been visited by Ofsted, which found the quality of teaching at the school to be 'inconsistent.'

While this has partially been affected by staffing issues, inspectors feel teachers do not have high enough expectations of what pupils can achieve which, in turn, weakens the progress pupils make.

Inspectors found that a number of parents are not confident in the leadership of the school, nor they understand well enough why leaders have taken some of the decisions they have. A proportion of parents, according to Ofsted, feel that leaders do not address their concerns.

The school requires improvement in the effectiveness of leadership and management; quality of teaching, learning and assessment; personal development, behaviour and welfare; outcomes for pupils and early years provision.

Inspectors found the curriculum for subjects other than English and maths to be underdeveloped. Although pupils have access to a range of subjects, the quality of learning is 'variable.'

The school was graded as 'requires improvement' at its last inspection in 2017. On revisiting the school, Ofsted felt leaders and governors had not responded swiftly enough to the areas for improvement identified at the previous inspection. As a result, by the time pupils leave the school, their attainment in reading, writing and mathematics is below average.

The school did receive some praise in the Ofsted report.

Inspectors found acting headteacher, Sharon Betts, has stopped the decline in standards and is rapidly bringing about change and improvements in the quality of leadership and teaching.

They also felt pupils are safe in school and attend regularly.

Acting headteacher, Mrs Betts, said: "This is a fair report which recognises many of the recent improvements we have made. We are determined to build on these and get the school to good as quickly as possible. We are pleased that the report acknowledges our pupils are happy and safe. Our pupils are fantastic and we all know they deserve the very best, so we need to tackle the areas for improvement straight away."