School bosses have vowed to take action after criticisms from inspectors.

St Anne’s and St Joseph’s RC primary school in Accrington was found to be ‘requiring improvement’ in four out of five key areas, including leadership, teaching quality, pupil outcomes and development.

Ofsted cited the school’s ‘considerable staff absence’ over the past two years as a ‘crucial factor’ in a lack of progress.

In his report, lead inspector Jeremy Barnes said teaching and learning across the school is ‘not consistently good’ and some pupils ‘lack pride in their work and do not give their best’.

The Sandy Lane school was found to be ‘good’ for early years provision’ and Ofsted praised pupils’ respect, the school’s ‘strong ethos and values’ and teaching assistants.

Headteacher Darren Mussell said they are ‘disappointed’ but that since he was appointed to the job after their last inspection they have already put actions in place to ‘address the issues identified’.

He said: “We are underway with these and have made much progress recently.

“As the inspectors recognised, we have experienced significant absences of teaching staff, partly due to unfortunate long-term sickness. This affected our ability to make all the improvements we needed to do but this situation is now improving.

“The leadership team is committed to improving the direction and management of the school even further and we have put focused plans in place to ensure that this happens.

“We are also working hard to make sure that staffing is consistent.”

Mr Mussell said the school is working with the county council’s advisers to develop a ‘long-term improvement action plan with clear timescales’.

He said: “This will help us to ensure that we raise attainment, through increased monitoring of both teaching and students’ work. This is already leading to improvements and bringing about positive change.

“The inspectors identified many areas of strength across the school, including our culture of positive learning, our early years teaching and our pupils’ exemplary behaviour.

“We are determined to build on our many strengths, to tackle those areas which need improvement and ensure that our children receive the quality of education that they deserve.”