A SECONDARY school has been told it must improve by education watchdog Ofsted.

The Burgate School in Fordingbridge was previously rated good, with some outstanding features, in 2013, but standards have slipped, according to the latest report.

The school's leadership; teaching, learning and assessment; and outcomes for pupils are not up to scratch, inspectors said.

But pupils' personal development, behaviour and welfare were rated good, as was the sixth form.

The school is "a happy and caring community", pupils with special needs are well supported, sixth formers make strong progress, and staff know their pupils very well, inspectors said.

But they found that senior staff and governors had "not acted swiftly enough" since the last inspection, and had not analysed their actions "with enough rigour and speed", so improvements had been too slow.

Governors are "enthusiastic and committed", but they are not given accurate enough information to hold senior staff "stringently" to account, the report said.

Pupils from poorer backgrounds and the most able do not make enough progress, and the quality of teaching is too variable in key stages 3 and 4.

Teachers' expectations of what pupils can achieve are too low and teaching does not sufficiently stretch and challenge pupils of all abilities.

Disadvantaged pupils do not attend as regularly as they should, which is affecting their learning and progress.

Leaders are not tackling this issue robustly enough.

While all safeguarding processes are fully observed, leaders are not sufficiently methodical in their record-keeping, the report said.

Inspectors also recommenced an external review of governance and the school's use pupil premium funding.

The report also said there was "very little bullying" within the school and pupils were "overwhelmingly polite and courteous".

The school has 1,029 pupils, 280 of whom are in the sixth form.

The chairman of governors is Jenny Hair and the head teacher is David Pover.

Paula Sargent was the lead Ofsted inspector.

There are "significantly more" boys than girls in the school, according to the report.

Headteacher David Pover said: "I am pleased that the inspectors recognised that our students are happy, well cared for and willing to learn.

"It’s important that we celebrate the many areas of good practice and the excellent work of our students and staff which have been identified by the inspection team.

"However, we must take on board the key areas for improvement and focus on our disadvantaged students and increase still further expectations of what our students can achieve lower down the school."

Mr Pover added: "It is clear that Ofsted inspections are more data driven than ever before.

"Our sixth form, where progress of students is similar to or better than the local grammar schools, was graded ‘good’ because that is what the school performance data shows.

"In the main school not all of our students’ results qualified under the new performance measures because they chose subject options that did not fulfil the requirements of the league tables.

"Therefore the data suggested they had not made above average progress.

"In response to this Ofsted judgement, a new and sharply focussed School Improvement Plan has been drafted and is ready for implementation as well as a remodel of our curriculum from September 2017 in line with the final tranche of GCSE and A-level specification revisions."