A SOUTH Lakeland school placed in special measures has been praised by inspectors for 'taking effective action' to improve the situation.

An Ofsted report released last February found Queen Katherine School in Kendal to be 'inadequate' in four of the five areas considered.

The report placed the school into special measures and the staff have spent the months since trying to address the issues highlighted.

A second monitoring inspection took place on December 5 and a letter was sent from Ofsted to head teacher Jon Hayes to update him on its findings.

Inspector Jonathan Jones wrote that he believed leaders and managers were taking effective action towards the removal of special measures.

The report assessed effectiveness of leadership and management, quality of teaching, learning and assessment, personal development, behaviour and welfare, outcomes for pupils and external support.

Leaders were praised for having 'kept up momentum' since the July 2017 monitoring visit and the report stated that staff could take 'genuine satisfaction' in the improvements that had been made.

However, the report stated that areas of improvement remained, with some work not meeting the needs of pupils and concerns about the 'variability' in the quality of learning.

Behaviour in the school continues to improve, incidents of low-level disruption have reduced and pupils told inspectors that bullying was being dealt with effectively.

"Overall, attendance is in line with the national average," the report said. "However, the attendance of disadvantaged pupils is still too low. Similarly, too many disadvantaged pupils are persistently absent."

Progress made by all pupils was said to be 'very positive' but disadvantaged pupils do not achieve well in mathematics, with boys making considerably less progress than girls in English.

Head teacher Jon Hayes said: "We are extremely pleased that the recent HMI visit acknowledged that the improvements to the school have continued and recognised our students’ exam success which placed us top in the area for the key Progress 8 measure. We are very proud of our students’ achievements.

"We are not complacent though and will carry on our work with all of the school community to ensure that we continue to make The Queen Katherine School a place in which we are all proud to belong."

According to the NUT, schools that are in special measures should not be employing newly qualified teachers.

But the letter to school from Mr Jones says: "Having considered all the evidence I am of the opinion that the school may appoint newly qualified teachers.".