THE town’s primary schools are no longer ranked as good or outstanding across the board after Ofsted inspectors ordered one of the organisations to improve.

In July the council announced that every primary had been given the highest or second highest rating by inspectors.

But St Vincent’s in Penketh has now been told it must improve after a visit from Ofsted just before the summer holidays.

The head teacher at the school, which was previously ranked good, had recently left and inspectors blamed the recent changes to staffing for ‘inconsistencies’ in teaching.

But the report praised the council for acting quickly to appoint a temporary head teacher who is ‘rapidly’ helping the school recover.

Inspector Ahmed Marikar said: “Pupils do not make consistently strong progress across subjects and year groups.

“Children, particularly the most able, are not sufficiently challenged to enable them to make the progress of which they are capable. They have limited opportunities to practise and develop their writing skills.

“Some teachers do not have high enough expectations of what their pupils can achieve.”

The school was also told to improve its early years provision.

But the report praised children at St Vincent’s for being ‘polite, cheerful and welcoming’.

Mr Marikar said: “Pupils work hard in lessons. They take pride in their work and in the school.

“The interim head teacher has raised aspirations. Staff work well as a team and morale is high.

“The curriculum is broad and balanced. Pupils benefit from a range of extra-curricular activities such as drama and music.”

A spokesman for Warrington Borough Council said: “We identified a need to build capacity in leadership before the inspection, which is why we had identified a very experienced interim head teacher to see the school through to the end of term last academic year.

“We now have an extremely competent head teacher driving improvement this academic year.”

To read the report in full visit reports.ofsted.gov.uk.