A HAMPSHIRE school has been placed in special measures after an Ofsted inspection deemed it to be inadequate.

Testwood Sports College in Totton was given the lowest rating by the school’s inspectorate, which concluded that the school was failing to give its students an acceptable standard of education.

Head teacher Ian Appleton said that he was shocked by the findings of the report, and explained how staff have already begun a raft of improvements.

Mr Appleton, who retires at the end of the year, said: “We were just shocked, the pupils, the staff, all of us. This is not the school we recognise in this report but we are determined to do everything in our power to get us out of special measures as soon as possible.”

Mr Appleton said that had the school been inspected before last year’s set of GCSE results was published, he believed it would have retained its ‘good’ status, which it obtained before it converted to academy status in 2011.

He said: “I think the inspection was very data-driven and due to a poor set of results last year – particularly in English – we were judged on those.”

Inspectors said that following the inspection – carried out last November, with the report published this week – the leadership of the school, achievement of pupils and quality of teaching were all inadequate, with the behaviour and safety of pupils requiring improvement.

The inspectors found: n Most students do not make sufficient progress from their starting point to enable them to achieve high enough GCSE results, especially in English.

• Although teachers are now becoming more effective in helping students to make more suitable progress, this has not yet resulted in high enough achievement in examinations.

• Behaviour around the college is particularly cooperative and polite but more consistency is needed.

• The quality of leadership of the college is inadequate. Strategies in place to improve the quality of teaching have not yet had sufficient impact.

The report acknowledged that following the disappointing GCSE results of 2013 measures had already been put in place to improve performance. It also concluded that pupils enjoyed going to school and that some lessons observed were outstanding.

The school will now be subject to increased monitoring by Ofsted.

A meeting for parents was being held last night at the school to discuss the report.