A DAMNING report has concluded Poole Grammar School "Requires Improvement."

The school, rated "Outstanding" in all areas just 18 months ago, will now be subject to regular monitoring by Ofsted to ensure standards improve.

A team of inspectors visited the Gravel Hill school for two days last term and their report has just been published.

They slated GCSE grades, low expectations of teachers, sixth form provision and "insufficient challenge" from governors.

Lead inspector Simon Rowe said: "Pupils' outcomes have declined since the school's previous inspection. Pupils with high attainment on entry do not make enough progress across a range of subjects, particularly in English and science.

"The proportion of pupils who attain the higher grades of A*/A at GCSE is too low across many subjects. Too many teachers' expectations of what pupils are able to achieve are not high enough."

Inspectors said governors do not have a clear understanding of the school's performance and provide insufficient challenge to leaders.

And they said leaders are "over-generous" in their view of the quality of teaching, learning and assessment.

Provision for students between the ages of 16 and 19 also needs to get better, according to the inspection team.

They praised progress in history and languages, the behaviour of pupils and the effective support provided to disadvantaged pupils. They said pupils are well cared for.

The selective school has 1,200 pupils between the ages of 11 and 18, 313 of whom are in the sixth form.

Head teacher is Andy Baker and the Chair of Governors is Dr Ken Power.

In a letter to parents, Mr Baker said: "As a school we have accepted the key findings of the inspection. The inspectors have given the school a list of action points which will help us bring about rapid improvement and given that we were already working on some of these areas, we welcome the action points that have been identified.

"Our immediate aim has always been to improve our 2016 results in a number of key areas. We will be receiving visits from Her Majesty’s Inspectors in order to monitor our progress, and we hope that this will lead to an early re-inspection and a revision of this judgment. We will provide parents/carers with detail from our Action Plan when it has been approved."

"We accept that in some areas our students need to be doing better. Our aim is to eradicate inconsistency in teaching and particularly assessment. All our students deserve the best opportunity to achieve their full potential academically, and we will continue to work hard to make sure this happens."