A SECONDARY school which educates youngsters with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties is failing to give pupils an “acceptable standard of education”, according to Ofsted.

Lever Park School in Horwich has been placed into special measures by Government inspectors after they rated it as inadequate.

The school's senior leadership team has responded by reassuring parents and the community that a “robust” improvement plan had been drawn up.

In the report, all areas of the school apart from teaching – which was given a given a grade three rating indicating it required improvement – were said to be inadequate.

They include leadership and management; behaviour and safety of pupils and achievement. Ofsted inspectors even commented that students were “allowed to smoke on site”.

The school has since stressed that it has a zero tolerance to smoking and areas where young people have been caught smoking were being patrolled.

Ofsted did find that despite pupils having a disruptive education before coming to the school the majority “engage positively in activities” and relationships between staff and pupils were positive.

However, high ability children were found to under-performing in all subjects and attainment was found to be low for disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged children.

Paul Hodgkinson, head of Bolton Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) who has now been appointed as interim executive headteacher, said: “Whilst we were disappointed with the special measures judgement, we were pleased that Ofsted recognised the many positives elements of Lever Park.

“These included the welcoming learning environment, the strength of the staff team, the strong relationships between staff and students, the range of vocational courses on offer to our students and that 95 per cent of our pupils gained positive post 16 destinations in the Summer of 2014.

“We were glad that the inspection team recognised that the new leadership team have established a can-do culture and that it is strongly positioned to lead the school out of special measures.”

He added: “The leadership team, with the support of the local authority, have drawn up a robust Improvement plan which will see the implementation of new systems which have already proven to be successful in many of Bolton's other EBD settings including the PRU.

“New quality assurance processes related to teaching, improved systems for monitoring pupil performance and better reporting procedures will be introduced to the school in next few months.”

A Bolton Council spokesman said: “It’s extremely disappointing for everyone involved with the school and we are working very closely with the Trust and governing body to ensure it is removed from special measures as quickly as possible and help them secure a positive future for the school and its pupils.”