A Rainham school has been told to improve after its latest Ofsted inspection.

Scargill Junior School, in Mungo Park Road, was rated as “requires improvement” overall and for the achievement of pupils, quality of teaching, behaviour and safety of pupils, and leadership and management. It has dropped from its previous “good” rating in 2010.

The report said that “pupils’ progress requires improvement” and too few pupils are making progress, especially in maths.

It added that on occasion some disabled pupils with special educational needs did not make enough progress in maths because “teachers do not take sufficient account of their starting points”.

It said “not enough teaching is good” because not all teaching builds on what the pupils can already do or challenges them.

Leaders do not ensure that all teachers make full use of information from pupils’ assessments, and inspectors said the special educational needs coordinator and subject leaders could not make a “full contribution to improve teaching” because their roles were “underdeveloped”.

Inspectors also criticised the leaders’ and governors’ plans to improve the school because they “lack detail” and do not set challenging targets to increase pupils’ progress. They said in the report “The plans lack clear enough arrangements to monitor and evaluate success”.

But they went on to say that the school has a number of strengths, including the relationships between staff and pupils, which are “good”, and that the headteacher has “the unanimous support of the staff”.

Pupils’ progress in reading is accelerating and attainment in English is improving while they are “polite and well mannered” and contribute to the life of the school.

The report added: “The feel safe and any issues related to bullying, when they occur, are dealt with swiftly.”