A full review of senior leadership and management will take place at a school that has dropped from outstanding to inadequate. 

The King John School, in Thundersley, has been rated as inadequate by education watchdog Ofsted. 

Serious concerns over the safeguarding of children were raised. 

The school was rated as outstanding in 2013, but the latest report states the school has not maintained the "outstanding quality of education".

The report also added that leaders have an "overinflated view of the school's effectiveness".

And a letter to parents, seen by the Echo, revealed that an external review of governance will be undertaken, in addition to a full review of school leadership and management. 

The full letter reads:

"Our school was inspected on 26 and 27 February 2019. We were pleased that the inspectors recognised good teaching, learning and assessment enabling pupils to achieve well by the end of key stage 4.

"The curriculum is broad and balanced with large numbers of pupils engaging in, and enjoying, a wide range of trips, visits and extra-curricular activities.

"Pupils say they are well looked after, kept safe and that staff are always visible. They say that staff teach them how to stay safe, and they have confidence in staff to listen and support.

"Pupils behave well and treat each other with respect and bullying is rare.

"Inspectors highlighted the success achieved in the sixth form where students’ progress has remained consistently high and students go on to appropriate next-step destinations.

"Published school performance tables place us above national and Essex performance in GCSE English, maths, EBacc and A-level. We recently received recognition that our sixth form results for A-level place us in the top 15% nationally consistently across a three year period benchmarked against 2817 other schools and colleges for A-level outcomes in 2018.

"The quality of teaching, learning and assessment, outcomes for pupils and sixth form is graded as good. Personal development, behaviour and welfare is graded as requires improvement, the effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate and therefore the school requires significant improvement.

"Ofsted reports that leaders, including governors have not followed statutory guidance for keeping children safe, this means safeguarding is not effective.

"This is clearly not acceptable and we have taken immediate steps to address the clear priority identified in the report regarding the statutory guidance and safeguarding.

"An external review of governance will be undertaken in addition to a full review of school leadership and management to ensure strategic improvements are the focus. The report states that in recent years, pupils in Year 11 have made above average progress. However this was not maintained in 2018.

"Pupils are making better progress this year, especially disadvantaged pupils and those in Years 9 and 10.

"We shall continue to work very hard on developing the level of challenge in each and every lesson and ensure learning activities inspire the most able well enough to work hard and achieve the highest standards.

"Year 11 parents are aware we arranged two early pre-public examination (PPE) series in September and December 2018 to ensure students had time and support to make the necessary improvements in progress.

"This approach has enabled us to systematically monitor current attainment and offer targeted intervention for our students. PPE results are significantly improved on last year, particularly for the most-able and disadvantaged students.

"We continue to ask for your support to make sure students make the most of the teacher’s support and any intervention provided.

"Progress of students in lower years has benefited from more robust curriculum planning at key stage 3 and whilst they are learning well we need to ensure they are making outstanding progress.

"Both the school and the Trust will invest heavily in undertaking a series of external reviews to ensure there is significant improvement in the areas of priority.

"Nothing will be taken for granted as we shall review everything to identify any other areas that need development and ensure there is on-going external quality assurance to make us the outstanding school we aspire to be.

"The typical King John student has continued to achieve really well here and we shall not lose our focus upon these students whilst addressing the clear priorities for improvement.

"The staff and governors are devastated by the outcome as it is clearly not acceptable, but we are all determined to act swiftly and show the school at its very best through the examination results this summer.

"Please be assured we are reviewing and monitoring all aspects of our work in school in response to the report.

"We shall work very hard to address the areas highlighted to ensure each and every one of our students has the opportunity to reach their full potential and the school’s open culture promotes all aspects of pupil’s welfare and addresses weakness swiftly.

"We shall be encouraging a further inspection within six months."