A controversy-ridden school has been rocked by a critical report published by Education Scotland.
Kingspark School in Dundee has been graded “weak” in two categories out of five.
The Education Scotland reporter gave “satisfactory” grades in the other three categories inspected.
The school, which caters for children with additional needs from Dundee and Angus, will now be inspected again to see if there have been improvements.
Kingspark was the subject of allegations of abuse towards some children last year, leading to the city council commissioning an independent review.
The latest report found “a small but significant number of families have expressed ongoing concerns about their children’s health and safety in school” and called for better communication. An ES area lead officer will work with the city council to “build capacity for improvement”.
A further inspection is to be carried out at Kingspark within a year and Education Scotland is to write to all parents on the extent of any improvements, the reporter states.
While praising some aspects of the schools curriculum, the reporter said: “However, children and young people are not always aware of what they are expected to learn in these and other lessons.
“Some teachers provide feedback which helps learners understand their strengths and how they can improve.
“There is scope for this to take place more consistently in all lessons.”
The report added: “The school has adopted positive approaches to supporting children and young people with challenging behaviour. However, these planned strategies are not always effective in ensuring that other learners are safe from harm from other children and young people. The school needs to take positive and prompt action to review how it manages the challenging behaviour of a few children and young people.”
North East MSP Alison McInnes said: “I am concerned by some of the findings of this report. Two ‘weak’ evaluations and three ‘satisfactory’ ones show that there is considerable room for improvement.
“Health and safety in the school, challenging pupil behaviours, leadership at all levels and the learning experience all need attention.
“The report does highlight some positives though. Kingspark School needs to build on its strengths and improve on weaknesses to provide a better learning environment for all pupils.
“I have written to the council chief executive asking what steps are being taken to address the inspector’s concerns.”
Education convener Stewart Hunter said: “Progress is already being made on an action plan, which is supported by a partnership group, to take forward key points from an independent review into Kingspark School. We are looking to improve home-school communications, aspects of dealing with challenging behaviour and mechanisms for supporting parents and others to raise any concerns.
“Several meetings with a small number of families have also been held to discuss directly with them the points they raised in their complaints.
“The education department and staff at the school are also now working to ensure that recommendations from the Education Scotland inspection report are implemented.”