POOR attendance has blighted a Wisbech primary school’s almost unblemished high marks awarded them during a Government inspection.

Ofsted’s lead inspector Keith Brown said Peckover Primary School offered a good education, pupils felt happy and safe, behaved well and teachers and staff were determined for the school to become better.

But in a letter back to the 300 or so pupils Mr Brown told them: “You can help the school to improve by doing your very best to come to school, every day.”

His four strong inspection team gave consistently high ‘good, above average’ gradings across most categories but marked the school ‘inadequate’ for its pupils’ attendance record.

With 1 for outstanding, 2 for good, 3 for satisfactory and 4 for inadequate the inspectors gave overall marks of 2 for achievement, enjoyment of learning, safety, behaviour, healthy lifestyles, cultural development and contribution to school and wider community.

Only did the school achieve a 3 when asked to judge the extent to which pupils develops workplace and other skills and this took account of the section for attendance where the school gained the bottom 4 rating.

Mr Brown described school leadership as “strong and purposeful” and described the curriculum as “imaginative and matched well to pupils learning needs”.

And he noted that “good and sometimes exceptional learning is underpinned by teachers’ high expectations and detailed planning”.

Mr Brown said there was a lower than usual level of response to a parental questionnaire but those who did responded expressed strong support for the school.

A county council spokesman explained that truancy was not necessarily the only explanation for poor attendance and there were many other possible causes.