AN inspector says “good” progress has been made at a troubled East Oxford primary school since it was put into special measures last November.

Ofsted’s Daniel Towl said leadership, attainment and behaviour had all improved at SS Mary and John CofE Primary School, after visiting earlier this month.

Last year, the school was rated inadequate after inspectors found weak leadership and underperformance among Pakistani children in the school.

Former St Ebbe’s head Liz Burton was brought in to lead the school after previous head Pip Murray announced her retirement.

And on his second visit to the 400-pupil school since it went into special measures, Mr Towl said big improvements had been made.

He said: “There is a trend of improving pupil performance. In discussion with inspectors, pupils said they enjoyed their lessons.

“Year Six pupils said they were pleased about how much they had learned since the start of the term.”

He said that in the 2011 Key Stage One assessments, seven-year-olds performed well in reading, writing and maths, and the progress of older pupils was also significantly better than average.

He added: “In Year Two, the performance of Pakistani pupils was higher than the nationally similar group and in Year Six they performed closer to their peers nationally, narrowing the previous gap in performance.

“Across the school there remains some variation in both the progress and attainment of different groups of pupils and between the different year groups. The much improved and more sophisticated analysis of performance is providing senior leaders and class teachers with detailed information about the individual progress of all pupils.”

The school remains in special measures.