A north Norfolk school has seen a drop in its Ofsted rating from good to requires improvement.

Northrepps Primary was rated requires improvement in overall effectiveness in five out of seven categories in the latest report, which was conducted last month.

But chairman of governors Alistair Mackay said he was confident the Church Street school could soon get back to its former rating of good, from May 2013.

It comes less than a year after Northrepps joined nearby Erpingham Primary School in the Blue Sky Federation, in a move aimed at securing the long-term future of both schools.

The Ofsted report criticised the school for not having the national curriculum for Maths and English fully in place in key stage two.

The report stated that 'pupils do not make good progress from their starting points in key stage two in English and Maths because teachers do not have enough high expectations of what they can achieve'.

And it found that 'pupils' written work in key stage two is not consistently neat or carefully presented'.

And it continued: 'There is no clear leadership of the early years foundation stage, therefore children are not achieving as well as they could in reading, writing and numbers, when they start reception.'

However, the report said the headteacher Angie Hamilton and assistant headteacher had a good understanding of the weaknesses in the school.

And it said they were beginning to take robust and effective action to deal with them. It also found that pupils' behaviour was good.

To improve, the report said the school needs to raise achievement in English and Maths in key stage two, by ensuring that teachers fully implement the requirements of the national curriculum.

And it must ensure that governors understand what pupils can achieve and are able to challenge school leaders when this achievement is not good enough.

Mr Mackay said: 'We are very disappointed with the report. Some aspects of it we had already picked up and put in measures to improve, but the inspection came too early for the data from that.

'We have various action plans in place for a very quick response, and I'm confident we can quickly get back to our good rating.'

The school has 27 pupils on roll, aged from two to 11.