- guardian.co.uk, Thursday June 22 2000 02.24 BST
Moor Lane junior school in Chessington, south-west London, was found to have "serious weaknesses" by inspectors last April.
The headteacher, Jane Wright, announced she was retiring, blaming the pressure of paperwork. The deputy head, Peter Sainsbury, and five other teachers found jobs elsewhere. All are due to leave at the end of this term.
Ofsted returned for a follow-up inspection last month and told Ms Wright and school governors chairman, John Heamon, that "insufficient progress" had been made.
"Teaching staff considered that their efforts over the past 12 months had not been recognised in the progress report and consequently the remaining staff tendered their resignations," Kingston local education authority said in a statement. The chairman of the governors, John Heamon, said the school had been "wrecked" by the decision. Parents were told by the authority on Monday.
The council said the past 12 months "have been a stressful period for staff at the school". A head and deputy head have been seconded from other schools and three teachers appointed. Interviews for the other jobs are being carried out over the next three weeks.
A spokesman for Ofsted said the resignations were "unfortunate" and would "leave the school facing a very difficult situation". He said: "It's not something we welcome. It's clearly a matter for them and their consciences and it's something that the governors and the LEA are going to have to address. What matters is the education of the children - that's what inspections are about. It's keeping parents informed about what is going on in the schools."
The school had made "negligible progress" in implementing its action plan after last year's inspection, and was not doing enough to address serious weaknesses.
It emerged this week that 23 of 55 teachers at Kingswood high school, a "fresh start" school in Hull, have handed in their notice.
• The government will fail to meet national targets for achievement in English unless standards in children's writing is dramatically improved over the next year, Ofsted warned yesterday, writes Rebecca Smithers .
It blamed teachers in primary schools for concentrating on reading rather than writing in the daily literacy hour. In a discussion paper published on its website, Ofsted said the teaching of writing was "unsatisfactory" in a quarter of all such lessons.
The education and employment secrtetary David Blunkett has said he will resign if 80% of final year primary school pupils fail in the national tests to reach the expected standard in literacy by 2002, and 75% fail to achieve the same level in numeracy.
