Montpelier High School's head reacts to Ofsted's inadequate rating

Interim principal, Brendan Hesketh, said the school was disappointed with the Ofsted report

The principal of a school rated inadequate by Ofsted says its report does not "fully reflect" changes put in place.

Montpelier High School was given the rating by inspectors in March 2022 and a second visit in December found there were still serious weaknesses.

The Ofsted report said the school in Bristol "did not feel safe for a significant proportion of pupils".

But interim principal, Brendan Hesketh, said the report was disappointing.

The school, formerly known as Colston's Girls' School, is run by the Venturers Trust and the government considered withdrawing funding after the inspection last March.

Ofsted said pupils had reported "the prevalence of self-harm" and many pupils "cannot identify an adult they trust to share their worries with".

Wellbeing coach Sarah Rees has been hired to work with pupils

After its follow-up visit in December, inspectors said the school remained inadequate and leaders had made "insufficient progress to improve the school".

Mr Hesketh said: "Obviously, in terms of the overall report we were disappointed with the conclusion.

"We feel very strongly that one child feeling unsafe either in school or out of school is unacceptable - but what we didn't think the Ofsted report fully reflected was the full range of changes that we've implemented."

A group of students told BBC Points West the content of the report was not what they had seen in school and they did not think it was "an accurate representation".

Sixth-former Baraha Kaimouz said she felt the report was not "an accurate representation" of the school

Among changes made, the school has hired a wellbeing coach, Sarah Rees, to work with pupils.

Ms Rees said anxiety was one of the main topics that had come up in her discussions with children.

"Sadly for young kids today, with Covid, they're suffering the results of that in that they spent a lot of time isolated, a lot of time on their phones looking at what other people were doing," she said.

Ofsted said its inspectors will return soon to judge whether the school has made satisfactory progress.