A re-branded Bradford secondary school has been issued with a Notice to Improve by Ofsted inspectors.

Inspectors at the education watchdog ran the rule over Aire Valley School in Cottingley, Bingley, during a two-day assessment last month. The findings were published yesterday and reveal particular concern about attainment in maths.

The former Nab Wood School was re-named in the summer, a year after it became a Co-operative Trust School in partnership with the University of Bradford, Suma Wholefoods and the Co-operative College.

The vast majority of students are from minority ethnic groups, mostly Pakistani, the inspection report notes. About three quarters speak English as an additional language and an increasing number of Eastern Europeans are joining the school.

But in her report, inspector Shirley Gornall said the school’s overall effectiveness was “inadequate”.

The report says the number of pupils making the expected progress in maths is much lower than it should be, some teaching is not strong enough to secure rapid improvement and the school’s maths leadership is insufficiently focused on improvements.

The school’s performance has fallen well short of its target for the proportion of students attaining five GCSE A* to C grades, including in English and maths, it said.

But there are also positives to extract from the report. The school’s capacity for sustained improvement is rated satisfactory. Attendance is much improved, there have been fewer exclusions and attainment has improved in some subjects, such as in English. Safeguarding is outstanding while its sixth form continues to be a strength.

Head teacher Elaine Shoesmith said the school had changed “out of all recognition” in the past few years so she was disappointed by the findings.

She said: “The report does acknowledge the improvements which have already been made, however we acknowledge there is work to be done to improve the pace of learning and to raise attainment, and also improve the quality of teaching.

“We were pleased with the positive response from parents in the survey conducted by Ofsted and the whole school community will be working very hard to ensure the school comes out of the Notice to Improve as quickly as possible.”

She said that since she became head teacher four years ago, the number of students gaining five A* to C grades at GCSE had doubled from 35 per cent to 70 per cent and applications for places at the school were up.

Pupils have been taking extra maths lessons three nights a week since September, she said.

The school suffered a previous blow in the summer when it learned its school’s rebuilding project had been axed as part of Government funding cuts to the national Building Schools for the Future programme.