The headteacher of a secondary school in Chiswick says he feels it has been "harshly dealt with" after being downgraded by Ofsted to "requires improvement".

Chiswick School was given the second lowest of four possible grades by the educational watchdog, having previously been rated "good".

But headteacher Tony Ryan said he felt the overall judgement was not a fair reflection of the work the school has done to improve pupils' achievement.

"I do feel we've been harshly dealt with but we will take it on the chin. We have already set about making the recommended changes and this won't be a requires improvement school for long," he told getwestlondon.

The Ofsted report, published on Monday, November 30, rated the school "good" in four out of six categories but "requires improvement" for leadership and management, and for pupil outcomes.

Inspectors, who visited at the beginning of November, found leaders did not check pupils' progress in a "systematic or thorough way".

Progress by disadvantaged pupils "lags behind"

They said while some academic results were broadly in line with national averages, progress by disadvantaged children and those with special educational needs "lags behind" that of their peers.

However, they recognised a number of strengths at the school, including a strong sense of community and good behaviour by students.

At the beginning of the year, all secondary schools in Hounslow were rated "good" or "outstanding", but Chiswick School is the latest to slip from that upper echelon after Kingsley Academy was also rated "requires improvement" .

Mr Ryan claimed the gap in attainment between disadvantaged students, including those qualifying for free lunches, and their peers was actually significantly lower than the national average.

But he said Ofsted required greater analysis of different groups, based on gender, ethnicity and social background, for example, in order to identify any patterns which might need to be addressed.

Mr Ryan said Chiswick School had made significant strides over the last nine years, going from being a "failing" school to one where two third of students gained five or more good GCSE grades including maths and English this summer.

"We have never obsessed with Ofsted"

The school was upgraded from "satisfactory" to "good" when it was last inspected in March 2012, shortly after converting to academy status. But this is its first inspection since a new, tougher monitoring regime was introduced.

"We have never obsessed with Ofsted. Our clear objective has always been to create a school where the needs of our students come first, where students feel safe and secure and where they want to learn, grow and develop in an environment where high quality teaching is the norm," said Mr Ryan.

"We have clearly created this culture, but now need to adjust how we monitor progress of key groups of students within the school to enable better progress for every student.

"The objectives set by the inspection team are all achievable within a relatively short space of time. We will learn from this and will be a better school as a result."

Chair of governors Jane Mansfield gave Mr Ryan her backing, saying there had been "significant progress" at the school in the last few years.

"Governors are confident that Mr Ryan and school staff will implement any changes necessary to meet the inspection objectives and, in fact, this work has already commenced," she added.

The school's new rating means it will receive a monitoring visit within the next three months and a full Ofsted inspection within the next two years.