A school has responded after a damning Ofsted inspection report briefly appeared online suggesting pupils were at "risk of harm".

An inspection of Bishop Chavasse Primary School in Tonbridge took place in January.

The free school on Baker Lane opened in September 2017, as part of the Tenax Schools Trust, which also runs six other existing primaries in the local area.

A monitoring visit was carried out by Ofsted during the pandemic but did not find any significant concerns.

However, yesterday a report unexpectedly appeared on the education watchdog's website following an additional inspection in January stating the school requires "significant improvement", and indicated it was performing less well than expected.

Inspectors said arrangements for safeguarding were "not effective" and errors in recording could put children "at risk of harm", according to reports of that release.

It also found not all pupils were making strong progress in reading and those behind had not received sufficient help to "catch up quickly".

The school responded on its website to say it had not been made aware the report was being published.

Following recent conversations with the education regulator it said it was under the impression the report would be made available after the Easter break, only to discover it had briefly appeared online yesterday.

It added that it had already addressed the "principal issues identified" and systems and processes around safeguarding record-keeping have been "completely overhauled".

A spokesman from the Trust said it was disappointed with the outcome of January’s Ofsted inspection.

They said: "Whilst we acknowledge there were some issues in the school’s safeguarding practice, in particular in recordkeeping, we are clear that staff did everything they could to ensure that children’s safety was not compromised.

"Since January we have taken decisive action to address areas of concern, and under the leadership of Mrs Strand, who is an experienced headteacher with a proven track record, we have already addressed the principal issues identified."

They went on to add that systems and processes had been "completely overhauled" and the school was given a clean bill of health in an independent review carried out by the local authority earlier this month.

The Trust said it also made rapid changes to some aspects of teaching to address other issues identified, and is updating parents regularly.

This includes its approach to teaching phonics, where it says its performance has been strong but where practice is now consistent with a new scheme staff have been trained in.

The statement added: "We briefed parents in person after school this afternoon and received their overwhelming support and encouragement on the changes we have made and in particular on the new leadership of Mrs Strand and the whole team of teachers, and we are now writing to those who could not attend.

"We look forward to welcoming Ofsted back in the next few months to see first hand how decisively the issues identified have been addressed."

Ofsted said an administrative error was to blame for the report being published early.

A spokesman for the watchdog explained: "As soon as we became aware of the error, we removed the report from our site.

"We will be re-publishing the report in accordance with our normal timelines."