INSPECTORS were “taken aback” by the level of bullying complaints at a Southampton school.

It comes after a dad called for an investigation to be launched following the death of his daughter.

Amber Jackson, 15, was a pupil at Bitterne Park School and jumped in front of a train, fracturing her skull.

While it is not believed she was bullied at the school, her dad Tony told an inquest of the pressure that Amber, about to start her final year, felt under at the school ahead of her GCSEs.

Since her death two years ago, Mr Jackson has criticised the school’s counselling service and governing body, lodging formal complaints which resulted in Ofsted inspectors conducting a report on the school’s safeguarding procedures.

While safeguarding was judged to be effective overall, the new report said leaders should “urgently review, amend, update and republish all policies and procedures relating to safeguarding, child protection, behaviour and bullying”.

Inspectors said they were “taken aback” by the “frequency” with which pupils reported bullying at Bitterne Park School.

They said the school’s “arrangements for safeguarding were narrowly judged to be effective”.

They added the school should “critically evaluate and strengthen the quality and effectiveness of governors’ oversight of safeguarding and child protection activity”.

Speaking to the Daily Echo, Mr Jackson said: “I think there are some positive indicators in there, but these are issues we raised 18 months ago.

“I suppose they have made some changes but we have gone through a massively long complaints system.

“We feel validated by the report, it reflects our perfectly valid concerns.”

But new head teacher Graham Wilson said the report was “incoherently written”.

He said: “I have 31 years’ experience and I know what a bullying problem feels like.

“If there was a significant bullying problem why would I not want to do something about it?

“There are 1,616 students in the school and there were 28 parental replies on [confidential survey] Parent View that said they were dissatisfied with school procedures on bullying.

“That figure – which is about 1.1 per cent – is not unusual. We had 1,500 people at our open evening on Wednesday night and not one of them mentioned bullying.

“The number of parents being critical of our approach to bullying is very little.”

He added that the school has already implemented changes and said that Ofsted’s findings related to details in how the school sets out its policies.

He said: “They said we should have attached the procedures as an appendices to our policies.

“The school was doubly oversubscribed this year – that would not be the case if there was a problem with bullying.”

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “The published report clearly highlights the strengths and areas that need to improve, including recommendations, to ensure the school provides better safeguarding.”