A FLAGSHIP school opened to offer “world-class education” just three years ago is today officially labelled a failure.

Ofsted has slapped Huyton Arts and Sports Centre for Learning with a Grade 4 “inadequate” tag, just days after its Knowsley neighbour, Kirkby Sports College, suffered the same fate.

The Huyton secondary was one of seven new secondaries branded “centres for learning” and launched by Knowsley Council under a £157m revamp.

Huyton Arts and Sport Centre for Learning’s damning new Ofsted report means three out of seven of the ultra-modern schools have been hit with the failing tag.

Concluding Huyton Arts and Sport Centre for Learning “is a school that has serious weaknesses”, Ofsted found that teaching, pupil behaviour and students’ achievements were all “inadequate”.

Inspectors discovered children are not always expected to get better – with the report noting that “teachers do not all insist that students make improvements to their work”.

On unruly pupils, it adds “Behaviour is inadequate because, in a small minority of lessons, students’ low-level disruption reduces learning”. And the expectations of students’ conduct among “a small minority of staff” are “not always high enough”.

The school has drafted in Tarun Kapur, chief executive of The Dean Trust, a set of outstanding academies in Manchester which is now supporting the school.

Ofsted concluded leadership and management “requires improvement” but praised principal Stuart Jamieson and noted that the partnership with The Dean Trust was “working well”.