A Steiner school in Bristol is launching legal action against its latest Ofsted report, which rated the school as “inadequate” and resulted in it being placed in special measures.

The governing body of Steiner Academy Bristol said the schools watchdog’s inspection and judgment process showed bias against Steiner schools.

The legal challenge will argue the Ofsted inspection was flawed and inspectors lacked proper evidential basis for their conclusions.

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A series of Ofsted inspections, published in the past few weeks, found three of the four Steiner schools set up under the Conservatives’ free schools programme to be inadequate. The snap inspections followed an intervention by the education secretary, Damian Hinds, over concerns about safeguarding at the schools.

The Ofsted report noted pupils at the Bristol school were exposed to “avoidable risk of harm” and “physical intervention is used unnecessarily”. The report also said students were making slow progress in school, bullying incidents were too frequent and disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs were not making enough progress.

The school will go into special measures and a multi-academy trust is being sought to take it over.

The school’s governing body said it was concerned the inspection came after a letter sent from Hinds to the chief inspector of Ofsted, calling for additional scrutiny of all Steiner schools. The body believes the approach Ofsted has taken to Steiner schools has impacted the fairness and independence of the inspection process.

Roy Douglas, a governor at Steiner Academy Bristol, said: “While we take the report very seriously and recognise that improvements need to be made, we do not consider that the decision to place us in special measures was fair. We have a number of concerns about the way the inspection process was conducted and the judgments made, and wanted to work with Ofsted to resolve these.”

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Douglas said the school was concerned about Ofsted’s approach and what it means for the future of state-funded Steiner education.

“While we have decided we have no alternative but to issue a legal challenge regarding the inspection, we will continue to support the academy management committee, which has taken interim responsibility for managing the school in delivering sustained improvements,” he added.

Deb Meachin, a parent with a child at the school, said: “I chose Steiner education because I didn’t want my children to be part of a system that puts more emphasis on testing, ticking boxes and results, with reduced time for creativity. It has encouraged my children’s individualism and it has been the best choice we have made for our family.”

The academy is one of a small number of publicly funded Steiner schools set up as a result of the government’s free school policy. Other Steiner schools in the UK are privately funded.

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “Ofsted inspects without fear or favour. We considered and responded to all the points made by the governors of Bristol Steiner Academy while the report and evidence went through our rigorous quality assurance procedures. The result of the inspection is well founded and fair, and we stand by it.”