An underperforming college has been warned that its progress remains “far too slow”.

In March, Ofsted gave Tech City College, in City Road, an “inadequate” rating – the lowest possible rank.

Since then, the education authority has visited the college, formerly STEM Academy, twice for monitoring visits.

But inspector Stewart Jackson’s latest monitoring report, published on Monday last week, said: “Progress made since the previous inspection remains far too slow, in particular with regard to the quality of teaching, learning and assessment.”

The report goes on to expose poor lesson planning and high numbers of absences – from both students and teachers.

“Too many lessons are characterised by poor planning by teachers. In these lessons, students are all working on the same tasks. Some find these tasks too easy while others struggle to keep up. As a result, most students do not fulfil their potential.

“Leaders and managers have not ensured that students attend lessons regularly. Students’ attendance continues to be unacceptably low in too many subjects.

“At the time of the monitoring visit, several teachers were absent due to illness.”

But, Mr Jackson acknowledged the college was taken over by a new leadership team, the Aspirations Academies Trust, in September.

He said: “It has responded well to the urgent need to improve the quality of provision for students at the college.

“They have undertaken a thorough review of the quality of teaching, learning and assessment and found it to be not good enough for the majority of teachers and students.”

A spokesman for the Finsbury college said: “Although Ofsted and the Department for Education acknowledged there were pockets of good practice in teaching and learning, we know this is not yet consistent across all subjects, and we are putting effective strategies in place to make improvement.”