Dick Withington is said to have spoken to the parents of the two "difficult" pupils and urged them to keep the children away from Gosford Park Primary School, Stoke, in Coventry, for the past week.

Valerie Jones: Mr Withington says other schools do the same thing

An inspection by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) will be completed on Friday.

Now Coventry City Council has asked officers to conduct an inquiry.

The city council's education committee chairman, councillor George Duggins, has condemned the head's move.

'Not the only ones'

But Mr Withington said that his was not the only school asking parents to do this.

"I admit there were two parents whom I asked to support us by keeping their children at home until Friday," he said.

"These children are difficult to handle. Ofsted reports are very stressful experiences and the school is managing well."

He said the inspectors had chosen to visit at an "extremely difficult time".

The Stoke area of Coventry is what a previous Ofsted inspection described as a multicultural inner city area with many features of social disadvantage - in spite of which the school had a high level of support from parents and the local community.

About a third of the school's pupils were entitled to free school meals.

At that time - May 1995 - the inspectors found it, under its then headteacher, to be "a good school with some excellent features".