Teaching unions have praised Oxfordshire's education service as the majority of children returned to fully staffed classrooms in senior schools throughout the county.

Nationally, up to 3,500 teaching posts remain empty, but in Oxfordshire all secondary schools, apart from a handful in north Oxfordshire, report full complements of staff.

Last September, there were more than 90 empty teaching posts in the county. Some pupils were left without a regular teacher and almost a third of the county's 312 schools were affected.

This year, headteachers said they had filled vacancies - but only after a struggle.

In Oxford The Cheney School, Gosford Hill School, Matthew Arnold School, Milham Ford Girls' School and Wheatley Park School are all fully staffed.

Cheney headteacher Alan Lane said: "We have been extremely lucky. We have not only filled teaching spaces, but also recruited a very high calibre of staff. All our lessons will be taught by staff teaching the subjects in which they are qualified. I'm really pleased, but it was a cliff-hanger. In some cases we had very few applicants and in one case we had just one."

Mr Lane added that he had lost four members of staff over the last 18 months.

"They were all very reluctant to go, but quite simply needed to live somewhere where house prices were cheaper," he said.

At Fitzharry's School in Northcourt Road, Abingdon, ten vacancies have been filled, including new music teacher Michael McGregor, who has been recruited from Australia.

Oxfordshire local education authority began a new recruitment strategy in 1999.

It is now running returners' courses for people wishing to return to the profession, and taster courses for new teachers. It also encourages schools to offer more flexible hours.