The Oxford School is celebrating after inspectors declared it no longer has serious weaknesses - and labelled the headteacher as "inspirational".

The school, which was branded as having serious weaknesses in October 1998, has received a glowing report from Ofsted.

Ian Johnson

Inspectors highlighted several improvements which still had to be made but stated that many of the problems the school faced stemmed from a lack of staff.

Inspectors said the school, in Glanville Road, east Oxford, was rapidly improving and effective.

The report added that the catchment area contained an above-average number of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Although the standards the school achieved were well below the national average for 16-year-old pupils, they were at the same level as schools with similar backgrounds.

Other aspects of the school's performance highlighted in the report include Key Stage Three and GCSE results which are improving and, at sixth form, many students making good progress and even surpassing their expected grades.

There was a positive climate where students wanted to go to school and learn.

Overall the quality of teaching and learning was good, but the school had been dogged by problems replacing teachers throughout the year.

Ian Johnson, the headteacher, was described as inspirational in the report.

Areas for improvement included timetabling arrangements, systems for assessing, marking and reporting students' work and using results to set individual and group targets for achievement.

Mr Johnson said everyone at the school had achieved the improvements by 'working their socks off'. "