LAVINGTON School has been selected to be a specialist school for training would-be teachers.

Headteacher Martin Watson said the specialism was a recognition of the hard work by pupils and staff over the past few years.

Since 2005 the school, in Market Lavington, has had specialist status for maths and computing and its results in GCSE exams are among the best in Wiltshire.

Last year the 690 pupil school received the top rating of outstanding by inspectors from Ofsted.

Mr Watson said: “We were invited to bid for a second specialism because we are seen as a high performing specialist school. We are one of only three schools in the South West which have been granted specialist training status, the others are in Bristol and Bournemouth.”

The training school status was awarded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.

The school has been awarded £60,000 a year for three years to fund the training school.

This will be used to build a room and appoint someone to oversee the training programme. In addition three existing members of staff at the school will be given added responsibilities for delivering training.

The school will link up with the University of Bath and Bath Spa University, which deliver teacher training courses, to provide aspects of the training for both trainee teachers and post graduates who have changed careers to become teachers.

The school will maintain its placements for trainee teachers and it will also work with other schools in West Wiltshire on the professional development of teaching and support staff.

The news that the school has got the specialist training status comes a few weeks after the disappointment that its bid to create a sixth form was scuppered due to the Learning and Skills Council, which provides capital funding, suspending any expansion of provision nationally.