Ref. 14563CHRISTMAS came a day early for staff and students at Kingdown School with the arrival of a glowing inspection report.

A team of Ofsted inspectors spent a week at the school in Warminster during November before compiling the report, which landed on headteacher Sheelagh Brown's desk on Christmas Eve.

Kingdown was one of the first schools in Wiltshire to be inspected under the more rigorous government regulations introduced in September. The updated system rates schools on a 1 to 7 scale overall and Kingdown achieved level 2 status.

This means the 1,400-pupil school is officially described as 'very good', but some areas inspected were deemed 'excellent', achieving a rating of 1. No school has achieved overall excellent status since the new system began and 30 per cent have actually failed their inspections so Kingdown has much to celebrate. Mrs Brown said: "This is the best Christmas present I could have had. I was sure that we would get a 3, but I was desperately hoping we'd get a 2."

In his introduction inspection leader Anthony Shield wrote: "Driven by the outstanding and inspirational leadership of the headteacher, the school is committed to offering the highest standards of teaching and the inclusion of all pupils.

"Very good teaching and the positive attitudes of the pupils combine to ensure that most achieve well. The school is an inclusive community in which very good relationships and a friendly atmosphere, alongside productive links with the wider community, help to promote achievement."

The report singled out the quality of teaching, leadership and management within the school. As well as interviewing pupils, staff and governors, inspectors sat in on 162 lessons across the curriculum.

Of these some 48 per cent were rated excellent or very good, compared with a national average of 11 per cent. Kingdown's provision for special educational needs was judged to be very good as were subjects including maths, modern foreign languages, science, design technology, art and design, geography and business studies.

Mrs Brown said: "The nicest thing the report said was that Kingdown is a very special community. The inspectors said they felt very welcomed and supported during the time they were here."

The school already has Sports College status and last year its state-of-the-art all-weather sports pitch opened for use. The report stated that sport is an integral part of school life and added "becoming a Sports College has acted as a catalyst for higher quality provision across all subjects".

The only area earmarked for improvement is the need to develop its use of IT equipment within the curriculum and staff are confident this can be addressed fairly quickly.