STUDENTS celebrated after their school was praised by education inspectors.

Ofsted inspectors judged Mile Oak Primary School as a “good” school – one up from their “requires improvement” ranking of their previous visit.

Inspectors who visited the school in Graham Avenue, Portslade, on September 24 to 25, said leaders had improved its “effectiveness” and “pupils of all abilities achieve well”.

Deputy headteacher Martin Cooper said staff worked “extremely hard” over the past 18 months, focusing on improving students’ reading and writing.

Students were given raffle prize tickets when they were “caught” writing at home or at school, he told, and were also encouraged to write postcards to each other through the school.

“We want to make learning fun,” he said.

Ofsted inspectors said the highest quality of teaching was “not yet a consistent feature through the school,” but teaching had “improved to typically good levels through the school”.

Pupils behaved well, they added, and relationships were good between pupils and with staff.