A Crawley school which faced closure after receiving a damning report from Government inspectors has today been hailed a success.

Ifield Middle School, was placed in special measures after the critical report by Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education in February 2000.

Teaching was found to be well below average, as were overall standards attained by pupils by the time they left.

The report said Ifield's weaknesses far outweighed its strengths.

Inspectors found seven temporary teachers out of a total of 16 in the week they visited.

They also noted teaching was less than satisfactory in 31 per cent of lessons.

They gave the school, which has 414 pupils aged eight to 12, was given two years to improve standards or face closure.

But Ifield managed to turn its fortunes around and is no longer in special measures.

Today, the school received praise in the annual Ofsted inspector's report for making significant progress.

Headteacher Jan Lewis, who was brought in as acting head in April 2001 before becoming head in April 2002, said: "It was down to a lot of hard work and a lot of support from the local education authority."

Mrs Lewis said the school had focused on improving the quality of teaching, which included the use of less temporary staff, and the school environment.

She said: "We had to do a lot of monitoring and coaching of teachers and we now only have one temporary teacher."

New science labs and home economics rooms have been built, while the whole school has been redecorated.

Mrs Lewis said: "This year we had the best results we've ever had, which is wonderful. It is a great confidence boost for the pupils and is also good for the parents.

"The children and staff deserve the praise from Ofsted for all their hard work and commitment."

Ifield was one one three Sussex school taken out of special measures last year. The others were East Brighton College of Media Arts (Comart) and Seaford Primary School.