A failed school that closed last term has produced its best-ever GCSE results, making it one of the most improved schools in the country.

East Brighton College of Media Arts (Comart), in Wilson Avenue, Brighton, is celebrating 43 per cent of students gaining at least five A*-C grades.

Last year, just 13 per cent of pupils achieved five A*-Cs, making it one of the worst-performing schools in England and Wales.

This year's results mark a huge rise on last year's figures, which is expected to be one of the highest single increases in the country and should earn the school a place in the top 30 most improved schools in Britain over the last four years.

Headteacher Karen Lees said: "I have very mixed emotions because these are the best results we've had since the school opened as Stanley Deason in 1972.

"The backdrop of the closure meant students and staff could have given up but they didn't and we were able to maintain a climate for learning and an environment for the students to succeed. These results are testament to all the hard work.

"Although the school is closing, at least we are finishing on a real high and we hope these good grades will pose some questions that need to be asked about why the school has closed."

Performance tables released by the Department for Education and Skills in January revealed The North School, in Kent, was the most improved school since 2001 with an increase of 51 percentage points for students gaining five or more A*-C grades.

Comart has improved by 29 percentage points since its score of 14 per cent in 2001, which should place it inside the top 30 most improved schools nationally.

Ms Lees, who has been on secondment from Varndean School for the last two years, said some of the improvement was attributed to support from Varndean where many pupils took English lessons and studied for a GNVQ in IT worth four GCSEs.

However, she was keen to dispel criticism that the school had found an "easy" way to improve pass rates with the GNVQ programme.

She said: "Even without the GNVQ element, the percentage of students gaining five A*-C grades has increased to 18 per cent, which is higher than any other score in the last 15 years so they can't take away the achievement of the young people here."

School governor Mo Marsh said: "These results are brilliant and not at all surprising. I just feel sad that people didn't have the faith to realise this was going to happen and that we were turning the school around.

"It was quite clear that when Karen and executive head Mark Whitby arrived there was a dramatic change but now all the youngsters have been dispersed and lost their friends and Whitehawk has lost its heart."

She said she hoped the decision could be reversed and the school allowed to continue but felt this was unlikely as the site has already been earmarked for use by City College as an eastern campus to predominantly train tradesmen such as builders and plumbers.

A spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council said the decision to close Comart was made by the independent Schools Organisation Committee, of which the council is a member.

He said the city council fulfilled its promise to ensure education would not suffer with the impending closure by investing management support and maintaining staff levels until the end.

Nationally the GCSE pass rate rose from 97.6 per cent to 97.8 per cent with 61.2 per cent of students gaining five A*-C grades, up two per cent on last year.

In Brighton and Hove the percentage of students gaining five or more A*-C grades rose by seven per cent from 49.4 per cent last year to 55 per cent.