A BURNLEY school is top of the class after being rated good with outstanding achievement in English.

Blessed Trinity College was placed in special measures in 2012 but has bounced back to be rated good overall in its latest Ofsted report.

It comes just a week after headteacher Richard Varey was named Secondary Headteacher of the Year in the Lancashire Telegraph Schools Awards.

Mr Varey and his staff and pupils were celebrating yesterday and said their future vision was to create an outstanding school.

The school also enjoyed its best-ever GCSE results last year and also has been used as a model of behaviour by the Department for Education.

They are over-subscribed for the first time in many years with a waiting list to join the school.

Ofsted singled out Blessed Trinity’s English department for special praise, stating their ‘achievement in English is outstanding.’ The inspectors also said that ‘progress in maths has increased markedly since the previous inspection’ and there was ‘good progress’ in science.

The leadership was praised as Ofsted commented on the school’s ‘strong drive and progressive vision’ while the teaching staff also won the commendation of the Ofsted inspectors.

The report said: “Teaching is good and high standards are expected and this has a positive impact on progress and achievement.

Ofsted said incidents of bullying ‘are rare,’ that 99 per cent of Blessed Trinity parents who responded to a survey said they “feel their children are safe at school’ and that students are ‘extremely smartly dressed.”

Mr Varey said: “I am extremely pleased with the praise and comments Ofsted made about Blessed Trinity.

“We have shown that students don’t have to go out of Burnley to get the best education as has happened previously.”