A Brentwood school has received an excellent report from inspectors despite living through difficult times.

Holly Trees Primary School has been lauded as a "caring and improving school" that provides a good standard of education for its pupils.

Although the attainment of children is below the national average for their age when they start school, pupils achieve well by the time they come to leave at the end of Year 6.

The latest Offsted report is the first inspection of the newly formed primary school following the amalgamation of the Crescent Road infants with the Junction Road juniors.

The five-strong Government inspection team has acknowledged that the achievements have been made in the face of inadequate buildings and split-site operation while the school waits to move into a new single site at Clements Park in September 2003.

Richard Millwood, chairman of the governing body, said: "School inspections are a demanding and rigorous process, so to receive such a positive report is extremely pleasing.

"The inspectors were unanimous in praising the school's substantial achievement in the face of amalgamation, inadequate buildings, split site and preparation for a move.

"Everyone was given a special mention for their very good work and the only issues identified were those we were already aware of, and already have plans in place to tackle. The governors want to thank everyone for contributing to this truly superb and exceptional result."

Eleven per cent of the 260 pupils at Holly Trees are from ethnic minority heritages and one per cent of the children are from refugee families.

Among the pupils 12 languages other than English are spoken. The number of pupils with special educational needs is in line with national averages.

The Offsted report states: "The pupils enjoy coming to school, behave well and have very good attitudes to learning. The quality of teaching is good overall, with examples of very good and excellent teaching."

Holly Trees received top marks for: Helping pupils to achieve well during their time at the school; good standards in science; very good provision for children in reception classes and very good personal and social development of pupils.

The inspectors identified four areas for improvement - standards of writing in the upper school, assessment procedures, presentation of work in the upper school and marking of pupils' work in Years 5 and 6.

Published Friday, April 18, 2003

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