HEADTEACHERS say Abingdon has a bright future after a key secondary school im-pressed education inspectors.

John Mason School is the first secondary in the town to be rated ‘good’ after a visit from Government watchdog Ofsted last month.

Also last week, Rush Common Primary School in Abingdon was given the go-ahead to move from council control and convert to an academy after it was rated ‘outstanding’ by the inspection body.

John Mason, which has 831 pupils, was deemed ‘inadequate‘ and told to improve after an inspection in January 2008.

Di Mashiter, headteacher at John Mason since then, said the school had identified problems and worked hard to fix them.

She said: “When I came to Oxfordshire there weren’t any outstanding schools in Oxfordshire and now things have changed.

“The school has always been a very friendly, inspiring place to work – the nature has not changed. But what has changed is the parents are now much happier that things are moving forward.

“The students know exactly where they are, they know what they need to do to improve. Their targets are challenging.”

She added: “It’s certainly not the end of the road yet, we are still going on a journey of improvement.”

Ms Mashiter said the town was becoming a more appealing education centre and she was confident inspectors would consider the school ‘outstanding’ at the next visit.

She said: “We want students in our catchment to be looking inwards to Abingdon and not elsewhere in Oxfordshire.”

She added: “I am proud to be headteacher at John Mason School.

“It is an amazing place to work, the staff and governors work incredibly hard and the students are fantastic.”

Ofsted inspector James Sage wrote in his report: “John Mason is a good and improving school which cares for its students exceptionally well.

“The school has an extremely positive ethos which permeates all aspects of its work.”

Melinda Tilley, Oxfordshire County Council cabinet member for schools improvement, added: “It is absolutely fantastic. We are thrilled to bits about it.”

The Wootton Road school is teamed with Larkmead, Fitzharrys and Abingdon & Witney College in a sixth-form consortium.

Those three are rated ‘satisfactory’.

Larkmead headteacher Chris Harris said: “We technically have the potential to have three outstanding schools in the near future.”

Fitzharrys headteacher Jonathan Dennett added: “There is a real buzz about education in Abingdon.”