THE headteacher of a school taken out of special measures has said the school was now on course to become outstanding.

Dashwood Primary School in Banbury was put into special measures in November 2007 after being rated as inadequate.

A recent visit by Ofsted inspectors said: “Dashwood Primary School is improving rapidly and now offers a satisfactory education for pupils.

“The joint headteachers are strong leaders and have given the school renewed purpose and direction.

“They have systematically tackled all the issues that required improvement.”

Joint headteachers Vicki McLean and Louise McGinty were installed to turn the school’s fortunes round.

Mrs McGinty said key to the school’s success was staff working together as a team.

She said: “We have a team we have built on and nurtured and developed and they really have changed and grown.

“What this means for the children is we now have consistently good teaching across the school, good leadership and good management.

“We still have to continue to raise standards, it is not a done deal, but we think we can be an outstanding school and that is what we are going to strive for.”

Dashwood was the only school where Oxfordshire County Council had ever taken out the existing governing body and installed an interim executive board.

County Hall is now looking to do the same thing at St Christopher’s Primary School in Cowley, Oxford, after it was placed in special measures in June.

In November 2007, Dashwood Primary School was told it had to improve the effectiveness and impact of its leadership, improve pupils’ achievements, improve pupils’ attitudes and behaviour and address recommendations from a health and safety audit. It was also criticised for not showing the capacity to improve.

The latest Ofsted report said all those issues had been resolved.

Some areas, including the foundation stage, teaching and learning and leadership and management, were rated as good under the guidance of the new, joint headteachers.

County councillor Michael Waine, cabinet member for schools improvement, said: “The county council takes the performance of individual schools very seriously.

“We acted when Dashwood was an underperforming school and the school has now improved sufficiently for Ofsted to remove special measures status.

“I would like to praise the joint headteachers and the whole school community for the co-ordinated and cohesive way they have responded to the situation they were presented with.”