STAFF and students at Minehead's West Somerset Community College have been celebrating the school's latest Ofsted report which billed it as "a good school" with a "significant number of outstanding features". Inspectors heaped praise on the college, highlighting above average academic achievements, good and outstanding levels of teaching and effective and outstanding leadership. Lead inspector Anne Looney said: "Behaviour is good, relationships are strong and learners are aware of their broader responsibilities. "Classroom teaching is good overall with some of it outstanding. "The college is determined to continually improve the quality of teaching and supports all teachers well to help them develop their teaching expertise. "The principal and his leadership team provide outstanding leadership, giving a clear direction for improvement." She said the college was strongly committed to keeping its students safe and to prevent bullying and promote good behaviour. Pupils made good progress, with achievement in maths and science at the end of year nine and in GCSE English being particularly good. The sixth form was also deemed to be good with some outstanding aspects, while sixth-formers had good leadership skills and contributed well to the local community. The Ofsted report said: "Achievement is good because of the quality of the teaching and the good attitudes to work on the part of the majority of the learners. "Students with learning difficulties and disabilities make good progress because their needs are clearly identified and because of the quality of support they receive. "Specialist status has had a positive impact on standards in technology, science and mathematics, information and communication technology and in other subject areas. "Teachers set clear objectives for lessons and plan for a variety of well sequenced activities which motivate and engage learners." The college was praised for the "first rate" quality of care given to students and said pupils' social and moral development was a real strength. There was praise too for principal Nick Swann and the college's "effective governing body". The report said: "The college is managed efficiently and effectively on a day to day basis. "Teachers share the vision of the senior leadership team but there are still improvements to be made in the way that middle managers put that vision into practice by ensuring consistently good teaching linked to good achievement." The college's systems for monitoring, evaluating and improving teaching were "outstanding", while significant improvements had been made since the last inspection in 2000. Mrs Looney said the college had "outstanding capacity to improve" further and recommended more was done to enable students to understand the levels at which they were working and what they needed to do to improve. Chairman of governors Martin McNeill said the inspection backed up what many already knew. "Teachers and support staff, united behind strong leadership, are delivering an impressively high quality of education to the young people of West Somerset. "We are delighted that the inspectors have recognised the tremendous strengths of the college," he said. Principal Mr Swann said plans were already in place to further improve standards at the college to enable students to achieve excellence across the board. He said: "This glowing report is recognition of all the hard work which has put the college into such a strong position. "We are proud of our students and we will do everything we can to keep improving our support for them." Photo: Steve Guscott.