THERE’S a buzz as you walk the corridors of Winton Arts and Media College.

Just over a year ago, in November 2010, it was placed in special measures.

Ofsted inspectors gave the school an “inadequate” grading for its overall effectiveness and the same grade for it’s potential to improve.

They said it was failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and that management, including the governing body, did not have a sufficient focus on improving the quality of teaching.

It raised concerns that GCSE grades had declined significantly with teaching in most subjects “barely satisfactory”.

But the introduction of new headteacher Ben Parnell in September led to huge changes.

The school recently received a glowing Ofsted report, highlighting improvements in leadership and management as “outstanding”.

Ben is, understandably, delighted with the report.

He said: “We got four ‘goods’ and an ‘outstanding’. The ‘outstanding’ was for leadership and management. That’s an area we’ve worked really hard on.

“But the biggest change is we’ve invested heavily in professional development for all staff. Every one of my senior and middle leadership group are on leadership courses and leadership training.

“We’ve done things like look at the physical environment of the school. Every wall has got pictures of students doing the right thing. We’ve got really good examples of students’ work on the walls so we celebrate students’ successes.

“We’ve painted the whole school.”

Ben is also focusing on lesson plans and said the pupils’ behaviour and discipline has improved “significantly”.

“Our exclusion has gone down by almost a half,” he said.

“The emphasis is more on celebrating students’ positive behaviour. We’ve got someone in charge of behaviour and safety and he’s been introduced to make sure that every single situation with regards to bad behaviour is followed through.

“We’ve got an inclusion room, so students that are not getting it right are not part of our community until they can contribute like most of the other students.”

The figures speak for themselves.

“Unhappy schools have issues surrounding attendance,” he said.

“If they see the teaching isn’t good they don’t turn up. Staff who feel the school is not good don’t turn up for work. Since September our staff attendance is 97 per cent. Student attendance is 95.6 per cent.”

Those figures mean there are now an additional 12 or 13 students per day in school than there were previously.

Of course, there are still more improvements to be made.

Ben said this term he will be focusing on punctuality and the way in which the school works with its support staff.

Ben worked for a private troubleshooting company before coming to Winton, but said he loved the 797-pupil school’s team spirit.