AFTER a challenging year, a Bournemouth junior school is celebrating an improved inspection report.

Queen's Park Junior School, East Way, was given notice to improve by Ofsted but a recent inspection has lifted the notice.

The 379-pupil school in Strouden was given a three out of four rating, or "satisfactory".

Inspectors - and the parents they interviewed - rated the new management its best feature and said it had "galvanised the school".

However there were still pockets of underachievement, particularly in maths.

Head teacher Dominic Sibeth said: "We were confident that we would come out of notice to improve.

"Our results had improved, our value added scores had improved and we are poised to move forward.

"But it was a relief for the inspectors to have vindicated everything that we feel and to say the school has moved forward."

He said the school has invested in staff training, reorganised the management structure, improved special needs provision and redesigned the curriculum.

Behaviour and teaching have also improved - the latter was slammed in the January 2007 inspection as "inadequate" and "dull".

Today it is said to be "satisfactory" with good features.

The inspectors' recommendations for future improvements stress targeting the underachieving pupils and setting targets for all pupils, and making sure they reach them.

Inspector Michael Burghard said when children join the school they are achieving slightly better than the average, but an above-average proportion of pupils have learning difficulties.