Staff, students and parents were celebrating this week after receiving confirmation that St Edmund’s Catholic School is out of special measures.

It follows the school’s religious education inspection report, which has graded the school as good after it was placed in special measures 18 months ago.

Since then it has undergone three monitoring inspections, from October last year to May this year, where improvement was recorded each time.

Other noticeable improvements stem from the school’s GCSE results this year, which are the best it has ever had.

It is now the best non-selective school in the district, enticing students to attend from as far afield as Deal, Sandwich and Folkestone.

HMI inspector Robert Hammerton told the school’s leadership team that: “It was a big step to have come out of special measures in this amount of time.”

Head teacher Catrina Hamilton said: “It has been a team effort and I’m really grateful to the outside agencies who have given us their support.

“I would especially like to thank the local authority, everyone at St Thomas More and the Education Commission.

“We are extremely pleased with this result, but the hard work continues as we strive for excellence for all our students.”

The school has been partnering with St Thomas More in Eltham – a school with religious ethics which has been rated as outstanding and is in the top 100 most improved schools in the country.

The school has said that since the partnership began there have been improvements in the quality of teaching, a new uniform, and a commitment to raising the aspirations and expectations of the students.

Head girl Amber Sharpe said: “The staff are listening to our ideas. We have a new prefect system. All of the students attended our recent open evening to show parents and visitors our school.

“We have set up a student council.

“It is a great way of bringing up lots of issues, which I then brought to the Senior Leadership Team – and they have acted on things really quickly.”

A full report will be released in the next couple of weeks.