A SCHOOL which was once languishing at the bottom of Barnsley’s league table was celebrating its best ever results by far.

Dearne ALC’s outgoing principal Chris Robinson said she was ‘overjoyed’ by the results announced yesterday. She is leaving to take on leadership work in the North East and new principal Joanne Wilson is taking over.

“What a great final day for me to go out with,” said Chris, who has led the school for five-and-a-half years. When she arrived, it was rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted with ‘notice to improve’.

“When I came here, the results were on the floor, they were shocking,” she said.

“We’ve built, and built, and built. To come from where we were to where we are today is just incredible.

“We’ve brought our results into line with the national data, we’ve basically doubled our results on the old measure when it was based on A* to C.”

When Chris arrived at the school, only 37 per cent of pupils were achieving a grade C or better in maths. Yesterday’s results show 72 per cent have scored the equivalent results of grade 4 or better.

“It’s been a brilliant journey. The Dearne had for some time had this reputation of being some sort of terrible place, but it really is not.

“This is a really good school. We have come such a long way and I could not be happier for all the staff, the parents and most of all the pupils.”

New principal Joanne has been at the school for six years but formally takes over from September.

She said: “One thing we’re particularly proud of is that 20 pupils got the very top grade 9 in a variety of subjects. That puts us in the top two per cent in the country.

“All of year ten have taken their English literature exam this year, a year early, and three of them have got grade 9, which is just incredible.”

Among the school’s top achievers was Tadhg Goodison, who has passed all eight of his subjects. Biology and English language were the very highest grade 9, with the rest all grade 8, equivalent to the old A or A*. His lowest grade was a 7 for English literature - equivalent to an old A, but he took that a year early last year.

“I’m absolutely over the moon,” said Tadhg. “The exams are not easy, I did put in a lot of work, but it’s paid off.”

He is now enrolling to study A levels at Barnsley Sixth Form College.