The headteacher of a primary school which parents campaigned to prevent becoming an academy due to previous failings has been praised by Ofsted for guiding it out of special measures.

Ofsted announced yesterday that Snaresbrook Primary School, in Meadow Walk, South Woodford, had made drastic improvement since July last year.

The Ofsted report rated the school ‘good’ and praised executive headteacher Carel Buxton for raising standards.

It said: “The pace of change to improve the school’s ethos and environment, implement and develop a new vision on school improvement has been rapid.

“The outstanding leadership of the executive headteacher has led to a quick turnaround for the school.

“Consequently, morale is very high and the passion for moving the school forward is strong.

“The executive headteacher has been relentless in marshalling and developing a wide range of systems and structures to build capacity among all staff, raise and sustain standards of attainment.

“As a result of taking bold steps, within one school year, results were high and the rate of pupils’ progress was good, with evidence of a small minority of pupils performing exceptionally well."

Ms Buxton is headteacher of Redbridge primary school, in Ilford, but has been acting as executive headteacher of Snaresbrook since January.

Responding to the news, she said: "The report very much reveals the quality of the team we have here.

“The teamwork has been great and I am proud of all the staff, and we have had amazing support from parents.

“It is one of our duties in Redbridge to help out other schools, but now the school deserves its own head.”

In the Ofsted report in July last year, the school was rated 'inadequate' in every category, including in the levels of achievement and progress made by pupils.

The school looked set to be taken out of local authority control and turned into an academy after being placed in special measures.

But parents and Redbridge council campaigned against the move, arguing measures were already in place to address the problems.

The proposal was then dropped and in December after the school registered the fourth most improved test results in the borough.

An Ofsted report in June said improvements had been sustained and yesterday it received a ‘good’ score.