STAFF and pupils from St Cuthberts RC Community High School are celebrating after being named as one of the nation's top 100 improving schools between 1994 and 1997.

Since 1994 the community high school has improved its number of A- C pass grades at GCSE by 17 per cent.

The latest results were announced by Education Secretary David Blunkett this week. He said: "For the first time performance tables now show how schools have improved over the past three years - giving parents at a glance information on what their child's school has achieved. This is an important start to ensuring that performance tables give parents as much useful information as possible and is the first step in providing tables with an element of value added."

St Cuthbert's Headteacher Rod Irving said: "We are delighted to see the hard work of our staff, pupils and parents receive the recognition nationally that we feel they deserve.

"Although academic success is always rewarding. We are equally proud of the quality of relationships in the school, without which such sustained achievement would not have been possible.

"We feel our children deserve the highest credit for their pleasant, mature and hard-working approach to all they undertake, inside and outside the classroom. They are a credit to the school, their families and the community."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.