ASH Hill Primary School has good reason to be cheerful following its latest Ofsted report.

Inspectors said the school, in Herbert Road, High Wycombe, had serious weaknesses when they visited two years ago.

But their latest report is full of praise for what the school has done since, under headteacher Barbara Ridyard.

Mrs Ridyard said she hoped the report would encourage parents, who had chosen to send their children to other schools further away, to return to Ash Hill. The school, which until last September was called Micklefield Primary School, has room for 210 children but takes only 173.

The last Ofsted report said the school had many weaknesses in the way it was managed and the quality of its teaching. Both have now improved, according to the inspectors.

This doesn't mean the children are now top of the national league tables. Standards are still below the national average in English and maths, though science results are close to the national average.

However, all three areas have improved and those in English and science are better than improvements nationally.

Mrs Ridyard said since the last report the school had had a lot of help with staff training and had done its own evaluation. She said: "It was down to us to prove that the group of teachers was as good here as anywhere else."

Most of the children at Ash Hill come from rented homes. Some families are in temporary accommodation, so the children may not stay long at the school, while there are also children from refugee families. Many children don't have English as their first language and many are on the special needs register.

Hardly any children will have been to a playgroup or nursery before starting school, and when they start at Ash Hill at four their attainment is well below what it should be.

However thanks to the good quality of leadership and teaching they are now progressing well by the time they leave at 11.

Mrs Ridyard changed the system when she arrived in September 1997, so that children start at four, which helps to make up for the lack of pre-school education. But she would like to set up a proper nursery class at the school.