GCSE results published by Hampshire County Council today show a real success story at Hamble Sports College, which enjoyed a meteoric rise up the rankings after its first year of specialist status.

The Satchell Lane school turned in the best set of results on record to bump up its performance from 48 per cent of youngsters getting five or more A*-C grades to 70 per cent. That's a hefty rise of 22 per cent and a real boost for the school and its staff.

Head teacher Ian Knights is chuffed to bits.

"We were really delighted," he said. "We were very quietly optimistic that we would do well but we weren't going to broadcast it in case we didn't.

"They were an outstanding year group, a really nice group and they lived up to that."

He puts the jump up the table down to finally getting rid of crumbling temporary classrooms and the switch to specialist status.

"We have been doing a lot of work on teaching and learning and we set ambitious targets for departments. Some of them had moved into new accommodation from damp temporary classrooms and they showed a real improvement in results.

"The history department moved into a new block and the results were outstanding. It also coincides with our first year as a sports college and I'm sure that made a difference as well."

See today's Daily Echo for the Hampshire schools GCSE table.