HELMSLEY Primary School is celebrating a "good" Ofsted report - two years after it was rated as requiring improvement.

The school was inspected in September, just two months after becoming a founding member of the Ryedale Federation of Schools and was rated good in all areas.

This is a significant improvement from the "requires improvement" overall judgement at the school's previous inspection in July 2014.

Lead inspector Karen Heath said in the report that children respect and celebrate each other's differences.

"The children understand and talk about the fact that people hold different views, have a different culture or religion and that these should be respected. They are well prepared to develop into good citizens in a tolerant and diverse Britain," she said.

"As a result, outcomes for pupils and the quality of teaching are now good."

Pupils' attainment has improved year-on-year in all subjects, where comparable, and in 2016 were the best they have been for at least four years, the report states.

The vast majority of children make at least good progress, this is a result of good teaching and learning across the school.

Other areas praised include the new EYFS Unit which has recently opened.

The newly-formed Ryedale Federation, which includes Ryedale School, along with Kirkbymoorside, Sinnington and Helmsley primary schools, was also praised and played a significant part in the school achieving its "good" judgement.

Headteacher Tim Hiley said: "This was an excellent endorsement of the decision to become part of a federation of local schools where the expertise of an executive leadership team and the support of other primary colleagues gives Helmsley increased capacity to improve further.

"We are absolutely delighted with the overall judgement. Staff and parents were understandably very disappointed with our previous report and we have worked extremely hard over the last two years to address the areas for improvement that were identified in the last inspection.

"There are so many positive aspects to this report which confirm all members of the school community have played their part in our success. I would particularly like to highlight the skill, determination and resilience of the staff and the good behaviour and positive attitudes of our children.

"We are determined to build on our success to become an outstanding school and we are looking forward to working with the children, staff, parents and our Federation partners to achieve this.”