After a North-East school recorded some of the worst GCSE results in the country last year, pupils and staff thought it had been renamed "Troubled Eastbourne School". But one year on, it is celebrating a huge step in the right direction. Owen Amos reports.

TYPE the words "Eastbourne School" into The Northern Echo's electronic archive and the message is clear.

In the past year, adjectives referring to the Darlington school have included "embattled", "struggling", "troubled" - even "battle-damaged". There is now another: "successful".

Forty four per cent of Eastbourne pupils gained the benchmark five A* to C GCSEs, a record for the school. Last year, it was only 19 per cent.

Last summer, Elaine Richardson, became the school's sixth headteacher since 2002. Although she, too, is leaving - for an advisory role with Darlington Borough Council - she is "absolutely delighted" with the turnaround.

"When the headline read 'Worst school in the country', it was discouraging," Mrs Richardson said yesterday.

"Pupils were coming in saying 'Well this is the worst school in the country'. It became even more of a challenge."

Mrs Richardson attributes Eastbourne's revival to a number of factors, not least the hard work of pupils.

"It is testament to the hard work of everyone involved in the school," she said.

"When we downloaded the results, it was exciting. It was what we thought, but you never know for sure until they come out.

"We thought we'd get over 40 per cent, but by how much we didn't know. There has been a lot of hard work by the staff.

"We have restructured the leadership, restructured support teams. We have mentoring, and opened the school after-hours and at holidays for classes and help with coursework.

"The departments have really worked hard to keep on top of things. It's been a real team effort."

Eastbourne will become an academy next month, while staying in the same building. A new £20m school is being built off Yarm Road, sponsored by the Church of England and David and Anne Crossland, founders of the holiday company Airtours.

Alison Appleyard, deputy headteacher of Ian Ramsey CE School, in Fairfield, Essex, will replace Mrs Richardson, who becomes council advisory headteacher for school improvement.

"I was offered a job by the academy, but I chose to move on," Mrs Richardson said. "The move and the academy have given us a lot of things to deal with - which makes it even more amazing what we have achieved."

Darlington MP Alan Milburn has written a letter to congratulate Ms Richardson.

He said: "I wanted to congratulate students, staff and governors. It is good to see it moving fast in the right direction.

"I hope the academy is future good news for the school and the community."