A HEADTEACHER has been praised by education inspectors for encouraging students to be the “best they can be”, in a report of her school.

In the Ofsted inspection published this week, Bishop Challoner Catholic Collegiate School, which runs both the girls and the boys schools and a joint sixth form in Commercial Road, Shadwell, was scored as “good”.

In a 2008 report, the overall standards of the school were also deemed to be good.

Jackie Johnson, who took over from Catherine Myers in September had an “unrelenting focus on standards”, the inspection said.

It went on: “In the short time since her appointment, there have been significant improvements in the quality of teaching and learning.”

Ms Johnson said: “I am delighted with the recent evidence of significant improvements that the inspectors identified.

“I am particularly encouraged with their comments about our capacity to make further improvements.”

Examination results in English have “rapidly improved”, the inspection added.

In a 2009 report, inspectors said the school needed to focus on speeding up the development of students’ English skills, particularly for those who have English as an additional language.

Last year the school completed its �47 million new ‘learning village’ annex.

The school was praised for making sure the disruption to students’ studies during the building works was minimal.

GCSE results have shown an improvement, with the boys school achieving its best-ever results last year.

The girls’ performance dipped in 2009 but improved again last year.

In 2001 Bishop Challoner became Britain’s first federated school, with separate boys, girls and sixth form schools all run under the same leadership.