A school that “transforms the lives of its students” has received outstanding praise from government education inspectors.

Ofsted inspectors visited Chessbrook Education Support Centre, in Tolpits Lane, Watford, for two days in November this year.

The school provides full time education for students who have been permanently excluded or referred by their own school. It also offers an outreach programme to pupils in Watford, Three Rivers and Hertsmere.

In his report, Martyn Groucutt said it was an “outstanding” centre that is “able to provide personally-tailored courses of study to address the needs of all its students”.

He said: “They [pupils] arrive at the centre with a history of broken education and a sense of frustration because of repeated failure.

“When students leave virtually all remain in education or training, or enter employment. It is remarkable to see students who could not previously remain in mainstream schools working calmly, behaving impeccably and demonstrating care and consideration to other students and staff.”

Headteacher Sue Howe was praised for her “visionary and focussed leadership”, while teachers and other staff were considered to be “extremely dedicated and talented”.

Mr Groucutt added: “Leaders and managers all show total commitment to the transformation of the lives of the students with whom they work, as do all staff in the centre. They engage with students at every opportunity and build extremely strong relationships, providing very positive role models.

“At the heart of everything lies outstanding care, guidance and support for every student.”

Chessbrook works with children and teenagers with, most commonly, behaviour and attendance problems in 11 secondary schools and 70 primary schools in three boroughs in south-west Hertfordshire.

Outreach staff work with five to 11-year-olds at their own school and occasionally on site with the children's parents. Eleven to 16-year-olds, however, can choose to study at Chessbrook full-time if they wish and some take their GCSE exams.

Last summer students received the school's best ever GCSE results and of 34 leavers, all bar two had gone into employment or further education.

Mrs Howe said: “We were really thrilled that the work we do has been recognised. It's a really fair and accurate reflection of what we do. Chessbrook, over the years, has had a massive impact on lots of young people and their families.

“What we want to do is keep students in mainstream schools because there's more opportunities available to them, particularly when it comes to GCSEs. For some young people, it just doesn't work. If there's no other option, they come here for full-time provision.

“We tell them it's a massive privilege to come here because if they buy into what we're offering and move on from the issues they had at school, it's a fantastic opportunity for them.

“Schools play their part. We cannot do this on our own. We get involved with them as soon as the school has a problem because we don't want young people to come here. We want them to stay at school. It's a better deal for them.”

Mrs Howe, who has been at the school for five years, said she now hoped Chessbrook would continue its work and ensure the number of students expelled is kept to a minimum.

She said: “We try not to have any permanent exclusions. Numbers in the area have dropped to zero because of the work we do with schools.

“Our real aim is to get much more involved at a much earlier stage so we really have very few young people needing full-time provision with us. The earlier we can do it, the more likely we are to be successful.

“We're very strict. There are more teachers here than students so we always have the upper hand and we have very high expectations.”