Headteacher Steve Evans has just had the first year at Rastrick High that other school leaders dream of.

And he cannot wait for the new term to start next week.

GCSE successes have shot up 11% in 12 months, propelling the school from the bottom half of the Calderdale league table to second for non-selective schools.

Its 72% pass rate is just 1% behind neighbours Brighouse High. And Rastrick has also just recorded its best-ever A level results.

The leap through the league tables is due in no small measure to new methods introduced by the new head - coupled with a lot of hard work from teachers and students.

Father-of-one Steve, 41, was brought up in the coal mining valleys of South Wales, where he quickly realised that if you wanted to make something of yourself, you had to be competitive

He set himself goals on the rugby pitch and in the classroom, and successfully fulfilled his dream of going to university.

The rugby-playing design technology teacher arrived in West Yorkshire to teach at Hipperholme and Lightcliffe High School, then Grange Technology College in Bradford.

He moved up the leadership ladder and was senior vice principal at Trinity Academy, Halifax, before taking up his first headship at Rastrick last September. With 1,440 pupils - 40% of them from Kirklees - Rastrick High School was a big step and a challenge which Steve relished.

He said: “I saw Rastrick as a sleeping giant and thought that the school’s potential was excellent. I felt the school needed a bit more edge in terms of challenge.”

He introduced higher targets for pupils and staff, weekly training sessions for all teachers and more rigorous analysis of teaching. Over the last year, he has called in and paid for HMI inspectors to visit the school three times to judge the quality of teaching and leadership, in order to drive forward improvements.

Alongside middle and senior leaders, they have observed over 200 lessons, creating a uniformity of standards and assessments across the school.

The benefits have been clear to see, not only in this year’s exam results, but progress right across the year groups has been impressive.

The reaction from the 200 staff has been “overwhelmingly positive” - although around 10% have left.

He said: “I have a very intelligent and articulate group of staff. To improve our GCSE results 11% in one year is remarkable and it’s due to incredible hard work by the staff and students.”

Steve often takes assemblies and speaks to pupils about the need to be competitive in today’s world, all part of the new ethos being created at the school.

The last Ofsted rating was Good in 2010. Another inspection is due and hopes are that the school will be rated as Good with Outstanding features and, after that, Outstanding.

At 270, this year’s intake is 30 more than in previous years, and the Field Top road school will continue to grow by a further 30 pupils every year. There is also a desire to expand the sixth form.

Steve is not content for the school to rest on its laurels: “We have built a fantastic base line to work from. The next step is to achieve even more.

“We have the staff, we have the students and we have excellent support from parents and the community.”