BEING able to write a load of old nonsense might not sound like an obvious indicator of educational excellence.

But when Ofsted inspectors visited Heavers Farm Primary, in South Norwood, they found all the gibberish and gobbledygook far from unintelligible.

They described the work of one year 6 class, based on Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky, as "outstanding" and a perfect example of the improvement made by a school which has now been rated as "good" by Ofsted.

The lesson involved year 6 pupils creating their own version of Carroll's famous nonsense verse from the 1872 novel Through The Looking-Glass.

The poem, usually taught to year 7 students, is full of whimsical words like "mimsy", "gyre" and "gimble" and is widely regarded as one of the finest of its kind.

Head teacher Susan Papas said: "I sat in the observation with the lead inspector and was impressed with how the children were able to engage with work which was outside their experience.

"It's quite an advanced piece of work, which involved creating adjectives, performing poems and posting them on the class blog.

"It's a good example of our emphasis on technology and the progress we've made."

The Ofsted report, published a fortnight after the school moved from 66th to fourth place in Croydon's Key Stage 2 league tables, found Heavers Farm had made "substantial improvements" to the quality of teaching since its last inspection in 2009, when it was judged "satisfactory".

Inspectors said the best lessons were "fast-moving, engaging and generated high levels of motivation".

Ms Papas credited the improvement to regular monitoring of teacher performance.

She said: "We hold progress meetings to make sure pupils are where they are supposed to be in reading, writing and maths. If they aren't, the teachers are accountable."

Behaviour was cited as another area of improvement, including a "significant" reduction in exclusions.

Ms Papas said: "We have done a huge amount of work on behaviour. It's never been an easy school and when I arrived it was in a very bad place.

"We're an inner-city school so our pupils have some quite challenging circumstances.

"They come to us with the whole package of needs and have often experienced complex problems at home. A lot of our children have not had an easy life so we want the school to be a safe and fun place for them.

"But they have also had to build social skills and take responsibility for their actions."

While the report was overwhelmingly positive, inspectors did point out that teaching at Key Stage 1 was weaker than standards seen later in the school.

Ms Papas said: "I actually thought the action points were quite positive because they were issues we had already identified and taken steps to address.

"When the inspectors left they said we are a well on the way to being an outstanding school."