STAFF and students at Evesham and Malvern Hills College say they are delighted with their first Ofsted report.

Inspectors delivered a glowing verdict on the college and its courses after looking into all aspects of the curriculum.

College principal David Blades said: "I am delighted with the report. There were 15 inspectors who were here for a week and it felt as though they were here for a month.

"The staff worked tremendously hard in preparing for inspection and it is great news for the college and the communities that we serve that we have received such a positive outcome."

Top of the form were the college's courses in engineering; sports, leisure and travel; hairdressing and beauty therapy; and humanities, which were all judged to be good.

Even better were its foundation programmes, which the inspectors said were outstanding.

Katie Hunn, president of the college's student union, said: "The inspectors spent a lot of time talking to students about what they like about the college and what they felt could be improved. Students were generally very supportive as this is a good place to study and we are pleased the college got a good report."

Despite the successes, inspectors did say improvements were needed in areas such as retention rates on some courses and achievement rates on work-based training programmes.

Chairman of the board of governors Terry Hartley said: "This is an impressive list of strengths but we will not be resting on our laurels. We believe in aiming for continuous improvement and will be aiming to get an even better report next time round."