TEACHING standards are rising in classrooms across Redcar and Cleveland, according to Government inspectors.

The high levels of satisfactory, good, very good and excellent teaching from ten Ofsted reports conducted on primary and secondary schools during the autumn term reflects an overall improvement.

Patrick Scott, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council's director of education, said: "High-quality teaching is the key to raising standards. This is particularly evident in the teaching of literacy and numeracy in primary schools.

"In the three secondary schools inspected, more than 94 per cent of teaching was satisfactory across all subjects, and a high percentage were deemed to be good, very good or excellent.

"All schools received reports that were, at least, satisfactory with a judgement that strengths outweighed weaknesses. All of the schools were considered to be providing good or very good value."

Three schools - Zetland Primary, at Redcar; Whitecliffe Primary, at Carlin How; and West Redcar Secondary - have shown significant improvement.

Two schools - St Joseph's, at Loftus, and Skelton Junior - achieved outstanding reports.