DANIEL Gee certainly appears to relish a challenge.

Just a year after taking over the Ramsey Academy, in Halstead, in 2012 he had transformed the failing secondary school into one which was rated good by Ofsted.

He now looks set to repeat his success at the Bromfords School, in Wickford.

Mr Gee started his new role as headteacher of the school, in Grange Avenue, at the beginning of term – just six months after Bromfords was placed in special measures.

He insisted: “I had no intention of moving and was happy at my previous school”.

After the damning Ofsted verdict, education officials at Essex County Council asked Mr Gee to speak to the senior leadership team at Bromfords about the strategies he had used to turn around the Ramsey Academy.

Once he set foot inside Bromfords, he knew the visit would have a huge impact on his life.

Mr Gee said: “I just saw so much potential. The students were polite, friendly and really hard working. When I read the Ofsted report, I felt sick because I just couldn’t believe it.” Ofsted released its findings at the end of March, two months after inspectors visited.

Mr Gee said he could see changes were already being made, and put the problems down to the disruption and instability staff and students at Bromfords faced after the shock resignation of former head Marian Spinks in December.

Despite the school’s troubled year, 60 per cent of GCSE pupils went on to achieve five A* to C grades including maths and English– above the national average and an improvement on Bromfords’ 2013 results.

For the first four weeks of the new school, year the senior leadership have been hosting two parent tours a day, and Mr Gee said feedback proved families have not been put off.

The father-of-two said: “Many parents are very sensible and understand it’s actually the best time to send your children to a school when it has just been placed in special measures because of the amount of support and monitoring it will get.

“As a parent, I know the two main things you are looking for in a school is whether your child will be safe and happy there and whether they will do well.

“We’ve got good exam results to show parents and they can come in and look around for themselves.”

Mr Gee, who commutes from Coggeshall, in north Essex, is keen to show his presence around the school, and patrols corridors and pops into classrooms throughout the day.

During staff training sessions at the end of the summer holidays, teachers joined with Mr Gee to decide what standards could be expected in all lessons and what was considered to equate to quality teaching.

Mr Gee said: “It’s not about having teachers who are robots.

“If you really want change to be meaningful then all the key stakeholders need to be involved.

“We have support and training in place now to enable all our teachers to be as good as they possibly can be.”

Mr Gee, originally from Liverpool, studied at the University of York before settling in Essex.

He worked his way through the ranks at the Thomas Lord Audley School, in Colchester, Plume School, in Maldon, and Notley High School, in Braintree.

Mr Gee said: “I trained as a history teacher and it was simply because I loved working with young people. I find it more straight forward than working with adults because you always know where you stand.

“I’m passionate about teaching and my dream was always to be head at a large school with a sixth form. Bromfords was too good an opportunity for me to pass, and I certainly see myself staying here longterm.”