RECRUITING teachers from abroad has been a resounding success at Sir William Borlase's Grammar School.

The popular Marlow school has employed three overseas teachers from South Africa, New Zealand and America, after struggling to find qualified teachers at home.

Dr Peter Holding, headteacher at the West Street school, said: "I'm absolutely delighted with the three people we have found. There is certainly no shortfall in the quality of the work."

The school found the teachers independently and did not go through Buckinghamshire's LEA recruiting drive in Canada last year.

Dr Holding added: "This is certainly an indication of how difficult it is to get highly qualified good teachers. There just aren't enough in this country to fill the posts."

One of the teachers has completed the Overseas Teachers Training course, a qualification which verses foreign teachers in the National Curriculum and teaching methods in the UK.

Another of the teachers is on the course and hopes to pass before the end of this term. The third teacher is currently applying to go on the course.

But while Borlase's sung the praise of foreign teachers, Cressex Upper School in High Wycombe branded overseas recruitment a 'spectacular disaster'.

Chairman of the governors Dr Katy Simmons said teachers employed through their overseas recruitment drive had had no commitment and had now left the school.

There are now 80 overseas teachers in the county schools. Buckinghamshire LEA went recruiting in Canada last year and at a meeting of the county council's heads and governors panel last Tuesday, education finance boss Alan Mander said although there had been problems with some overseas staff, the general reaction from headteachers was that eight out of ten of the recruits were proving to be good.