IMPROVED exam results and smaller classes are being targeted by a crisis-hit Kidderminster school's new "super head".

David Seddon, who has made a career out of bringing schools back from the brink, also said he would endeavour to attract more youngsters to the former Harry Cheshire High.

Mr Seddon, 51, said he saw "great potential" in the 470 pupils currently at the school but said it would take time to shake off the establishment's negative image.

The former Kidderminster Harriers player, who has lived in the West Midlands for 28 years, said: "The local populace has got this idea about Baxter being an under-achieving school.

"We have to arrest that slide and create something which we can build on for the future."

First on the agenda, said Mr Seddon, was the recruitment of more teachers to cut class sizes from 37 to 24 by the beginning of the September term.

The school is three full-time teachers away from a full staff, he added.

Mr Seddon said he would also strive to double exam results for GCSE pupils by 2005 - helping to attract more parents towards enrolling their children at the school.

The pass rate for five GCSEs at A-C level is currently 17 per cent.

Mr Seddon said he acknowledged the work which would need to be done - Baxter College was named as the first under-achieving school in Worcestershire in a 2001 Ofsted report - but said the school had "limitless potential".

He said: "There are a lot of things here to build on that I didn't have at my last school."

The Rochdale-born former PE teacher has come from Wodensborough Community Technology College in Sandwell, where he had a major impact.

During his 11 years in charge, intake trebled, and the number of pupils getting five or more A-C grades at GCSE went up five-fold.

Mr Seddon who played for the Harriers between 1979 and 1981 had been recruited via The Three Es, a firm employed to transform the fortunes of schools and to find "super heads" to do the job.

He said: "There is nothing I can't face that I haven't faced before. I feel that things are getting better here all the time. I want to make sure that kids in Kidderminster get a fair crack."