ONE of the South's most successful headteachers has quit, blaming stress and increasing work pressures as factors.

Brian Pain's shock resignation comes three years after he launched as fightback from a damning government report which brought Millbrook Community School, Southampton, to the brink of closure.

His punishing workload has involved coping with an expanding school roll and reversing a climate of failure.

Mr Pain will leave this summer with no job to go to, but he is exploring a number of options including another headship.

He said: "I have been thinking about the next stage of my career for some months and have kept the chair of governors and the education authority aware of that.

"I don't feel that I am running out or escaping, but I am ready to move on to pastures new.

"'I would be dishonest if I were to pretend that the stress and pressures of the job have not been a factor."

The news was broken to pupils at an assembly yesterday. One member of staff said colleagues were "stunned".

Mr Pain, former deputy head of Noadswood School, Dibden Purlieu, took over at Millbrook in April 1997, a year after it became the first Hampshire school to fail an inspection by education watchdog Ofsted.

By the following May he had steered it out of the "special measures" category, gaining praise in Ofsted's annual report and personal congratulations from Education Secretary David Blunkett.

The turnaround continued with the opening of a £3.4 million community sports hall and 20-classroom teaching block last September, though last year's GCSE results brought mixed fortunes.

Only 16 per cent of pupils gained five grade Cs or above, the second worst performance in the city, yet 90 per cent passed five or more A to G grades - a 30 per cent improvement on 1996.

Mr Pain said: "I came to do a job at Millbrook and I feel that the initial part has been completed.

"The school has made huge strides forward and is now in a secure position to provide the children with a good quality education.

"What has happened within the school has been the result of staff working well with governors and the local education authority."

An acting head will be recruited for the autumn term, when the school's roll will grow by a further 30 pupils to 580.

Southampton City Council's education director Bob Hogg said a permanent successor appointed by next January. He added that Mr Pain had turned the school into a "vibrant centre in its community".

Governors' chairman Maureen Tremayne also praised Mr Pain's work. She said: "He arrived at a crucial time in the school's history just after the Ofsted report. It was horrendous as we were also in the middle of a major building project. We are very grateful to him. What he has done since then represents a huge achievement."

Schools minister Charles Clarke hinted at the stresses on Mr Pain when he officially opened the sports hall and teaching block last September.

He said: "Millbrook has a hard history to deal with. A bad Ofsted is harrowing and distressing in the extreme. It makes everyone feel they've failed."

Mr Pain's resignation comes less than a week after Wilf Matos, a chemistry teacher at Rebridge Community School, told David Blunkett in person at a teaching conference that he was quitting due to stress and impossible workloads.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.