The leadership and management at Audlem school

Over recent days, AudlemOnline has been publishing sections of the recent Ofsted report on Audlem school.

Today we conclude with the final area of assessment, 'The leadership and management' which inspectors rated as outstanding: This is what they said:

• The headteacher's leadership has had an enormous impact on the school's rapidly improved performance.
• In the relatively short time since her appointment, she has taken the skills and expertise of senior leaders, teachers and governors to a higher level and gathered around her a team whose only focus is to continue to improve on what they do.
• Since the previous inspection, all staff and governors have fully, and successfully, embraced both local authority help and that of external consultants to improve teaching and pupils' progress. The local authority now has every confidence that the school's leaders can continue to manage further improvements on their own.
• Excellent management of teachers' performance, driven by the headteacher's determination to tackle the underachievement from before her time here, has paid off.
• Successful new appointments, training to improve subject knowledge and skills, very robust checking of teachers' work and systems for teachers to reflect on and share ideas about their own teaching have significantly improved the quality of teaching and learning. Confidence levels are high and teachers know what is now expected of them. All are fully committed to raising the quality of their work to outstanding.
• Middle leaders in charge of subjects make an excellent contribution to school improvement. Their very good subject knowledge and capacity for teamwork ensure that there is an enjoyable and challenging curriculum that helps pupils to achieve well. Enrichment through clubs, residential and non-residential visits and themed weeks that have a particular curriculum focus are strong features.
• The use of the primary sport funding is enhancing pupils' chances for active outdoor learning and physical education effectively. Teachers are currently improving their skills through training and there are longer-term plans to extend the range of activities for pupils in order to further improve their health and physical well-being.

The governance of the school:

• Governors are highly ambitious for the school and are fully aware of how good it can become. Their very accurate analysis of school and national assessment data gives them a clear picture of the school's progress. Rigorous training has raised their understanding of school leadership and management to new levels and equipped governors well to challenge and support the school very effectively.

With school leaders, teaching and learning is high on the governors' agenda. They have contributed very well to its improvement and understand how advancement in teachers' salaries is underpinned by their performance in the classroom.

• Governors actively check the school's performance with the headteacher and staff. They focus especially on the impact of pupil premium spending to make sure that there is equality of opportunity for all pupils and that any gaps between the achievement of groups are closed. Governors are watchful, also, over the use of sport funding and the benefits that it brings for pupils. Statutory duties are fulfilled efficiently. All policies are reviewed and updated regularly and safeguarding procedures meet all of the government's requirements.

You can access the entire report by clicking on the PDF File beneath the photo.

Tomorrow, we will be publishing our normal 'News from the School' – excerpts from the school's weekly newsletter – which we have delayed by a couple of days while we focussed on the very important Ofsted report.

This article is from our news archive. As a result pictures or videos originally associated with it may have been removed and some of the content may no longer be accurate or relevant.