10:40am Friday 28th May 2010
Skipton’s Aireville School has been praised by Ofsted as rapidly improving with inspiring leadership.
The school, which four years ago was in special measures, was graded satisfactory – but with good capacity to make further improvements.
The students’ growing enjoyment of the school had been reflected in increased attendance and an improvement in their behaviour, said the Ofsted report.
Headteacher Mark O’Neill, who took over in January last year, was singled out as an “inspiring” head with high expectations of his staff and pupils. “The headteacher’s high expectations and drive are energising staff and securing improvements in key areas,” said HM inspector Jean Kendall.
Mr O’Neill was well supported by his senior leadership team and had put in place targets for staff and students that were “ambitious and challenging”.
“Some of the ambitious attainment targets for students at Key Stage 4 have already been exceeded, illustrating the school’s progress and the quality of provision, and provide intervention and support where needed,” said Ms Kendall in her report.
“Staff share the leaders’ ambition to continue to raise standards and secure consistently good provision across the whole school.”
The school received “satisfactory” grades across the board, apart from its capacity for sustained improvement, for which it received a “good”.
Areas where improvement was needed included developing the Key Stage 3 curriculum and better relations with parents, carers and the community.
Mr O’Neill said it was unfortunate the inspection was not a few months later.
“Change takes time, but results improved dramatically last year and we are looking for similar improvements with very good achievement across the board and a significant improvement in the number of students achieving five or more A* to C GCSEs, including English and maths,” he said.
“Indeed, the inspectors felt that, had they come a few months later, they would have graded the school as ‘good’.”
Mr O’Neill now plans to match the lower school curriculum with the “rich and personalised curriculum” developed in the upper school.
He also plans to improve opportunities for students to learn in the community and work more closely with parents.
“I am pleased Ofsted recognised that the hard work and rapid improvement are resulting in growing achievement across the board for all our students and that we now have a solid foundation for further, sustainable improvement,” he said.
“I am happy that the report reflects our motto of ‘Success for You’ in achievement in all of its forms for all of our young people and we will now continue to develop the school as an exciting and supportive environment in which to learn.”
County councillor Jim Clark, North Yorkshire’s executive member for schools, said: “Aireville is achieving huge success under its new dynamic headteacher.”
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