OFSTED Interim Visit November 2020
Dear Parent/Carer,
I hope that you are well in these continuing challenging times. I am writing to inform you that the OFSTED letter from our interim visit in November 2020 is now available on our website, and will be published on the OFSTED website in the coming days.
Although we were delighted to physically welcome the OFSTED team to The Edge in November, you will probably recall that the interim visit they carried out was not an inspection. The visit was one of 1,200 carried out in the Autumn Term, and the information from it will feed into OFSTED’s national reporting so that the insights can be shared with the government and the education sector.
As a result, you will see that the letter does not make any judgements of any kind and focuses very tightly on the facts around students’ return to school on a full-time basis since September 2020.
The letter does make the observation that “attendance is a little lower than this is usual for this time of year”. I am sure you are aware that this is very much the case across the country, with the latest figures released showing that last Thursday, 22% of all students in secondary schools were absent, and that in the last fortnight, some students were being sent home in 75% of schools.
As you know, we are very proud to have remained open at all times since the start of the pandemic, and fully open on a full-time basis for all students since September. Our attendance is currently 79%, broadly in line with the 81% we achieved in 2019/20 prior to lockdown, and an impressive 24% above students’ home school attendance prior to joining us at The Edge. Furthermore, I would like to thank you all for your fantastic efforts in supporting attendance in Autumn Half-Term 2. This half-term, attendance is currently at 80%, 2% up from attendance in Autumn Half-Term 1, and last week’s attendance of 83% was the second highest weekly attendance of 2020/21 so far.
We will continue as we always to do to aim to be the “welcoming, stable and friendly place” that our students need, and will be relentless in the pursuit of our ambition to become the best Alternative Provision school in Birmingham.
As always, please also feel free to contact me directly at [email protected] if you have any further questions regarding this letter.
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Wakefield
Principal