Dear Parent/Carer,
I am pleased to write to you to share details of our OFSTED monitoring visit in February. The full monitoring report is now published on our website and will also be published over the course of the coming days on the OFSTED website.
The key headline from the report is the judgement that “leaders and those responsible for governance are taking effective action to provide education in the current circumstances.” You will probably recall that here “the current circumstances” refer to the lockdown restrictions imposed nationally in January 2021; although 91% of all of our students continued to attend school between January and March, at the time of the visit we were running a “blended learning” programme prior to the fuller reopening of school which began on March 8th. The visit was therefore not a full inspection and had a narrower focus than it normally would have.
The report confirms that:
- “leaders have made sensible decisions about adapting the curriculum in the current circumstances”
- “teachers have a detailed overview of what education pupils have received both remotely and at school…they are using this information to plan the curriculum carefully for when all pupils are on site to ensure that any learning that was missed is covered in school”
As you are no doubt aware, I am in my third year as Principal and The Edge has been transformed since its last full inspection in 2018, reflected in the fact that we are now an oversubscribed school. Our continuing momentum is thanks to the relentless hard work of the whole team of staff and the support we receive from our governing body as well as yourselves- it is therefore particularly pleasing that a range of improvement is recognised in the report, which notes that:
- “leaders responsible for special educational needs and pastoral support have a strong understanding of pupils’ additional needs. As well as additional academic support, leaders have ensured that pupils have access to a range of support to meet their social, emotional and mental health needs”
- “leaders place a high priority on reading. There is a structured approach to the teaching of phonics and pupils have reading books matched to the sounds they are learning”
- “governors have a detailed understanding of how leaders have planned and delivered remote education and have maintained an oversight of this throughout the third lockdown. They scrutinise the information which leaders provide and challenge them effectively to ensure that their actions are continuing to improve the school”
We fully accept all findings of the report and are moving quickly on addressing the areas for development raised around further refining our curriculum, particularly the development of ICT.
We will continue to work tirelessly on our journey towards becoming a “good” school that teaches our fantastic students how to be “Safe, Ready and Respectful”. Once more, I would like to thank you all for your continued support. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions regarding this letter, my direct e-mail is [email protected].
Yours faithfully,
Andrew Wakefield
Principal