Despair at TLA

What a loss of a brilliant headteacher, a devoted group of experienced and skilled governors followed by the resignation of a Woodard Trustee.

I had the privilege of working as business manager under Steve Jewell during his 12 years as headteacher at St Andrew’s C of E High School.

He was a fantastic head – extremely gifted, fair, incredibly hard working and always on top of what was going on in his school.

He turned the school from one that had declined quite dramatically in numbers to one that was oversubscribed.

I am aware the school had an Ofsted inspection a matter of days before the end of the Christmas term.

I am also aware their GCSE exam results rose overall to 67 per cent but dipped to 43 per cent when including Maths and English which, according to the Government’s education reforms issued last week, is above the floor level of 40% which was raised from 35% last year and I quote ‘with hundreds more schools meeting tougher targets’.

It is very sad if Ofsted have judged them on this and not on the whole picture.

One would also question if Ofsted could get a true picture of a school six days before the start of the Christmas holidays.

The summary of the TLA improvement plan on its website outlines various strategies which were in place by the start of the September to address improvements and are worth reading.

I would also draw attention to another local academy that was inspected in November this year and received an Ofsted ‘good’ despite having only 37 per cent of students achieving five or more GCSEs including maths and English.

There appears to be some inconsistencies in the Ofsted gradings and indeed this seems to be a current topic in the press.

I would also question where is the Woodard Academies Trust in all this?

Their track record with the five academies is not good.

Is anyone actually inspecting them and are they being held accountable?

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate what a loss to TLA and to the education world of a devoted and caring headteacher, governors and Woodard trustee.

Joan Saunders

Angus Road

Worthing

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