'Good' rating for Whitworth High School from Ofsted

Whitworth Community High School Headteacher Gillian Middlemas with members of the school council

Whitworth Community High School has been rated 'good' by Ofsted in its latest inspection in December. Inspectors acknowledged the significant improvements in leadership and management, teaching, achievement and behaviour and safety since the school was last inspected in 2013, when it was deemed to 'require improvement'.

Headteacher Gillian Middlemas is commended in the report for her ‘steely determination’ which has secured rapid improvements in all areas, especially teaching and achievement, with the strong support of governors and the shared vision of all leaders.

Ofsted reported that standards are improving at a faster rate than nationally, and in 2014 students attained significantly better results in many subjects than in previous years. The progress of all groups of students is now good, as is teaching over time. Particular mention was made of students developing as confident, mature and articulate young people, who have good opportunities to develop their speaking skills in all lessons, and especially through the popular debating society.

Students are ‘immensely proud' of their school. They ‘talk excitedly about the improvements seen in the school’ and about being listened to, cared for and respected by their teachers and are proud of their school’s enhanced reputation. They consider it to be like a family and wear their uniform with pride’ - with one student commenting: ‘the pride I have in my school and the uniform that I wear makes me walk taller.’ Ofsted praised students’ attitudes to learning, describing their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development as ‘very strong;’ saying ‘courtesy and respect is such a feature of this school’ and that students behave extremely well, feel safe and demonstrate a real care for one another and their teachers.

There are two main recommendations which will help the school to move towards outstanding in the future: to improve the overall quality of teaching to outstanding particularly through making best use of the school’s very accurate performance data and using best practice already evident in school to develop teachers’ questioning of students; and to secure even higher rates of achievement through further improving marking and students’ response to feedback.

Gillian Middlemas, Headteacher, said: "This is an excellent report, which recognises and celebrates the fantastic progress, shared vision and hard work of everyone in school.

"We are very much a school at the heart, and in the hearts, of our community and our report reflects our core values of respect and high expectations so clearly.

"Our mission statement for this year is ‘Climbing Higher,’ we know exactly where we want our school to be and how to get there, we can evidence our secure trajectory of improvement, and the Ofsted team’s judgments mirror our own self-evaluation.

"Whitworth Community High School celebrates its 50th Anniversary this term – and being judged to be Good in all areas is a great start to the year."