Cranford June / 2014
C
Review
ranford Community College has gone from strength to strength, and even more so this year. It continues to build from achieving the full set of top grades in its Ofsted inspection in October 2012 and the school being described as being ‘beyond outstanding’.
In addition to the Ofsted inspection, Cranford Community College ensures that its teaching remains of the highest quality by being involved in several school improvement organisations such as PixL, Hounslow EiP and Challenge Partners (CP). As part of ‘Challenge Partners’, the school is inspected once a year by a qualified team including a Lead Ofsted Inspector. The inspection took place this in March 2014, and the outcomes confirmed the school’s existing Ofsted grading of ‘beyond outstanding’. The headlines are: The QUALITY OF TEACHING is confirmed as OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT is confirmed as OUTSTANDING SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT STRATEGIES were judged to be OUTSTANDING The inspectors concluded OVERALL that Cranford Community College is FIRMLY into the OUTSTANDING grade in Ofsted terms. Every member of the team found the school to be a truly remarkable place.
The school had asked for 2 specific ‘areas of excellence’ to be reviewed. These were ‘Curriculum & Behaviour’ and ‘Community and Partnerships’. Both areas were confirmed as an outstanding area of excellence ‘and inspectors commented in the oral part of the feedback that this had been achieved ‘and some’. An incredible achievement, even in Cranford terms, was the very, very high percentage of outstanding teaching that the inspectors encountered. There was a massive 96% OUTSTANDING teaching over time (of which over 79% was judged as strongly outstanding) This is an absolutely remarkable accomplishment and one that many schools would surely envy. This should make all colleagues, Governors, students and parents really proud! The team saw exemplary behaviour in terms of pupil engagement, positive pupil-staff, pupil-pupil and staff-staff relationships and they also noted that they had seen absolutely zero low-level disruption. Behaviour FOR LEARNING was judged as exceptional and the school’s commitment to ‘Restorative Justice’ came in for high praise. Inspectors commented that ‘Teachers have excellent subject knowledge and an impressive knowledge of exam specifications which is used to help pupils towards gaining the highest grades, and learning has a strong ethos of fun and enjoyment. Expectations and challenge are high and there is thorough marking although pupil engagement with this feedback needs to be developed further. The school is consistent in its ethos, systems, expectations, values and processes. Reading, writing and communication are also strengths and there is effective use of various graphic organisers by pupils and across subjects’. They added that ‘This school is outward looking, awe-inspiring and exciting’. The team were impressed by the level of resource to enable so many things to happen and to meet the needs of such a wide range of pupils. The school’s capacity was also judged as a strength. Kevin Prunty (Executive Headteacher and Director, National Leader of Education)