The Barclay School

School receives another boost from Ofsted

After being designated as ‘A good school with outstanding features’ by Ofsted in May 2006, Barclay has received a favourable subject report in ICT.

Ofsted Inspector David Cox visited the school on the 25th And 26th September 2007, meeting with staff, teachers and students. He inspected planning documentation, assessment data and monitoring records. He observed lessons where subject teachers were using ICT, spoke to groups of  Year 9 and Year 11 students and scrutinised their work.

The Inspector’s judgement was that the overall effectiveness of ICT and the overall achievement and standards are good.

He reported that students join the school with average skills in ICT and by the time they leave, they do so at above the national average. Much of the significant improvement in examination results was a result of the work of the ICT co-ordinator. (Well done, Mr Hurvid).

Students’ work is enhanced by their good knowledge of software applications.

‘Students enjoy using computers and have a good attitude to the subject. They happily support one and other and enjoy the many additional ICT classes provided by the school.’

The quality of teaching and learning is good. All the staff have specialist knowledge and are committed to driving up standards. Lessons are very well planned and relationships are good and assessment procedures are ‘robust’.

There is excellent provision for gifted and talented students while good use is made of ICT in other subjects

Assessment procedures are good. Students are involved in assessing their own work.

Students of all abilities are well catered for.

Areas the school will seek to improve will include more ICT provision for 25% of Key Stage 4 students. More able students need to be given more challenging work and the department’s approach to self-evaluation needs to be more structured.

Headteacher Mrs. Beacom said, ‘We are very pleased with this report and I would like to congratulate all the teaching and support staff and students for their hard work. The report has identified numerous areas of success and has given us some pointers to how we can continue to enhance provision in our drive to raise standards.’