Redcar and Cleveland commissioned Northern Education to provide an interim managing Head Teacher to fill a vacancy in an 11-16 Secondary College of c700 students. The school had been put in Special Measures in July 2005 and subsequently the head teacher and chair of governors resigned .

Request was made before the end of the summer term 2005 and an appointment of an experienced and highly respected Northern Education specialist in interim management was made to commence in September 2005.

At the beginning of the interim headship period, the local authority were consulting on the closure of the college. The challenge therefore was to improve the performance of the school against a background of possible closure with therefore an attendant need to maintain morale of staff.

The Interim Headship

• Essential to build up morale of staff with statement of clear intention of support but also to take the school forward.
• The satisfactory progress of the college after September 05 was a contributory factor to the LA reversing an initial decision to close the college.
• The departure of a Deputy Head Teacher enabled the interim head teacher to reorganise the senior leadership team of 5 Assistant Head Teachers and reinvigorate their leadership by revised allocation of responsibilities.
• Immediate impact achieved by high profile presence in the college and tightening up of behaviour policy procedures. A focused effort to raise attendance.
• Introduced structured programme of monitoring of teaching and learning and commissioned training by an ex HMI on how to assess the quality of teaching and learning in lesson observations.
• Development of subject leaders’ expertise in interpreting data and assessing performance of students.
• Successful revision of staffing structure and implementation of TLRs.
• Nominated Northern Education support Senior Associate assisted the development of the college SEF.
• Successful handover to incoming head teacher appointed to commence in September 2006.

Evidence of impact

Ofsted Monitoring report December 2002

Leadership and management have improved significantly. There is a clear sense of purpose, centred on improving teaching and learning, which is permeating the college. The acting head teacher has provided good leadership in establishing the direction of the college during this transitional period. The senior leadership team has focused purposefully on establishing policies and systems to move forward on key areas.

Subject leaders are being equipped to monitor the quality of teaching and learning in their areas with greater rigour. This includes better use of data to monitor pupils’ progress.

Progress in teaching and learning is good. Teaching was satisfactory or better in the overwhelming majority of lessons and it was good in about half. The college has recognised the need to monitor teaching and learning both regularly and accurately and has provided good training for senior managers to enable them to do this effectively.

Students’ attitudes to learning have improved as a result of a relentless focus on improving the quality of teaching and the highly visible presence of senior staff around the school.

Attendance and punctuality are improving and permanent exclusions have reduced significantly.

External examination results at Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 in 2006 showed significant improvement.