Linda’s SoCS prompt this Saturday…

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “-est.” Base your post on any word you can add the suffix “est” to. Enjoy!

The Best!

Last night I went out for a meal with my colleagues. It wasn’t just a general get together, but a celebration of a fantastic achievement for our school, staff and pupils.

I don’t know if you recall, but just before the summer holidays, we were winding down,t hen got the stressful call regarding Ofsted coming to visit. Ofsted, for those of you that don’t know, is the inspecting body that the government has in place, who spring inspections of schools and then gives them gradings and constructive advice.

Two inspections ago we were rated Good. It would be nigh on impossible for us to ever get Outstanding, with the results we get. This is not because of the  lack of effort on the part of the teachers and children, but the demographic of our kids is such that there are many from disadvantaged backrounds, or EAL (second language) children, so they are always wonderful,b ut not ‘quite there’.

Three years ago we got another ‘call’ and they came. This inspection was triggered by data regarding the then current Year 6 children, who were a very tough year group with many issues. We had new management in place, lots of new strategies, and a school full of willing and able staff and pupils. But we got Requires Improvement.

It wasn’t the worst. We didn’t get Special Measures, where the head gets removed, and the school could get taken over by an academy, changing the structure forever.

But it was disheartening, nevertheless. Everyone works hard but it wasn’t enough. We spent the last year and a half with various officials visiting constantly, and much restructuring happening, policies changing, and shuffle arounds of staff. And they came…

And we got GOOD again!

It was the greatest feeling, as many schools in our area have been receiving the lower two gradings recently, but we got GOOD!

We even had special chocolates!!

So yesterday, the head teacher arranged an evening out of music and food to celebrate all the hard work of the whole team, to get us to this level!

And, maybe I am biased, but honestly, I really do think we are the BEST!