Best Practice

Getting to good: How one school turned itself around

School improvement
Malcolm Arnold Academy’s predecessor school was failing in every Ofsted category. Two years later, the school has been rated good with outstanding features. Principal Philip Cantwell looks at how this turnaround has been achieved.

As part of the previous Ofsted framework, our predecessor school Unity College was failing in every category. Attainment was low – just 19 per cent A* to C including maths and English – and aspiration for success even lower.

When the Malcolm Arnold Academy opened as part of the David Ross Education Trust, there was only one direction to go – we had to improve quickly. We took swift and decisive action to overhaul any weak areas, while building on the strong ones.

After an intensive start aimed at instant improvement, we took a consistent and simple approach to raising standards across each of the Ofsted categories. Our mission was simple, as a school we were “going for good” in every Ofsted category by 2012. 

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