Best Practice

Strategies for stretching your most able students

Senior leadership
Senior leader Laura Grainger discusses her project to improve the attainment of high-ability students, including a specific focus on year 11 and encouraging every child to aim for an A grade in at least one GCSE.

Fulham Cross Girls School is in a relatively affluent area but as is the case in west London boroughs, there is a significant divide between rich and poor.

Local schools often have high numbers of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, and we have 85 per cent of students with English as an additional language. But that’s not to say we are struggling; we have been Ofsted outstanding since 2008 and 70 per cent of our students achieve five or more GCSEs at A* to C, including English and maths.

Before Fulham Cross, I was a middle leader who wanted to have more of a whole-school impact, so I applied for the Future Leaders headship development programme and as a result joined Fulham Cross’s senior leadership team in September 2012.

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