Pimlico Academy passes first-year test - Ofsted inspectors heap praise on school at centre of row over becoming independently run
GOVERNMENT inspectors have praised staff at Pimlico Academy for raising standards in its opening year.
Ofsted’s monitoring report said the academy has made “good progress” since it replaced Pimlico Community School in the face of resistance from parents and teachers in September 2008.
While the monitoring report is broadly positive, championing staff’s battle with truancy, broader access to music that has seen double the number of students learning an instrument and improved GCSE results, it also details some more worrying findings, most alarmingly, the underachievement of white working-class boys.
Inspectors reported that “white British boys do not engage in learning” as well as their classmates, an observation supported by the school’s GCSE results in which they lag at the bottom.
Pimlico School was placed on special measures by Ofsted in December 2006, an unnecessary prescription according to critics of the academy solution, who claimed it made it easier to justify transforming it into an independently run academy.
The school had come out of special measures by the time it closed in July 2008 and was taken over by sponsors Future, who have overseen the rebuilding and introduction of new state-of-the-art facilities with the help of millions of pounds from the governments Building Schools for the Future (BSF) fund.
The report states: “Students’ behaviour is good and even exemplary in some respects. Senior managers have instilled a strong ethos and culture of high aspirations. The new uniform and the new restaurant have added to the students’ sense of pride in the academy. Students reported being empowered to aspire to higher standards and they are proud of their academy. Teachers have very sound subject knowledge and prepare resources that bring learning alive for students.”
A 30-strong team of graduate mentors, a restaurant that has spawned its own student cookbook, and a daily meet and greet with management and teachers are some of the innovations.
The report also noted some key areas for improvement including greater consistency in marking, monitoring attainment to plan better lessons and a better understanding of the needs of ethnic minority pupils to inform lesson plans.
The proportion of students attaining five or more A*-C GCSE grades, including English and mathematics, rose from 36 per cent to 42 per cent last year.
Ivan Baird, assistant headteacher at the school in Lupus Street said: “I think it’s about as good as it could have been.
“As far as I know this is the fastest turnaround time from special measures and I think pupils and staff can be proud of that. We haven’t had one pupil excluded yet this school year. That’s unheard of.”
JAMIE WELHAM