Community: Heading for Success

Queensbridge School has just been declared ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted. It’s an achievement, that Head Teacher Tim Boyes is rightly very proud of, particularly given the challenging situation that he faced when he first arrived at the school ten years ago.

“If we’d been inspected in 2003,” he explains, “we would have failed and gone into special measures. As it was, we were inspected in 2004, a term after I arrived, and just scraped through as ‘satisfactory’.” 

Despite it’s location, nestled comfortably between the cosy, middle class boroughs of Moseley and Kings Heath, Queensbridge School is surprisingly mixed. It has a large proportion of students from minority ethnic backgrounds, many of whom speak English as a second language. A high number of the students qualify for free school meals, and there are an above average number of students with disabilities and special educational needs. Taking the school from a C- to an A+ has been a long process involving radical change across all aspects of school life - something that Tim knew wouldn’t happen over night.

“Politicians like to manufacture a false impression of getting quick results, but research shows that it takes, on average, eleven years to turn a school around. It is an organic community and change on a deep level takes time. It’s no surprise that it’s taken ten years for us to get to where we are now.”

Tim believes that the success of the school comes from a complex combination of factors, starting with the children themselves.

“The first challenge was instilling basic good behaviour - getting children to attend and not be disruptive. One of the ways we did that was by improving site security, not just in order to stop bad people getting in, but also to stop children with attendance problems getting out. It wasn’t easy, but over time we managed to change the culture to one where the children value their education and the time they spend in school.”

Next, and most fundamental, was the quality of the teaching. 

“The absolute key underpinning everything is to have great teachers who can make learning creative and exciting. When I first arrived there was a smattering of good teachers, but there were more holes and problems than strengths. It’s taken time to accumulate good people but we’re now at the stage where every department has a strong and stable core of staff. That enables us to develop and deliver a really innovative curriculum.”

As well as investing in pupils and teachers, the school has also invested heavily in the physical environment, many aspects of which needed to be improved and updated to support the variety of activities that the staff want to offer. Amongst other projects, an old toilet block was converted into a modern library, the sports facilities were redeveloped and a hi-tech theatre space was built - an important resource for a specialist visual and performing arts school. 

Now, with the final building work nearly finished, an ‘outstanding’ from Ofsted and applications far outnumbering places available, staff at the school would be forgiven for wanting to sit back and relax. However, Tim explains that there is still more to be done.

“Everyone at the school has worked really hard to do the best for those kids who are set to fail by building positive expectations and relationships, and our Ofsted grade reflects that. But we still have over a quarter of our children that don’t have great results. These may be pupils who come to us a long way behind, or from families less able to support learning, which means they are unlikely to be high achievers, but there is always something more we can do to help them do better. Each child only gets one shot at school - that’s why our work is never done.”

(Published in 'Moseley B13' November 2013)