Headteacher blog 22nd September 2023

It’s been a rather wet week at school but damp weather doesn’t deter us!

Our Ofsted report won’t be officially published for many weeks but we have received a positive draft that we will now work through and give feedback on. It is somewhat frustrating that all our work is condensed to just a couple of sides of rather formulaic text. As is usually the case, we will have a couple of areas to work on but it is disconcerting that a small amount of evidence can be used for much wider extrapolation without much chance to evidence otherwise. Having just one inspector for two days for such a big, split-site school felt under-resourced. The HMI inspector did work really hard and conducted the inspection impressively, but the whole process remains too ‘high stakes’ with a huge amount of work for the school.

We have started the ‘school tour season’ for prospective families for September 2024. We always do this during normal school days and we walk into any classroom confident that the children will be behaving well and engaged in their learning. This was clearly the case this week and we would welcome any visits over the next three months – do you know anyone with a three year old nearby? There is a big drop in the birth rate and schools are scrambling to attract children into their Reception classes. We have 60 places to fill but less than 40 children of the correct age in our priority catchment area. We are full this year, and the furthest child admitted to school lived 1.1 miles away, but I strongly suspect that children from further afield could apply to Farfield successfully for next year.