St Andrew’s Catholic School in Leatherhead, Surrey has just become one of only three schools nationally to be recognised for ‘transforming’ practice in all 12 strands of SSAT’s Framework for Exceptional Education.
St Andrew’s Catholic School are consistently one of the highest performing comprehensive schools in England. However, they are always keen to learn from others and find that working with other schools in the network is always beneficial to their practice. As Alan Mitchell, headteacher says “the best bit of CPD we can do is usually connecting with another school.”
In considering what has supported the development of their work across all areas, they highlight the importance of devolved responsibility – making sure that every member of the team is working at full capacity, with a shared sense of purpose. Alan and Clare Uttley, Deputy Headteacher, explain the importance of empowering key members of staff and identifying those with leadership potential – asking the question: “who is going to be next to lead?” Often, emerging leaders stand out due to their personal commitment to ongoing improvement. Central to this is ensuring that staff – all staff – receive recognition and praise for the ways in which they contribute to the school community.
Alan believes that it is always essential to “keep your focus on the foundations” – maintaining a culture of evaluation and reflection. This requires everyone to revisit key questions – “is this just different, or is it better? Have we really moved forwards? Is our focus on the right thing?”
“We want everyone, young person and adult, to be supported to be a bit better than they were,” Clare says. This is about looking for opportunities to do things differently and creating a culture of positivity, belief and ownership.
Clare and Alan say that working with other schools through the SSAT Framework for Exceptional Education has provided them with a range of practical ideas which have supported their practice. They explain that it has been more about the process than the award – they wanted to take time to work through the strands to support the process of self-review and improvement. The focus, Alan says, is always to improve what they are doing for their students and also to ensure that they will still be a great school in five years’ time.
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