Alleyn's Inspection Report
Below is the text from the Headmaster's letter to Parents which acccompanied the Report of the Inspection in January 2008 and a link to the School's response.
academic excellence, good learning, excellent pastoral care and a wide-ranging educational experience are obvious features of the school, in line with its vision
(ISI Report: Section 4.6)
Alleyn's was inspected in January 2008 as part of the programme of regular inspections, arranged by ISI, the Independent Schools Inspectorate, which is accredited by Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills.
I am delighted to provide here a copy of the full report, which is also be available on the ISI website.
It is not my intention to summarise the report or pick out lots of quotes, but we should all be delighted that it concludes that:
Alleyn's School fully meets its aim of providing a broad liberal education for boys and girls of high academic ability in a caring, friendly and tolerant community.
(Section 5.1)
The school has made wide-spread improvements since the last inspection, notably in the development of the curriculum, the increase in the quality of the teaching, the improved examination results, the wider range of links with the community and the improved management and pastoral structures.
(Section 5.2)
All major aspects of the school are either good or outstanding.
(Section 5.4)
(Note: These are the top two grades used in inspections since there is no grade of ‘very good'.)
A key aspect in an inspection is in setting the benchmark against which the school is judged; it would clearly be unfair to judge all schools against the same criteria or standards. Because of the high calibre of our pupils who are, in inspection-speak, 'far above average', we were set an incredibly high benchmark, in fact the highest that exists: those highly selective maintained (grammar) schools which have high-ability children.
So the overall findings and in particular the judgement on academic achievement (e.g. Section 2.14) are particularly pleasing, for to do 'in line with expected' is to achieve that standard and to be 'good' is to do even better. This is an incredibly high benchmark to be judged against and our pupils and teachers deserve our warmest congratulations.
Of course, an inspection is not just a celebration of all that is good; it must also point out how to make further improvements. The 'next steps' for Alleyn's are given in Section 5.4 and parents will be pleased to know that these helpful recommendations are also in line with our own plans for the future based on a detailed self-evaluation submitted prior to the inspection. We will be drawing up an action plan to implement them and this will be made available, together with next academic year's School Development Plan, on the School's website this summer.
Thank you again to those parents who contributed to the process in submitting questionnaires and other helpful comments.
We can all feel enormously proud of how well the inspection has gone and be pleased for the School to have received such a glowing report. My colleagues and I are greatly encouraged by it and look forward to working hard to implement the recommendations and to make further improvements in the years ahead in the aim to make Alleyn's even more successful.
To download a copy of the report please click Inspection Report.
The School's response to the Inspection is given as part of the School Development Plan 2008-09, (see Section 1.8).