News
Berkhamsted Schools Group celebrates excellent ISI Inspection Report
Following a three-day focused compliance and education quality inspection across five schools within the historic Berkhamsted Schools Group this September, the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) described both the pupils’ academic and personal development as “excellent.”
Academic Achievements
Inspectors noted that “Pupils’ achievements are excellent, both academic and otherwise, due to the school ensuring that there are opportunities for pupils of all abilities to participate, and for the most able to excel. “ The pupils were also found to show “outstanding communication skills, highly effective study skills and an attitude to work and learning that is… exemplary.” The Group is delighted with the inspectors’ acknowledgement that “the quality of teaching, learning and assessment is outstanding.”
Personal Development
Berkhamsted School is particularly proud of the inspectors’ positive comments on the “excellent relationships between staff and pupils”, which “ensure that pupils of all ages have a secure confidence in their potential to do well.”
The personal development of our pupils was further highlighted by the inspectors with positive comments on their “excellent moral development” and positive contributions “to other people, both within and outside the school, through the responsibilities they are given and the community volunteering initiatives.”
School values and aims
Proud Principal Richard Backhouse remarked: “These wonderful comments acknowledge how well pupils across our entire family of Schools have embraced our implementation of Guy Claxton’s learning power principles in every aspect of our School life. We will be ensuring that we continue to build on this feedback from the ISI rather than becoming complacent about the positive outcome. The Berkhamsted Schools Group is committed to providing our pupils with an exemplary all-round education, instilling in our children life-long learning skills in addition to excellent academic, sporting and creative achievements.”
Mr Backhouse added: “We were delighted to see the inspectors highlight areas in which our wholeschool approach to teaching all our pupils the key skills of how to learn has dramatically improved learning performance from even our youngest pupils in the Pre-Prep. Inspectors noted ‘Children developed their self-knowledge, self-esteem and resilience to a mature level, encouraged by the school’s focus on perseverance.’ ”
Chairman of Governor Gavin Laws echoed Principal Richard Backhouse’s comments and concluded: “I am delighted that the hard work of pupils, teachers, parents and the wider school community has been acknowledged in the glowing ISI Report on our Schools Group.”
“In particular, I am so pleased that the three values of Berkhamsted: to aim high with integrity; to be adventurous; and to serve others were all positively acknowledged and praised by the inspectors. We are clearly going from strength to strength and will continue to ensure that we are always providing the best all-round education for our pupils.”
The short notice inspection of Berkhamsted Schools, took place between 20 – 22 September 2017. The focus of the inspection was compliance and educational quality requirements.
