Background to Ashford Christ Church 

Size

The school from September 2005 will have 1067 pupils, making it larger than average for a Kent Secondary modern. However, South Ashford is experiencing rapid housing growth and the school's local reputation has been considerably enhanced by league table success. For the last three years we have been oversubscribed. A new building programme has just been completed (April 04) and intakes of 240 will take us to 1200 by September 2007

Voluntary Aided Status

Christ Church is a Church of England school set up by Canterbury Diocese to serve an area that, until 1990, had suffered from a poor reputation. Our admission articles reserve fifty percent of places for Church families. In practice, despite a liberal definition of Church affiliation, less than a third of our intake are Church places. Our policy on staff recruitment is as follows:

• We are keen to appoint staff with active Christian beliefs or sympathies
• Nevertheless, we always appoint the best teachers we can get, because our business is education
• We expect all staff to support our Christian values.

Catchment Area

Traditionally the school has served the Stanhope Estate, a 1960's GLC overspill estate which has generated a high percentage of pupils with Special Needs. Nobody who believes this is a disadvantage should apply to teach at Christ Church – we are proud of our mission to serve our community, and even prouder of the progress made by our pupils since 1990, when we opened. However the school is also increasingly drawing from modern private housing estates and local villages, which is leavening the social mix of our intake to the benefit of all our pupils. Our top sets now overlap with the grammar school range and their GCSE results amply prove it.

Academic Achievements

Christ Church was formed by merger in 1990 and inherited a very low baseline position, with only 1% achieving 5 A-Cs and only 22% staying on into Further Education. There was first a gradual, and from 1996 a rapid improvement, so that by 2005 5 A*-Cs were 49%, above the Kent High School average (despite the 6 th highest level of Special Needs in the County) and the staying-on rate had risen to over 70%.

In the OFSTED Chief Inspector's Report for 1997/98, published February 1999, Christ Church was identified as one of the forty-one fastest improving schools in the country, measured between first and second inspection. Only one other school in Kent (which is now England 's largest LEA) achieved this distinction. An HMI follow up visit in March 2001 confirmed this rapid progress, describing the school's leadership and management as ‘outstandingly good'.

Our most recent OFSTED report (January 04) describes us as “a good school with very good features.” The easiest way to access the report is via our own school website: FULL OFSTED REPORT or OFSTED REPORT SUMMARY

Recent Developments

The year 2002/3 was a remarkable one for the school.

“Excellence in Cities” - Ashford was selected as one of three new “Excellence” clusters in Kent . Christ Church has chaired this group of five secondary and ten primary schools. This means that for the next three years at least we are committed to working in close partnership, especially with our two neighbouring High Schools, North and Towers, and our feeder primaries. It has also given us substantial extra resources (£250,000 per year) at a time when school budgets are generally depressed.

“Training School” - we have always done a lot of teacher-training here. This year we have been awarded Training School status, and again this means working in partnership with local schools. As part of our bid, we secured “Investors in People” status in June 2003.

Value Added - in summer 2003 we were invited by the DfES to a conference for the schools which added most value to pupils' achievements between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 4. This conference was for the top 8% of secondaries nationally and only four Kent schools were included.

“Sportsmark” - we were proud that our PE department achieved this coveted award this year.

During 2003-4, our main achievements were a successful OFSTED Report and the completion of our new building. We also bid successfully for £900,000 of NOF Building for flood lit netball and five-a-side courts.

2005 was a challenging year. The Headteacher, Mr. J. Mulrenan, was ill and away from school and has since retired. The Deputy Headteacher, Mr. I. Thomson died suddenly. In the hands of Acting Associate Headteachers, Mr. C. Buttle and Miss J Hughes the school, however, continued to thrive. All staff pulled together, worked hard to maintain standards and were rewarded with a 10% rise in GCSE A* - C passes. The school driving on with its standards agenda is to make an application to the Specialist Schools Trust for Maths, Computing Status in November 2005. This initiative will draw in several hundreds of thousands of pounds over the next few years to develop educational initiatives further and link our community partners in many exciting developments.

Pastoral and Extra-Curricular Achievements

The school has been regularly complimented for the quality of its pastoral care. We believe in traditional standards of discipline but also in caring deeply for individuals and in giving second chances to those who have gone astray. We have a very low rate of school exclusions. As part of “Excellence,” we have a Learning Support Unit to help pupils with behavioural problems.

As a staff, we pride ourselves on supporting each other at all levels. We run a homework club and a range of extra-curricular commitments, which we are always looking to expand. We have had more than our share of sporting success, especially in soccer, netball and athletics, and are linked with a Specialist Sports College .

Resources

The least important thing about a school is its building - but, as it happens, ours is of very high quality. Shortly after we opened in 1990 our 1960s building was destroyed by fire, so our main premises were re-built, to a very high standard, in 1993. Many improved features resulting from that experience mean our school and grounds are secure and well-protected, and the envy of most other Kent Secondaries. Since we have been over-subscribed since 1997, we were able to make the case for extended premises, and from April 2004 we opened a new extension of the very highest quality: 14 classrooms to allow new suiting for Maths, Art, Music and part of our administration, as well as a state-of-the-art Community Sports Hall. This project also allowed for significant re-modelling of our existing building, including three new Science labs.

We consider our staff an even greater asset, though. The school has been characterised by stable, happy staffing, in the teaching and support sectors, and our Training School status has also allowed us, despite the severe staffing shortages in the South-East, to recruit a steady stream of newly-qualified staff of high calibre, a number of whom we have trained ourselves through PGCE or GTP routes.

January 2004 OFSTED Headline findings:

• Christ Church is a “good school with some very good features.”
• Leadership and management are very good
• SEN provision is very good
• Pupil behaviour in lessons is good; outside (in corridors) it is satisfactory
• Attendance (95%) is very good
• Maths and Science are improving rapidly, and are both good, but English (though teaching is good) is only satisfactory, because of low standards on intake
• Provision for Sport is good, but for the Arts only satisfactory. Most other subjects are good. Vocational education is very good
• Teaching:
  • 32% very good
  • 70% good or better (includes category above)
  • 4% unsatisfactory

“The school fulfils its Christian mission by providing a high level of support for its pupils.”