College is ‘good’ and getting better

Osfted inspectors praise the Axe Valley Community College for its strong progress

The Axe Valley Community College is a good school which is getting even better, according to the latest Ofsted report.

Inspectors say students at the Axminster-based college have good attitudes to learning, achieve well and get on together.

And parents have a strong belief in the ability of the school to teach and look after their children well.

The sixth form is good and the number of students applying to university has doubled.

As a result, the inspectors say Axe Valley rates as ‘good’ in every single category of school life.

Its overall effectiveness is good and so are pupils’ achievement, the quality of teaching, the behaviour and safety of pupils and the leadership and management, they say

Lead Ofsted inspector John Mallone concluded: “This is a good and improving school. Students achieve well.

“The headteacher has high expectations of staff and students. He has built a team which is committed to improving the quality of teaching and increasing the rates of progress made by students.

“The sixth form is good…students make good progress at AS and A level and the school has an ambitious programme to raise expectations.”

The report added that to continue its rapid progress the college should increase the proportion of good and outstanding teaching, use assessments to target work at the right level for all students, improve reading, writing, speaking and listening skills and ensure students know exactly how to improve their work.

Headteacher Martin Smith said: “We are delighted that we have maintained our rating as a ‘good’ school. The new Ofsted framework introduced earlier this year raised the bar significantly for all schools, making it much harder to achieve a ‘good’ rating.

“I would like to thank the hard-working and dedicated staff and governors for making this possible and thank our fantastic students for all their contributions. At the next inspection we will be competing for a top rating and will continue to focus all our energy on this goal.”

Governors’ chairman Dr Graham Watts added: “The governors wish to pay tribute to all the staff who have worked so hard to achieve this good inspection outcome. In particular we would like to acknowledge the efforts of the headteacher and his leadership team for driving through significant improvements since the last inspection so that our pupils have achieved even more.”