About Fullhurst Community College

Fullhurst Community College is an 11 – 16 school serving a diverse catchment area on the west of Leicester which includes a number of communities with high levels of social and economic deprivation.

Until very recently, the College had been oversubscribed in most year groups. The difficulties that it has experienced over the last 2 years have had an adverse impact on admissions, but there are encouraging signs that parents are returning to the school as their first preference. The annual admission number is 180, and there are currently 839 pupils on roll.

At 25%, the proportion of students eligible for free school meals is well above the national average, as is the number of students dealing with challenges in their lives of one kind or another. Achievement on entry is well below national averages in all year groups. Many arrive with poor levels of communication, literacy and numeracy, together with a history of poor school attendance. Over 25% of the students are on the SEN register and over 3% have statements of Special Educational Need. 25% of students are from other than White-British backgrounds, an ethnicity intake profile which whilst close to the national profile is not fully representative of the multi-cultural diversity of Leicester.

In November 2007, following a full inspection by Ofsted, the school was served with a notice to improve. The main weakness identified during the inspection was the ‘progress made by the students and the standards attained’, particularly at Key Stage 4. This was largely attributed to a failure to ‘use assessment information in order to plan and target extra support and challenge in the most effective way’ or to share good practice in a way that might lead to improvements in teaching and learning, self evaluation and subject leadership.

During 2008, the Local Authority reached the view that progress continued to be slow and appointed an Executive Principal to provide additional support. It also replaced the governing body with an IEB, which first met in July 2008 and started work in earnest at the beginning of the new school year.

In December the school was inspected for a second time, and this time the judgement was more serious. The College was placed in Special Measures. The report focused particularly on the weaknesses in the quality of teaching and found that ‘leadership and management are inadequate’. In particular it judged that ‘the college's track record has not demonstrated that it has the capacity to improve fast enough especially given the present uncertainties regarding the roles and responsibilities of the senior leadership team’.

Even before the inspection, it had been a difficult few months. The College was a phase one, wave one BSF project and the first school in Leicester to be completed. The project was extremely complex because of the proximity of the new building, the restrictive nature of the site and the retention of the original school façade. It made significant demands upon the resources of the College and presented major logistical problems. The December inspection happened the week before the school moved into the new building, evacuating the old building over Christmas for a major refurbishment programme.

All of this contributed to the decision by the Principal to accept a proposal from the Local Authority that he be seconded to the City’s BSF team to advise on subsequent phases of the city wide programme.

At the time, the Local Authority was considering proposals for the school to become an Academy and so the IEB took the decision to ask the Executive Principal to take on the substantive role of Principal on a temporary basis. Although there were high hopes that the imminent move into the new building could be used to relaunch the school under new leadership, the difficulties remained and the Executive Principal moved on in March 2009.

This was certainly the lowest point in the recent history of the school. Morale was low, the second phase of the building programme was only weeks away and all of the internal monitoring showed that improvement in the forecast results for Year 11 had stalled. Significant concerns were also being expressed by parents and the local community.

A new leadership team was appointed, again on a fixed term contract because the future of the school remained unresolved, which started work shortly before the end of the Spring Term 2009. The new Executive Principal, David Kershaw, moved quickly to stabilise the situation. In September, the current senior leadership team was established when Rosie Kemp was asked to step up from her substantive role as Vice Principal, to become acting Principal, working closely with David Kershaw who remained as Executive Principal.

Since then, the improvement has been rapid. Staff and students all testify to the changes that have taken place. The students, in particular, have become some of the best ambassadors for Fullhurst and talk enthusiastically about the improvements they have experienced. The Ofsted monitoring visit in the Autumn term found that progress since going into special measures was ‘satisfactory’ and since the last monitoring visit progress has been described as ‘good’.

The reasons for this are many and varied, and shortlisted candidates will almost certainly want to hear more about what has contributed to this turn around when they visit the college. The one figure that gives everybody real confidence that the worst is now behind us is the forecast figures for 5 A* - C GCSE with English and Mathematics in 2010 which now exceeds the (hugely challenging) target of 34% and should see the College comfortably above the floor targets for National Challenge schools.

One final observation. The IEB has been able to advertise for this post on a permanent basis because the future of the College is almost finally resolved. In parallel with the recruitment process the IEB is consulting on proposals for the College to become a National Challenge Co-op Trust School with an outstanding school in Leicester, Rushey Mead, as the lead educational partner. Carolyn Robson, the Headteacher of Rushey Mead and a National Leader in Education (NLE) will be Executive Principal for Fullhurst and Rushey Mead, continuing the positive relationship between the two schools that started just under 12 months ago and was an important feature of the Raising Attainment Plan.

There can be no doubt that, with the right leadership, Fullhurst has a very bright future to look forward to. Although the proposal to become a Foundation School in a National Challenge Trust means that further change is on the way, the College is now far more resilient than it was and is able to embrace change in a positive fashion.