School achieves first 'good' rating since opening

An Oxfordshire secondary school has been given its first-ever good rating by Ofsted one year after a new headteacher was appointed.

Aureus School in Didcot was rated as requires improvement by the inspection body in March 2022, a rating which was kept when inspectors again visited the school in July 2023.

Behaviour, leadership and the quality of education were all areas which Ofsted said needed to change.

But inspectors have now seen improvements after new headteacher Kirsty Rogers was appointed in September 2023.

Aureus School, which currently has 475 students aged 11 to 16, was opened in 2017 to serve the growing population of the Great Western Park development in Didcot.

But the school's first Ofsted report in 2022 rated three out of four key areas as requires improvement, including the quality of education, students' behaviour and staff leadership.

"The school was in a position where its reputation was significantly decreasing," said Ms Rogers.

"The behaviour was so poor that students couldn't possibly learn. So I knew straight away that we had to implement rules and consistency."

To improve behaviour, the school introduced "regulation" rooms, where a student displaying disruptive behaviour is given time to become calm away from the rest of their class.

However, that student is also given a 40-minute detention at the end of the next day.

Ms Rogers said the key to improving behaviour had been avoiding excessively strict policies.

"We don't have silent corridors and we don't have students walk [using] a one-way system," she said.

"From my perspective I am 'warm-strict'. The students know the boundaries, they know the rules.

"But they'll still come to my office, knock on the door and tell me what's going on in their lives."

Year 8 student Durham Hutchinson said: "Staff take into account what you think needs improving... they really listen to the students and understand what [we] want, not just what they want."

Ms Rogers said getting the students on board with the new policies had been important to her success.

She said: "The biggest thing is that your students [come] first. They should be listened to at every moment. They know the answer.... you've just got to get it out of them."

Ms Rogers said a backhanded compliment from one student reacting to the new policies had stuck in her mind.

About three weeks [after I started] one of my Year 10s came up to me and said: "Miss, I hated you when you first arrived.

"But I get it now."

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