Historic Netherthorpe School in Chesterfield requires improvement - following Ofsted inspection

The report says education provision needs to be improved for pupils and work needs to be carried out to tackle low level behaviour disruptions.

The 450-year-old historic school – one of the oldest in Chesterfield – has almost 1,200 pupils on roll and had been rated as 'good' for a number of years, including at the last inspection in 2017.

Mrs McVicar said: “We always make decisions that are best for the school community. The comments in the report give us something to work on and there were plenty of highlights in there too; things that we are proud of and that should be celebrated.

“We feel this was a fair inspection and our senior leadership team had already identified the areas of priority highlighted by Ofsted as requiring improvement. These are evident in the schools’ strategic plan.”

The inspection team recognised that leaders are in the early stages of their development work and the new senior leadership team have the determination and capacity to realise their vision of providing high quality education at this school.

Mrs McVicar added: “We think very carefully about the knowledge that we want our young people to know, and offer a broad range of subjects at key stage 4 and 5. We are proud that our curriculum and teacher’s subject knowledge was recognised by Ofsted to be good and ambitious with plenty of opportunities.

“More importantly to me was that safeguarding was recognised as being effective and the pupils feel that the school is a ‘safe and happy’ environment.

“The school recognises that there is always work to be done in education and we are already working hard on improving the provision for all pupils, including strategies to tackle low level behaviour disruptions.

“In addition to the extension to the schools Special Educational Needs Hub, a Trust-integrated resource centre is expected to open soon on site to further support our pupils with increasing social, emotional and mental health needs.”

The school was praised for its ‘nurturing and caring’ staff with inspectors noting that there are ‘lots of opportunities for pupil leadership’. The inspection team also recognised the pride of pupils in representing their house and in the achievement badges worn.

Mrs McVicar added: “Pupils are placed into one of three houses when they join Netherthorpe – which gives a sense of pride and promotes healthy competition among students vying for the ‘Rose Bowl’ at the end of the year; this tradition goes back years and many of our parents can recall fond memories of our house system.”

Kudos was also given to the amount of extra-curricular activities available.

Year 13 head prefect James Vernon, who has aspirations to pursue his career in sport at Loughborough University and runs the year 9 girls’ football team, said: “There is a real sense of community here at Netherthorpe and everyone who comes here is proud to do so.”

Netherthorpe School offers a Sixth Form provision to the community and this was recognised as being of high quality and ‘good’ by Ofsted, with students consistently speaking highly of this provision.

Lily Haywood, a Sixth Form pupil in her final year, wants to study pharmaceutical medicine when she leaves Netherthorpe. Her family are former pupils and she said: “You can go to any member of staff here for support, and receive it. My sisters both came here; one is a deputy headteacher and the other qualified as a doctor. I wouldn’t have wanted to go anywhere else - I love it here.”