Head is under fire after dire report
THE leadership of Christ the King High School and Sixth Form Centre in Southport has been strongly criticised following a dire Ofsted report.
Head teacher James Lancaster has come under fire after the Stamford Road school was rated as “requires improvement” after an inspection in September.
It was the third consecutive inspection in which the school has received that overall rating, although this time it was also labelled as needing improvement in every one of the five areas covered in the inspection.
These are: effectiveness of leadership and management; quality of teaching, learning and assessment, personal development, behaviour and welfare; outcomes for pupils; and 16 to 19 study programmes.
Despite the heavy criticism, Mr Lancaster said the school was positive about its progress.
In a letter home to parents, he argued that the timing of the visit prevented the most recent exam results from being factored in.
He wrote: “My greatest frustration was that the early visit meant our strong results from the summer were not validated until the week after the inspection.
“Parents are strongly advised to look at the recently released performance tables which show our Progress 8 result for 2017.
“This represents our pupils’ relative progress across their best eight subjects including English, mathematics, science and humanities, and compared extremely favourably with schools across the Archdiocese.
“We were delighted with these results, which placed us fifth out of 18 secondary schools in Sefton.”
Mr Lancaster also promised everyone would work relentlessly to address the criticisms raised in the report.
However, some parents remain unhappy with Christ the King’s progress and have called for a change in leadership.
One parent told the Visiter: “This once proud school is in need of a drastic change in leadership to get it back to where it once was – a leading light in education in Southport and Sefton before Mr Lancaster took over.
“Even in his letter to parents following the publication of this latest dire report he disrespects the findings.
“Wake up and smell the coffee!
“Ofsted do not publish such ratings if there is no evidence to support it.”
When contacted by the Visiter, Christ the King school said: “Mr Lancaster, head teacher, is very positive about the school’s progress measures for 2017 and very positive about the current staff and learners building on this in the future.”