Improved Shropshire school opens as an academy

Now Sir John Talbots in Whitchurch has thrown its doors open for the first time as an academy this week with a new look school logo and brand new uniform.

The man at the helm through the recent improvements is David O'Toole who was given the job as headteacher permanently this summer and is looking forward to the challenge of continuing to improve the school.

He said: "The one thing that strikes you from the moment you walk through the door here is the children, the children in the school here are wonderful.

"When you walk down the corridor they will always say good morning or hold open a door for you - and this has been the case since I started on day one.

"But when I arrived I thought that things could be better.

"We saw that we could do things better with tweaks and refinements and putting systems into place we would be able to improve things quite rapidly making sure behaviour was how we wanted it to be.

"And we put things in place that would make sure that behaviour was as good as in any school and one of the first things that we worked on was behaviour, looking at curriculum and fine tuning it so that children of all abilities can achieve and as the results have come out this summer, the A and A* are performing as we would want them to perform.

"Things can always be better but I'm driven and I am ambitious and I want this to be the sort of school that I can bring my children to and I want parents to feel confident that when they leave there children here they know they are in good hands.

"We have continued to develop systems and have increased standards in teaching.

"We have also ensured that we are fully staffed and that we have high quality staff in the core subjects. We are also developing the premises and we have redeveloped a new reception area which is the first physical sign you will see that the school is moving on."

In March last year The Marches School in Oswestry school was approached by Shropshire Council to provide support to Sir John Talbot's to help it improve after it had fallen into special measures.

An interim executive board applied to the Department for Education for Sir John Talbot's to become an academy in February, with The Marches Academy Trust as sponsor which was agreed in July.

Mr O'Toole said: "Coming out of special measures was incredible news for the children, the staff and the community.

"Everybody in this community should be able to feel that they can send their children to the school and that we can be at the heart of the community and getting that good judgement from Ofsted has set us on a road and has given us the confidence to say yes, the things we have started doing are taking effect and that we are heading in the right direction.

"I want students to be able to wear the uniform with pride and to be able to identify with the badge they are wearing that they are part of something special. We have high hopes for them and want them to see that for themselves."