Highlights from the 2008 report

"The Crypt is a good school which provides outstanding care, guidance and support to students so that they make good progress and achieve consistently and exceptionally high standards. Their personal development and well-being are outstanding and they behave superbly well. Students are rightfully proud of their school and they enjoy their work. As one said, ‘the best thing about our school are the teachers because they make learning fun and we really enjoy ourselves.’ The school is particularly successful in raising the aspirations and achievement of students, many of whom become the first in their families to go on to higher education."

The highly effective headteacher sets a clear direction to the work of the school. He is well supported by the senior leadership team. Issues identified in the last inspection regarding the leadership of the school have been remedied so that now the leadership of the school is good and holds subject leaders to account for their areas. The school has a very effective system to evaluate the work of departments and year teams. Subject leaders regularly monitor specific elements of the students’ learning, such as the quality of work within books. These evaluations then feed into the whole-school evaluation, as well as identifying areas for the department to work on together and improve. This has meant provision has improved and progress by students has quickened. Governance is good and ensures the school makes good use of its resources.

Students achieve well, with their outstanding academic guidance making sure that most meet challenging targets. Results in science are very good and standards in French have improved significantly since the previous inspection. Two thirds of the students in Year 10 study a modern foreign language, which reflects students’ confidence in the subject.

Students respond well to good teaching, relationships between staff and students are very good and lessons are challenging. Students’ ability to work independently are less developed because many lessons are led too much by the teacher. The curriculum meets the needs of students well and is extended by a large variety of extra-curricular activities, including many physical education activities, and music and science clubs. Students have an exceptional understanding of how to keep healthy.  Many of them walk or cycle to school.

The school has made good use of its specialist status to develop the curriculum and raise standards in teaching and learning. It has created smaller teaching groups in Key Stage 4 and nearly all rooms have suitable electronic boards, which many staff use well, whilst others are in the early stages of learning to do so. The school works hard to develop well appreciated and evaluated science links with its partner primary schools. Plans are in place to extend these links with work in modern foreign languages.

Click Here to download the Ofsted 2008 report

The School was expecting an Ofsted inspection in 2011, but its outstanding progress since 2008 meant that the inspectors did not call.  The School received a letter from the DfE stating that Ofsted were not going to visit in the 2010-11 academic year having received an outstanding report on the school's progress from the School Improvement Partner.