Headteacher hails ‘brilliant’ school year (From Bury Times)

Headteacher hails ‘brilliant’ school year

8:30am Sunday 6th December 2009

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THE headteacher of Elton High School has hailed the past year as “absolutely brilliant” and is seeking to take on more pupils.

Speaking at the specialist art college’s presentation evening, Mr Neil Scruton said the quality of staff was at its strongest ever while its positive Ofsted inspection judged the quality of teaching as “good” and “outstanding”.

Mr Scruton said: “We know from our own monitoring that we have improved the percentage of outstanding teaching. Our staff work and collaborate as one.”

He disclosed the Walshaw Road school was oversubscribed with requests for places. In response, the governing body has asked Bury Council to increase its level of admission from 190 to 200 students.

Mr Scruton added: “Our uptake for post-16 education is now nearing 90 per cent of all students.

“Our level of student attendance has improved for five consecutive years and we are the fastest school in the borough in reducing fixed term exclusions.”

Describing the last year as one of “outstanding achievement”, Mr Scruton said: “Our 2009 GCSE outcomes represented a record performance with standards being substantially higher than Bury and national averages.

“Students across the ability range demonstrated very good progress and we are hoping to be designated as a ‘high performing specialist school’ and, again, be in the national list for ‘fastest improving schools’.”

Mr Scruton said Elton was delighted to have been designated as the priority school in phase one of Bury’s plans to rebuild and refurbish its secondaries.

He said: “April will be a key time when good news is anticipated, but I regret it will take the best part of four years to design and construct a building that is likely to cost in the region of £25 million.

“The good news is that our normal operations will continue undisturbed while this work takes place. We will finally move into a state-of-the-art building that our students and staff deserve.

“Meanwhile, we work to improve our present accommodation with four new additional classrooms and a new creative and media centre that is due to be built at the front of the school, starting this month.”

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