ISI Inspection Report
Dear Parents,
With great pleasure and pride I can inform you that a copy of the Independent Schools Inspectorate’s Report on Handcross Park, which was carried out in March 2007, is now available for your perusal. If you would prefer your own hard copy then one can be obtained from the School Office. The report will also be published on the Independent Schools Inspectorate’s own website and copies will been sent to IAPS, our accrediting body, Ofsted and the DfES.
The purpose of Inspection is fundamentally for the benefit of the pupils of the School thereby ensuring that they are receiving the best education possible and that the School is compliant with all regulatory standards. It is also of enormous support to the School itself and helps us to identify areas which we may address to further improve the educational provision.
Once you have read the report you will understand why I am absolutely delighted. Handcross Park is clearly in extremely good shape and has a great deal to be proud of and it is always good for the teaching staff to receive assurances from experts that they are doing their job very well. We are particularly pleased with the high level of praise regarding the quality of education provided in terms of pupils’ learning and achievements, the spiritual, moral, social and cultural developments of the pupils and the quality of teaching. We are also particularly proud of the quality of care and relationships throughout the School, the provision of pastoral welfare and health and safety and our links with the parents and the community. All received very high level of praise. It is also extremely pleasing to hear that the leadership, management and governance of the School was described as a strength.
I believe that it is vital that a school should always seek to improve. Therefore, I am very grateful to the Inspectors for pointing out one or two areas that we might pay attention to. You can rest assured that we will be treating all of their suggestions seriously.
We agree with their advice that we streamline internal documentation in order to cover both the Secret Garden and the Prep School. This is a matter of priority as Handcross Park is one school and must not be perceived as two separate organisations.
The Secret Garden responded to the Inspectors’ comments immediately after the initial feedback and has already addressed the minor imbalance between Humanities, Maths and Literacy.
Despite twice being praised in the body of the Report on the independent learning abilities of the children, the Inspectors still feel that there is greater scope for development of independent thinking and learning skills. This again is already being attended to and the staff will be undertaking In-Service Training at the commencement of next term on this very topic.
Finally, it was unfortunate that the Inspectors inspected during the time of transition with our assessment programme. We have recently phased out one system and introduced another and were compelled to provide them with data from two different sources. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that the Inspectors felt that the assessment system was somewhat over-burdening. That is already no longer the case.
In conclusion, this very happy Headmaster can tell you that he is very proud of what the School has achieved. I have already said that a school should never stand still and should always be seeking to develop and move forward. Despite a highly complimentary and positive Inspectors’ Report, I promise you that is exactly what will happen at Handcross Park as long as I have the pleasure of leading this wonderful School and the talented team who work extremely hard for the benefit of your children.
Yours sincerely,
Warren J Hilton
Headmaster
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To view the ISI Inspection Report in Adobe Acrobat, please click on the link below.