New Birmingham Sikh School Rated Outstanding By Ofsted

[cool water]

New Birmingham school rated outstanding by Ofsted

• Jul 01, 2014 18:00
• By James Cartledge

Nishkam High School wins plaudits from inspectors for good teaching and 'exceptional' behaviour from pupils

A new Birmingham school has been rated outstanding by Ofsted inspectors.

Nishkam High, described as a “Sikh-ethos, multi-faith school”, opened in Hockley in September, 2012.

It is a free school and is run by the Nishkam School Trust, which also has educational centres in London, Leeds and Kenya.

Pupil achievement, quality of teaching, pupil behaviour and safety, and leadership and management were all graded as exceptional.

Executive principal Terry Green said: “This represents a tremendous achievement by the whole community which helped to build and partially fund the construction of the school.

“Our ‘outstanding’ judgement is not just based on a two-day visit by inspectors.

“It is as a result of many years of tremendous effort by our students, staff, governors, parents and community.

“I congratulate and thank everyone for creating an exceptional and very special multi-faith inspired school open to all.”

Ofsted inspectors found students made rapid and sustained progress across subjects and achieved well, particularly in English and in maths.

Teachers were said to have had good subject knowledge and had high expectations of their students’ achievements.

Pupils’ behaviour was also reported as exceptional.

Birmingham is set for more free schools after the Government last month revealed an extra 38 would be launched across the country.

The new schools will include a Perry Beeches primary school and Perry Beeches V and VI. They will be run by Perry Beeches Academy Trust, which already runs three schools in Birmingham. Free schools are independently run but receive state funding.

They can set their own pay and conditions for staff and decide on curriculum details. But teaching unions are opposed to them and claim they are unaccountable to communities. Education secretary Michael Gove said last month: “Free schools are giving thousands of children from ordinary backgrounds the kind of education previously reserved for the rich and the lucky.”

[dholki]

This news is welcome, especialy since the sister school, Nishkam Primary School was rated :requires improvement in all inspection areas in its earlier ofsted inspection which lead to the resignation of the head teacher Narinder Brach.

ther is still no new head teacher in situ

This came without any pre-warning to parents, hopefully now they can move forward.

It is also interesting to note that the Nishkam School Trust is due to take control of Anand Primary School in Wolverhampton.

[Drummer]

And guru Nanak Sikh academy gone down from outstanding to good. Issues with teaching and marking work and also some problems with the subject leaders who were clearly not using data efficiently. Heard that lot of them were chosen because they knew someone in the trust or governors

[West London Singh]

As a father, I think it's important to read the full details of any school before coming to conclusions without reading too much into the headlines.

The headline above states that the school was deemed 'outstanding'. It's only when you read the report proper that you realise that the 'outstanding' rating comes from the overall point system with on'y student behaviour scoring the exceptional mark. The pointer that is important for us parents is the quality of teaching and the exam marks attained by the students. On both these important counts the school is neither outstanding or exceptional. Simply 'good'. And 'Good' simply means it is not one of the failing schools.

[Drummer]

Guru Nanak academy is good but they are still using outstanding logo on their official letterhead