Dear Parents & Carers
I wanted to write to you personally today to thank everyone (students, staff and parents) for the very positive approach everyone has taken to the full school re-opening this term.
Clearly the last six months have presented us all with various unprecedented challenges relating to Covid-19 but it is wonderful to have students back in school and learning, and we are thrilled to see them again.
There will be bumps in the road as we move forward but our staff have put in place procedures in line with Government guidance and the school is as safe as it can be. I am grateful for all your co-operation and support in making the first weeks as successful as they have been – thank you.
I also today would like to update you on the outcome of the inspection by Ofsted in March this year. As you may recall, the school was previously inspected two years ago and progressed to Requires Improvement. Given the ongoing hard work since then, we were confident that our upward trajectory would be maintained and that this inspection would result in a report grading us as Good. Ofsted gave us very positive feedback indeed during the inspection about what they saw. The inspection process continued after the in-school inspection finished however, and this process was unavoidably affected by Covid-19, particularly as Ofsted ceased publishing reports at this time.
Ofsted wrote to us this week to say that it has decided that, given the “exceptional circumstances caused by the Covid-19 pandemic” and because the inspection took place such a long time ago, it will now carry out a re-inspection “early in 2021”.
Though this delay is disappointing, and while we will now need to undergo a new inspection, we are looking forward to Ofsted confirming us as a Good school at that point.
I have always been firmly of the view that schools are only successful if the whole team (students, staff and parents) is pulling in the same direction – and that is absolutely true of Workington Academy. It is only because of your continuing support that we can achieve what we want to, and I am enormously grateful for all that you do for our school.
Yours sincerely
Mr D Bird
Headteacher
