Notre Dame High School

Overview

The inspection team found that Notre Dame High School has successfully led a whole-school change to a co-educational context, underpinned by values of kindness, ambition, and respect. Young people learn in an inclusive, nurturing environment reflecting a strong Catholic ethos, resulting in high confidence and ambition among students. The report concludes that the school has the capacity to continue to improve, with no further visits required.

Strengths

• Senior leaders have set a “highly ambitious vision” and successfully managed the transition to a co-educational context involving the whole community.
• Students benefit from an “inclusive, nurturing and caring environment” where “warm and positive relationships are a key feature in classrooms.”
• The “rich and diverse mix of young people” are valued and fully included, making them “confident, successful and ambitious.”
• Staff use data and tracking information “very effectively” to monitor progress, leading to “strong attainment and positive destinations for almost all young people.”

Areas to improve

• Staff should develop “strengthened approaches to quality assurance across all curriculum areas” to ensure improvement priorities are consistently taken forward.
• Teachers should continue exploring approaches to teaching and learning so that young people benefit from “high-quality experiences across the school” and are appropriately supported and challenged.

Safeguarding

The report states that young people learn in an “inclusive, nurturing and caring environment” and that the school’s work in “Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion” is evaluated as “very good.”