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The Headteacher of St Sampson's High School has agreed that positive progress to improve her school has been made over the past year but Vicky Godley said "we're not there yet".
Last summer, Ofsted said St Sampson's High was "inadequate".
Four aspects of the school were inspected in June 2022, and given a rating out of Ofsted's four grades of 'Excellent', 'Good', 'Requires Improvement' and 'Inadequate'.
St Sampson's High was found to be 'Inadequate' in three out of four areas, and 'Requires Improvement' in another.
Pictured: Ofsted's damning report on St Sampson's High was published just over a year ago.
Ofsted said in its 2022 report: “The quality of education at St Sampson’s High School is not good enough. Senior leaders have not ensured that the curriculum is implemented well.
“Some pupils progress through the curriculum well and enjoy school. However, far too many pupils do not gain the knowledge they need because staff do not have high enough expectations of what they can achieve."
The inspectors also found that "Pupils’ behaviour around the school is poor" and that "while most pupils show respect to their teachers, some do not" and "when bullying happens, pupils report it to their teachers, but they have little confidence that staff will be able to put a stop to it".
Recently a follow up 'monitoring inspection' was carried out with progress found to have been made across the four key areas.
Mrs Godley was pleased the school's progress has been recognised but said there is still some way to go before it can be rated as 'Good' or even 'Excellent'.
"The school, as long as everything is seen to make progress at the monitoring inspection, has the potential to be Good by the time of the next full inspection. There's just one monitoring visit that takes place because for example if the management visit said that there were more things to do, in terms of adding further areas for development, they could potentially come back again. Because the school has made progress in all of the elements there's no need for them to come back again within that interim period."
The monitoring report found that there has been progress made in terms of the school's leadership and Mrs Godley told Express that she has now got a strong senior team around her which is benefiting the wider school community.
"(It's) completely changed apart from me, and lots in terms of decisions that were based on personal circumstances of those individuals. Some of it was to go into new educational establishments, some were retiring at those points, different circumstances.
"I don't want it to be seen as that, it was awful then. This is now. We're moving forward."
As with other schools, St Sampson's High has faced recruitment difficulties but Mrs Godley said from September the school will be fully staffed.
"...that takes time to ensure that you get the right people. What we have had in the interim period is agency staff that are specialists in those areas, and we couldn't have done without them without without any doubt. But you want permanence to ensure consistency for those young people in terms of moving forward.
"And that's a concern for parents. They notice the changes as well as children, and without any doubt, any head teacher wants permanence. In that we're in a far better place in September."
Pictured: Vicky Godley, Head teacher of St Sampson's High School.
St Sampson's High has also been seen as making progress against Ofsted's concerns over bullying and safeguarding.
Mrs Godley says "safety has to be the first thing. You want children to feel safe in school".
She has led improvements in those areas with the help of her new senior leadership team and implementing behavioural policies.
"... no matter what is taught within a classroom, the quality and the outcomes are affected if classrooms are disrupted. So that had to be the first port of call in terms of what we were doing."
Mrs Godley believes that current pupils are experiencing, and new pupils starting in September will experience, a different school to some of the past pupils whose negative experiences influenced last year's Ofsted report.
"...you can make it the best system possible for those young people, and it's also changing hearts and minds. Some children that have been through St Sampson's for the last five years may have a very different experience to the younger children that are coming in.
"So there's a change in expectations, and without any doubt you want to eradicate bullying but different people have different experience at different times.
"What I don't want you to walk away with is that we don't care about those young people we absolutely do, and we're working really hard to try and ensure that they feel as comfortable as the next child that comes to school."
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