2001 Inspection

A summary report for parents of a review of the British School of Houston
June 2001

Introduction

The review was carried out by Martin Skelton. I have been a teacher and headteacher of a number of schools and I am now a director of Fieldwork Education. Fieldwork works with British schools in the UK and overseas and with a large number of other international schools throughout the world. I am a Registered Inspector in the UK, which means that I lead inspections of schools on behalf of the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED).

The main purpose of the review was to look at the quality of children's learning and the quality of teaching which contributed to that learning. Where time allowed, I was also asked to look at school curriculum documents, policies and anything else which might have an impact on children's learning.

In my three days in the school I observed sixteen lessons or parts of lessons. Most of my time at the school was spent in classrooms where, using the criteria developed for the inspection of schools in the UK, I made four different judgements.

First, I made a judgement about children's levels of attainment. This means the National Curriculum level at which most children were working. Second, I made judgements about the progress children were making. This means how much new learning (or consolidation of previous learning) was taking place within each lesson. Third, I made judgements about the quality of teaching. This means how much teachers were actually helping children learn. Fourth, I made judgements about children's attitudes and behaviour. This means the extent to which children are contributing towards their own learning.

This summary presents the headlines of those judgements. The school has a fuller version of this report which contains the same judgements but also provides some illustrative examples from my evidence base.

Children's attainment

In the lessons I observed all of the children in the school were working at a level which was at least appropriate to, or better than, that expected of them for their age by the National Curriculum. In no lessons were any children working at a level lower than that expected for them.

Children's progress

In every lesson I observed, the progress children were making was satisfactory or better. In fact, the story is much better than this. In eighty per cent of the lessons I observed children's progress was good and in a further 13 per cent it was very good. This is a hugely positive judgement about the school and one of which everyone connected with the school should be very proud. It bears comparison with the very best schools inspected in the UK and places the British School of Houston amongst the very best international schools I have ever visited.

(The reason that this is so positive is straightforward. 'Progress' is a better judgement of a school than 'attainment'. Children's attainment can be put down to a wide range of factors including the innate ability they bring from home. Their progress, on the other hand, is directly related to how well the school is organised and to what teachers are doing in the classroom. Also, children can have high attainment due to their innate ability without making much progress as a result of their schooling. A school is responsible for the progress of children of all abilities, not for those abilities themselves.)

Teaching

Children's attitudes and behaviour

In all the lessons I observed children's behaviour and attitude to their learning was good or better. In fact, in 74% of the lessons I saw children's attitudes and behaviour were very good. This means that in those lessons it could not have been bettered. Children showed great interest in what they were doing, stayed on task and worked very hard throughout the lessons. At all ages they were able to take responsibility for working on their own when asked to do so but they were also able to work well with other children when the activities required it of them.

Other issues

By the time of my visit the school had begun to develop a very good set of policy statements which help to provide guidance to teachers, parents and others on the appropriate levels of consistency in the school organisation. It is worth noting that the school's Behaviour Policy is less about the sanctions which will be imposed for misbehaviour and more about how to create positive attitudes amongst children. This issue was a particular strength and interest of the headteacher of the school. The work undertaken on this aspect of children's development since the school opened has much to do with the way in which they behaved and worked in school.

The school had also developed policies for the education of able children, marking, display and homework. Some subject policies had also been developed and although other policies still needed to be developed, by the time of my visit, the work represented a very good start.

The school had also begun to develop a number of documents which help teachers to target their work in the classroom as effectively as possible towards helping children learn. The school is aware that these will continue to go through a process of development but they also represent an excellent start to the process of planning children's learning throughout the school.

Conclusion

This was my first visit to The British School of Houston which had not yet been open for a full year.

The school has much going for it. The buildings and site have enormous potential and much work had already taken place to create appealing classrooms and public spaces. Work was taking place to prepare other areas of the school for older children in the current school year. By the time this report is issued these areas will be up and running.

Research suggests that effective schools around the world share two things. First, they are driven by the desire to make sure that children learn (rather than just 'do' interesting things). Second, they organise themselves in such a way that children, teachers and parents have similar experiences. In effective schools, what children experience is not at the whim of individual teachers but a result of the way the school is organised.

The progress made by all of those connected to the The British School of Houston towards both of these has been excellent. It is very difficult to believe that the school had been in operation for less than one year at the time of my visit. Although there is still work to do the school has the feel of a mature rather than developing organisation.

Children learn in every classroom. The overall quality of teaching is very good. The commitment of the teachers and the headteacher is outstanding. The challenge for the school is to build on this exceptional start and acquire the qualities of a school of excellence sooner rather than later. Parents in the Houston area are fortunate to have such a school available to them.