An academy trust working to turn round struggling Catholic schools on Teesside is celebrating another success.
St Patrick’s Catholic College, in Thornaby , has been praised by Ofsted inspectors for making "significant" progress to improve since a new headteacher, and leadership and teaching teams, were appointed.
The school was judged to be inadequate and placed in special measures after a full inspection in May 2018.
But later in 2018, the school was brought under the control of the Nicholas Postgate Catholic Academy Trust (NPCAT) , along with 25 other Catholic schools across Teesside.
Last week, the trust was praised for its progress at Trinity Catholic College in Middlesbrough - after a monitoring visit found that new leaders had the school on the path to being rated 'Good' again.
And in its latest monitoring visit to St Patrick's, on December 17 and 18 last year, inspectors have concluded: “Leaders and managers are taking effective action towards the removal of special measures."
The report says that although previous efforts to improve the quality of education had mixed results, this picture is now being transformed.
New headteacher Michael Burns - an ex-pupil at St Patrick's - took over on October 21 last year and Ofsted says he has made “significant strides in a short space of time.”
"The headteacher has a clear vision for improvement," the report says.
"He wants all pupils to succeed. In just eight weeks, he has made a number of important changes."
New systems have been introduced to check pupils’ progress and the quality of education, with quicker help for those who fall behind and weekly meetings to check on the most vulnerable pupils.
Senior leadership is being swiftly strengthened and is more visible around the school, while Mr Burns and his team "will not accept bullying or poor behaviour".
“Leaders have made the school site safer. Movement on corridors is calmer and more effectively supervised. Split lunch-times and breaks have led to better site management," the report continued.
“There has been a drastic reduction in serious incidents causing injury. Leaders and teachers take purposeful action to help pupils leave the site as safely as possible."
Mr Burns has also called in Stockton Council to "further improve traffic safety outside the school" while parents are supportive of a new culture of tighter discipline.
An "extremely proud" Mr Burns thanked hard work from pupils, staff and parents for the turnaround and said: “We’re all delighted to have made such significant progress in such a short space of time and it’s reassuring to see the inspectors have acknowledged the transformation that’s taking place.
"I’d especially like to highlight the comment the inspectors made about how we as a school will not tolerate poor behaviour and bullying. We will continue raising expectations in the months ahead as we build on the strides we have made so far.”
Trust chief executive officer Hugh Hegarty added: “The report sets out very clearly that NPCAT is effectively putting the necessary infrastructure in place to embed quality education in St Patrick's Catholic College.
“Together with Ofsted’s recent positive findings at Trinity Catholic College in Middlesbrough , it is evidence of the impact our trust-wide infrastructure is having across all our secondary schools.
“We have a long way to go, but this external validation is a boost to everyone within the college and within the trust.”
Inspectors also praised NPCAT for providing better training and "improving the quality of the curriculum", while appointing a new trust standards officer and trust subject directors for English and maths.
But newly qualified teachers should still not be employed at the school, Ofsted recommends, while a previous "lack of urgency" at the school led to a decline in GCSE results in summer 2019.
The report says work to improve attendance is a major priority for 2020, along with further efforts to improve the quality of teaching.
NPCAT said the school was strengthened further this month when six new teachers started, including a school learning lead and a lead practitioner of English.
