Monkton rated as ‘excellent’ in latest ISI Inspection
23 Mar 2017
Monkton School has been rated as ‘excellent’ in the latest inspection report issued today by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (9th February 2017).
The Senior School was closely scrutinised in December 2016 by a team of five highly experienced inspectors over four days. As well as being judged fully compliant against all DfE regulations, the Educational Quality Inspection defined both pupils’ academic achievement and their personal development as ‘excellent’, the highest achievable grade.
The report highlights the academic ability of Monkton pupils for being consistently above the national average at GCSE, with pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding across a wide range of subjects also being excellent. This reinforces the outstanding GCSE results of recent years with Monkton comfortably in the top 100 independent schools in 2016.
Inspectors were full of praise for Monkton students with the report stating that pupils “are lively, hardworking and self-aware, responding enthusiastically to the academic and non-academic challenges available to them.”
The school’s leadership team and teaching staff were also highlighted with the report noting that, “Pupils thrive as a result of high-quality leadership and management which ensure that the school is highly successful in fulfilling its aim to provide a high-quality education in a distinctive boarding school environment.”
The inspection also praised the school’s extra-curricular activities saying “high levels of success are achieved, most particularly in sport, drama and music. Initiatives such as the ‘Team Monkton’ elite extension activities programme ensure that the best athletes are continually encouraged to reach for greater success.”
Monkton is based just a mile outside of Bath in Combe Down and Monkton Combe. It is an independent, co-educational boarding and day school for pupils aged 2-18. Monkton will celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2018 and, like many public schools, boasts an illustrious alumni including Olympic Gold medallists, members of Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition, the curator of TED Talks, Chris Anderson, and the former Head of the British Secret Intelligence Service Sir Richard Dearlove KCMG OBE.
Parents at the Senior School were also asked for their views by the School Inspectors. The report found that
“Almost all felt that the teaching enables their children to make good progress and develop skills for the future, that the school is well governed, led and managed.”
Monkton’s Principal Chris Wheeler said, “We are delighted to receive such a positive report from the Independent Schools Inspectorate. It is a real pleasure to see that the inspectors have recognised the many strengths that Monkton has. Whilst exam results have placed us in the top 20 co-ed boarding schools in the country and Oxbridge offers make us highly competitive with other Rugby group schools, none of those statistics really speak to what a special place Monkton is; only our pupils can do that.”
“This report confirms that our pupils are not only highly successful academically where their, ‘achievement is boosted by consistently strong focus on learning skills’, but also confirms that ‘boarding and day pupils are fully integrated’, and pupils, ‘have extremely well developed personalities for their age’.
Photo: Monkton Principal Chris Wheeler with Senior School pupils Jennifer Dickson, Alec Saint and Max Martindale