Challenge Partners
To challenge ourselves as a school, and to ensure that our school improvement plans are the best they can be to ensure the best outcomes for our children, we are part of Challenge Partners, a national programme. We have been reviewed by teams from Challenge Partners for the past 6 years, affirming the school improvement journey we are on. Our outcomes started as GOOD in 2017, then have been consistently above this since 2018 when we were judged Outstanding across the board with an Accredited Area of Excellence in Writing. In 2019, we were again graded as OUTSTANDING and in February 2020 we achieved the new highest level of LEADING with an even more rigorous set of criteria. We also had another accredited Area of Excellence for our ‘Culture of Challenge’. In February 2021, we again were Leading level with another accredited area of excellence for ‘Global Advocacy’. For copies of the reports please see the links below. We were delighted to have maintained our LEADING status in our inspection in January 2022 with another accredited area of excellence for ‘Leading with Impact’.
For copies of the reports please see the links below.
We have four members of staff who are trained by Challenge Partners to lead reviews in other national schools Mrs Saville (Headteacher), Mr Hockaday (Deputy Headteacher), Miss Igoe (Senior Leader) and Miss Redman (Maths Lead and Senior Teacher). This is excellent professional development and it also hugely benefits our school. Miss Redman has already been part of a review team of an outstanding school in Worcestershire and a school in London. Mrs Saville has reviewed an outstanding school in Cornwall and two schools in Nottingham and another more recently in London. She also is a group facilitator in the Growing The Top Challenge Partners programme. Mr Hockaday has visited schools in Cornwall, London and Hampshire. Being part of Challenge Partners means that we can share best practice and learn from others; we also share training and reflect on our school improvement – the benefits are enormous. The professional dialogue and learning that takes place through a review is excellent. We want to demonstrate that our school is proactive in working with others, learning from others and being self-reflective and keen to challenge ourselves to ensure that we are achieving the best outcomes for all of our pupils.
During 2023-2024 and 2024-2025, we were part of the Growing The Top Programme. This is a programme for outstanding schools who are carefully matched into trios or quads so each can both share and learn. Expertly facilitated visits enable leaders to explore leading practice and tackle improvement challenges, with host schools receiving external appraisal while visitors gain insight from observing what has worked in other contexts.
In 2025-2026, we had another Challenge Partners review as part of leading the Ambition North Hub. The visit involved meeting with middle leaders and senior leaders and looking at our Geography and History being taught across our school.
Please see our Challenge Partner reports below:
AKPS Challenge Partner Report March 2026
AKPS Challenge Partner Report January 2022
AKPS Challenge Partner Report February 2021
