Another NYCC School Hits Rock Bottom

Another NYCC School Hits Rock Bottom

According to the Home page of its website, Northallerton School and Sixth Form College offers excellent prospects for students from 11 to 19 years of age:

“Our school is a vibrant and happy place to learn, characterised by excellent relationships between staff, students and parents in the context of ‘Learning and Achieving Together’. We have the highest expectations of everyone, aspiring to excellence in every facet of school life. Our overriding aim is to promote and celebrate the success of our students both within and beyond the academic curriculum.”

The school’s website offers another (highly-selective) vision of its own ‘excellence’ here. One is intended to believe that parents and students alike are full of unbounded praise for the school. The Parent View page on the OfSTED website is more objective. Not ‘alf!

Alas, the blurb could hardly be further removed from the reality.

However, today’s Northern Echo (Tuesday 13th March 2018), under the title “Northallerton School rated inadequate and placed in special measures”, tells a very different story.

Yet the recently-appointed Executive Principal, Mr Keith PRYTHERCH (pictured above), in his ‘Welcome’ message on the school’s website, omits any mention of the disastrous performance of the school in recent times:

Welcome to Northallerton School and Sixth Form College

Following the merger of both the schools in town NSSFC is now a comprehensive 11 to 19 establishment that also offers opportunities for mature students, including Adult Education classes. The School combines strong academic achievement and excellent facilities with excellent pastoral care – the welfare and happiness of our students is a top priority. Students form enduring friendships at the School, fostered by the fantastic community spirit that is evident here. This, alongside the intellectual, physical and cultural interests that students develop provides them with skills for life.

This website can only give you a taste of the School. A personal visit will allow you to see much more of what is so good about the School – please contact our Reception team if you would like to arrange a visit and have the opportunity to meet our students and staff and find out more about the good, all-round education and excellent opportunities we offer to our students.

Latest Ofsted Reports

Our most recent Department for Education Inspectorate (Ofsted) Reports can be read by clicking here. 

I wish all of our students the best of success in their studies and hope that they will all strive to do their very best and reach their full potential; the staff at NSSFC are very committed and eager to help students to achieve this.

With best wishes

Keith Prytherch

Executive Principal

This is the same Mr Keith PRYTHERCH known to parents and children in the Whitby area as the chief architect of the unacceptable drop in standards at Caedmon College Whitby. He was drafted in to Northallerton School by the Local Education Authority (NYCC) to stop the rot, chosen (it is reasonable to speculate) for his experience in conjuring up the best possible outcomes from OfSTED Inspections.

Regular readers will recall North Yorks Enquirer coverage, here:

• “OfSTED: The ‘Benign’ Inspection Technique?” – (15/05/17)
• “CCW: KP’s ‘Retirement’ Follows Massive DfE ‘Fail’” – (21/10/17)
• “Caedmon Principal in Sideways Shuffle” – (13/12/17)

Clearly, NYCC’s policy of rewarding failure (PRYTHERCH headed the fourth WORST school in the County) has not delivered the required result – though many would hold that it has delivered the anticipated result; ‘INADEQUATE’ in EVERY department:

Of particular concern is the somewhat down-played assessment that “the school’s Safeguarding arrangements are ineffective”. 

The Enquirer has devoted thousands of words to the parlous state of Children’s Safeguarding in North Yorkshire. A deep study is now in progress and readers can look forward to learning the true extent of some of the appalling Safeguarding disasters – and the despicable cover-ups mounted to mitigate the devastating “reputational damage” that full transparency is bound to occasion.