ABSTRACT
In 1995, The Northicote School was declared by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector no longer to be in need of special measures and became the first secondary school in the country to have the sanctions lifted. At an international conference of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) entitled ‘Combating failure at school’ the then Secretary of State for Education and Employment, Gillian Shephard, told delegates:
My clear target is that failing schools should recover or at least make very substantial progress within two years of being classified as failing. I am pleased to announce today that . . . Northicote School in Wolverhampton has been declared no longer failing. It has been restored to health in less than two years, which is our target. Northicote shows that this can be done even at a large secondary school.
