“Working with Angela has been the best professional development that I have experienced in my 15 years of headship.”
— Amanda Bartholomew, Headteacher, Anston Junior School, Rotherham
“Our school has found working with Angela to be purposeful, relevant and it has enabled us to be on the cutting edge, sharply focussed, “on what matters the most”. Angela’s vast educational experience and understanding of different school contexts has been invaluable.
- Angela has conducted my Headteacher’s Performance Management, consequently this has enabled me to target our school improvement more effectively
- Angela has also developed middle leaders in helping the staff become more confident in analysing data for English and maths, as well as conducting learning walks, book scrutiny alongside pupil interviews. Subject leaders have found this to be the biggest help from moving from good to great leaders
- Work with senior leaders in linking the School Development Plan and the SEF has been of significant value to them (by keeping them ahead of the game)
I highly endorse Angela’s work and training events unreservedly. It is the best we have ever had! (Wouldn’t be without her for refining and improving school improvement and self-evaluation so it benefits all parties). Staff at all levels speak highly of her!
Angela’s professional support has been of the highest level and has played an integral key to our success.”
— Jatinder Sembi, Headteacher
St. Luke’s C of E Primary School
“I have worked with Angela for a number of years. Her support has been invaluable in helping us to drive school improvement at a rapid pace. We have attended Angela’s courses and she has lead CPD in our school bespoke to our staff, this has had a significant impact upon teaching and learning.
Angela has helped us to interpret our data and present it in useful easy to understand formats. Working with her has been the best professional development that I have experienced in my 15 years of headship. Working with Angela has helped me to be more confident when facing Ofsted Inspections.”
— Amanda Batholomew, Headteacher
Anston Junior School, Rotherham
“We have worked with Angela for over 4 years now and her knowledge, skills and expertise have been vital in moving our school towards outstanding outcomes for all of our children.
She has completely tailored her work to suit our school improvement priorities, applying analytical rigour and innovative practice to further enhance our curriculum and pedagogy.
Her knowledge of Ofsted, national and local data and safeguarding is second to none! We have improved tremendously along our journey with Angela…and all with support, care and a great big smile on our faces! I would highly recommend Angela to any individual or larger group of schools.”
—Steven Varnam, Headteacher
Halfway Infant and Nursery School, Sheffield
“Attendance at Angela Kirk’s data course proved absolutely invaluable in our recent Ofsted inspection.
Understanding how to analyse our data has helped us to see where to target our school improvement energies and because I had analysed my data using the achievement pro forma, the group analysis and the EYFS templates, I felt confident and well prepared to answer all the inspector’s data questions.
The Lead Inspector appreciated having all the information she needed presented so clearly, visually and accurately. It definitely helped us to achieve our outstanding judgement in more ways than one!”
— Stef Edwards, Headteacher
Great Bowden Academy
“As a new head, I have found working with Angela extremely useful. Angela’s vast educational experience, background and passion for school improvement allowed her to quickly understand our own improvement journey.
Angela’s flair without doubt is data analysis; her ability to drill down with precision and identify possible short term priorities has enabled the school to tighten systems which are meaningful and purposeful to all.
What is credible to Angela is her innate ability to provide appropriate challenge which is both rigorous and supportive in helping the school realise it’s own potential. Each visit, always leaves us excited and wanting to refine and improve further.”
— Meera Bulsara, Headteacher
Church Hill Infant School
“We were in the very fortunate position to have Angela allocated as our external SIP. We found this experience so useful that despite no longer being linked with the school, we continued to use Angela to further the school’s professional development.
Angela established a relationship with the school which helped us move forward. Not only did she suggest where we could improve, but was also very open about strengths, therefore helping us to build confidence as well as competence. Angela’s knowledge about data was extremely useful and helped the school prepare analysis documents for Ofsted.
Being an Ofsted inspector herself, it was also very helpful to do joint lesson observations and seek advice about the SEF. Angela played an important role in helping to turn our school from satisfactory to outstanding.”
— Penny Hannant, Headteacher
St Andrew’s CE Primary School
“Angela worked with our senior leadership team prior to our recent Ofsted Inspection. Her advice regarding data analysis and supporting evidence was excellent and helped us to achieve ‘Outstanding’. Angela’s training was, without doubt, the best we have ever had!”
— Josie Russell, Headteacher
Badgerbrook Primary School
“I have had the pleasure of working with Angela Kirk for about a year. During this time she has quickly established a healthy working rapport with myself and the senior leadership team.
She is a trained Ofsted inspector and is very thorough and accurate in school evaluation. Angela has assisted us in the following areas; classroom observations, assessment, quality of learning and teaching, work scrutiny, curriculum and leadership and management.
Our SEF indicated a ‘Good’ rating in September 2009 and we were inspected in May 2010 and rated ‘Outstanding’. Angela’s professional support was an integral key to our success.”
— Mark Young, Headteacher
Birley Spa Primary
“Our school has found working with Angela Kirk very useful. We had her as a School Improvement Advisor in 2010. Angela was quick to identify areas where our school might need support and to suggest a framework for us to work within. We found her suggestions relevant, identifying an audit of our current foundation curriculum as we moved towards a more integrated, creative curriculum, In this process Angela led us in carrying out a strong audit of our current curriculum through a work scrutiny and lesson observations. This process was well done and gives us something to evaluate the impact of our new curriculum against in future months.
On her second visit Angela assisted Senior Staff in our school in becoming more confident in making judgements on lesson observations. This was an area as a school we had identified as requiring support with. Angela led this process brilliantly with all Staff who worked alongside her feeling much more confident in the way they monitored a lesson, the judgements they made and how to give effective feedback. With her wealth of experience we found Angela’s contribution to moving our school forward invaluable and hope at some stage in the future to work with her again.”
— Mark Hinchliffe, Headteacher
Brook House Primary
— Val Fowles, Headteacher
Gleadless Primary School
“Angela has worked in partnership with the Headteacher in helping raise standards throughout the school. She has inspired confidence throughout the leadership team helping us to distribute our leadership to ensure outstanding pupil outcomes. Angela has worked as a coach, facilitator and challenger in raising the profile of self evaluation for the middle management of the school; they have been empowered to deliver school development priorities and are now better trained in monitoring and evaluation to secure the best possible outcomes for the children.”
— Colin Bowpitt, Headteacher
Greenfield Primary School
Feedback from Courses for Headteachers and Senior Leaders
‘A wonderful information pack and explanation. Very helpful indeed. Excellent, thank you.’
‘Would like a similar session for all of our extended SLT.’
‘The activities really made you think about the data. We can now transfer this information to our own school/data.’
‘Gave me a clear idea of how to effectively interpret data. Thank you. I feel much more confident now.’
‘It made everything a lot clearer.’
‘A superb session. I now want it for my senior leadership team.’
‘I understand far more about using my data. I can go away and do this.’
‘Advice about ‘drilling down’ into our own school data and considering what it means in/ to other yeargroups was invaluable. It was very helpful to use the grids and tables to organise the information to enable meaningful comparisons to be made with national data. Thank you!’
‘Everything was clear, to the point and relevant. A super session! Really informative and relevant to everything we do in school.’
Feedback from Courses for Governors
‘The best course that I have attended for Governors’
‘A real view of inspection in a school using a down to earth approach, with a comprehensive covering of needs and valuable handouts’
‘It was great to not only have the advice and perspective of a Lead Ofsted inspector in regards to how we can move our school on, but it was incredibly helpful to have follow up materials to ensure we get there!’
‘A really inspirational, thought-provoking training session to help our school move forward. A huge thanks.’
‘The lecture was directly related to our own school so the practical sessions on evaluating our own data were very helpful. The ideas on how to monitor our school, including governors visits that would be relevant for us were ideal.’
‘I found using our own school data particularly useful. The open and frank discussion about how we need to move forward was also most useful’.
‘Facilitator very knowledgeable and was able to provide relevant examples based on her experience’
‘I particularly enjoyed hearing first hand from an Ofsted inspector, what are the key areas to monitor and how to do this. It gives me more confidence to be a ‘critical friend’ and makes it clear where this should be focused.’
‘I found very helpful the wealth of knowledge that the facilitator has and passed on. Especially the importance of data and how to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions. I also appreciated her ‘bluntness’!’
‘Very clear, interesting and tailored to our needs.’
‘The preparation undertaken was excellent, making the session relevant to this school and this governing body – thank you for taking the time and making the effort to do this.’
‘Whole course was relevant, should be taken up by all schools. Most useful governor course I have been on.’
Thank you to those of you who have provided me with testimonials. I feel that these do help other schools make positive decisions about whether to contact me about support for their school.
I’m obviously delighted to received further testimonials! If you would like to add a testimonial, please email it to [email protected]. Many thanks.