Mulberry School for Girls

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is an outstanding school. Exceptional leadership by the headteacher has built on the strengths identified by the previous inspection, with the result that the school continues to provide an outstanding and constantly improving quality of education.

Teaching, previously good, is now outstanding. Students are fulsome in their praise for the quality of teaching and the exceptional support teachers provide to ensure they attain well. Outstanding teaching over time has resulted in year on year improvements in students' achievement at GCSE.

From average starting points, students make very rapid progress in lessons and over time, with the result that attainment ...at GCSE is now high. The proportion of students making and exceeding the progress typically expected of them in English and mathematics is very high. Students' social, moral, cultural and spiritual development is exceptional.

Mulberry girls are highly ambitious, confident and principled. Students are very aware of their rights and responsibilities as young women growing up in twenty-first century Britain. Extremely strong links with business leaders, artists and international organisations mean that students are extremely well informed about employment and cultural opportunities in the local and wider community.

The school provides high quality and extensive support to help parents contribute to their child's learning. Classes in parenting skills, together with a raft of adult education qualifications, are helping to raise aspirations with regard to career opportunities and university choices. Increasing numbers of girls are choosing to pursue university courses beyond the local community.

The sixth form is good and students achieve well on their A level courses. Last year 89% of students went on to study at university. Achievement on AS courses has been less consistent over time than for other qualifications.

Information about this school

The school is much larger than average. Nearly all students are of Bangladeshi heritage, with a very small minority from other backgrounds, including White British, Pakistani and African. Nearly all students speak English as an additional language.

However, very few are at the early stages of learning English. Well over two thirds of students are eligible for the pupil premium, which is additional government funding provided for students known to have been eligible for free school meals in the last six years, looked after children and children of service families; this is much higher than average. The proportions of students supported at the school action and school action plus stages are broadly average; the proportion of students with a statement of special educational needs is above average.

A small proportion of students currently in Year 7 are eligible for catch-up funding for students attaining below Level 4 in English or mathematics at the end of Year 6. The school meets the government's current floor standards that set the minimum expectations for students' attainment and progress. No students are educated off-site.