School Development & Inspections

Inevitably, in a large and fairly complex organisation like a school planning for development goes on at a number of levels and over different timescales too. On this page there are links to two key planning documents which show what we are aiming to achieve, how we are going to get those things done and how we will measure the success of our work.

The BWS Strategic Plan extends over the next three years and so gives a high level steer to changes that we are engineering on a broad scale; the super tanker takes a while to effect a change in course, and this 3-year plan gives a feeling for the course over that longer time interval. The School Development Plan, on the other hand concerns itself with what we are aiming to get done in the current academic year. The priorities identified for work fit into the longer term aims, but have a more immediate, grounded feel to them; they also have a financial dimension and so are used to inform budgetary projections too. The 1-year plan is (in part) drawn from priorities for action identified by the Heads of Academic Departments, the Heads of Pastoral Sections and the Bursar's planning so it is a document which is a distillation of thoughts from across the school community. Both of these planning documents are agreed and adopted by the BWS Governing Board.

The third document available via this page is the BWS Self-Evaluation. As the name suggests, this gives a detailed picture of school operation divided up (approximately) into areas determined by the OfSTED inspection framework. It does this by sketching out the current state of play and our means of monitoring what is going on, and then identifies areas for future work. The Self Evaluation is the rear-view mirror - you can see where you have just been, whereas the school planning documents look at the direction of travel.

I hope that together these give a feeling for the pulse of BWS, and that they also show what we are trying to achieve in the years to come. Enjoy!

SDS