THE man at the helm of Yate’s only academy has turned the once ailing school around in his first year of headship.

Paul Skipp is celebrating a ‘change in cultural’ at Yate International Academy after taking over in July last year.

Just three weeks into his first headship, Ofsted inspected the academy amid ongoing concerns at then executive principal Beverley Martin’s leadership and subsequent strikes by 100 teachers at the federated Winterbourne International Academy.

Yate was ranked as requiring improvement, Ofsted’s lowest rating, and the academy was dogged with complaints from parents and a high staff turnover.

But Mr Skipp, who was the youngest head teacher in South Gloucestershire when he took the post aged 37, has not been afraid of making difficult decisions and putting in months of hard work to improve standards of teaching and results.

“There has been a big difference since September,” he told the Gazette. “We had to sharpen things up and we have been much more rigorous around lots of processes and systems for instance our attendance, which is now the third highest in South Gloucestershire.

“We have looked at behaviour with absolute rigour and we now have a calm and helpful environment and hardly any incidents of negative behaviour anymore.

“Working with parents on things like that has been important and providing constant reinforcement of expectations.”

Mr Skipp, now 38, who has three young children, added: “We have looked at every single category of the Ofsted report and our whole aim is about raising standards in every area.

“Teaching and learning is our priority and we now have quality teaching that will help raise standards for our students. We have only appointed good or outstanding staff and have put a focus on professional development for staff which has heightened expectations for students and amongst ourselves.

“Where we support staff has been really crucial and leaders have been forensic in analysis and have not been afraid to make difficult decisions.”

The Gazette reported last year how some parents were considering sending their children elsewhere following the departure of long-term principal Roger Gilbert and several other senior leaders and staff complained that they were not allowed to attend their leaving party under Ms Martin’s regime.

Now, however, only staff are temporary contracts are leaving at the end of the summer term.

“There was a high staff turnover but we just haven’t got that now,” said Mr Skipp, who is celebrating a trio of positive reports from the Regional Schools’ Commissioner inspection, a pupil premium inspection and an external verification.

“Staff feel part of a journey and people are excited about that. This whole year I couldn’t have asked staff to work any harder.”

He said the 718-student academy was now on course for a Good Ofsted rating and build on last year’s improved GCSE results. .

“We are meeting the criteria for a Good school and are well on the way to achieving that,” said Mr Skipp.

“We are feeling positive about results and think we will improve on last year. Certainly moving into the future we will start to see good and outstanding results.

“In essence we have been creating the right culture. Now we have got that culture in place and are demonstrating its impact we can concentrate on the things we wanted to do in the first place.”