Northfield

Northfield may refer to:

Places

Education

See also

Northfield School

Northfield School is a comprehensive secondary school in Billingham, north-east England.

History

The school was established in 1972. It was awarded specialist Sports College status in 1999, and in 2008 was awarded a second specialism as a Training School. The first headteacher, Dennis Armitage was succeeded in 1989 by David Youldon and in 2010 by Craig Walker. In 2009/2010 it merged with Billingham Campus School, with both named Northfield School.

In the 2008 Ofsted Inspection Report, the last under the leadership of David Youldon, the school was awarded a Grade 1 (Outstanding) for overall effectiveness and achievement, with no significant areas for improvement.

Following the controversial appointment of Craig Walker as Headteacher in 2010 subsequent Ofsted Inspection Reports have down-graded the school to Grade 2 in 2011 and Grade 3 (Requires Improvement) in 2014.

In its 2011 report Ofsted noted that: “ . . . students did not make gains on previous years’ achievements. This was most notable in the number of students gaining five or more GCSE grades A* to C, including English and Mathematics which were disappointingly low and gaps appeared in the performance of students in comparison with similar students nationally in mathematics.” In a parental questionnaire which formed part of the 2011 inspection Ofsted noted that 23% of respondents felt that lessons were disrupted by bad behavior and 13% felt the school did not respond to their concerns.