All Saints Catholic School is a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

secondary school located on Terling Road,

Dagenham Dagenham () is a town in East London, England, within the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Dagenham is centred east of Charing Cross. It was historically a rural parish in the Becontree Hundred of Essex, stretching from Hainault Forest ...

in the

London Borough of Barking and Dagenham The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham () is a London borough in East London. It lies around 9 miles (14.4 km) east of Central London. It is an Outer London borough and the south is within the London Riverside section of the Thames G ...

, England.

Status

With around 1100 students, it is the only

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

voluntary aided A voluntary aided school (VA school) is a state-funded school in England and Wales in which a foundation (charity), foundation or Charitable trust, trust (usually a religious organisation), contributes to building costs and has a substantial influ ...

comprehensive school A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is res ...

in Barking and Dagenham. It is also a training college, receiving the status in 2008, making it one of the first twin colleges.

History

''All Saints School'' was previously named ''Bishop Ward'' which between the mid 1950s (1954?) and the early 1960s was a mixed school then it became an all-boys school when the girls were moved to the ''Sacred Heart'' all-girls school they combined the two again in 1989. The school was notable as a specialist college in technology, one of the first in the country.

Performance

Results at Bishop Ward were poor with an atmosphere that Desmond 'Des' Smith described as "depressed and violent", Following the appointment of Smith as head teacher in 1984 results steadily improved until in 2003 it was considered "the second most improved school in England". The March 2003 Ofsted report summarised the situation "The school has many very good features. Strategies adopted by the headteacher and governors have led to overall GCSE results rising faster than the national trend for some years, culminating in well above average results in 2002". However, the inspectors also said that the school's strategy led to several subjects of the National Curriculum not being taught to all pupils in Years 10 and 11. In addition, National Curriculum music provision remained poor. Improvements continued and in the report of 6 June 2007 inspection Ofsted rated the school as Grade 1 ''''Outstanding'' saying "The school provides its students with an outstanding education. Standards are high and students achieve extremely well as a result of excellent teaching. The leaders and managers believe that each child is important and this maxim is at the heart of their decision making. There is a clear vision and a hunger for improvement building on the school's record of outstanding success." However, the school recognises the need to extend some aspects of its provision for the 14–19 age group including improving the guidance in the sixth form.

Cash for peerages

Since January 2006, while headmaster at the school, Smith has been notorious for making the indiscreet remarks that triggered the

Cash for Peerages The Cash-for-Honours scandal (also known as Cash for Peerages, Loans for Lordships, Loans for Honours or Loans for Peerages) was a political scandal in the United Kingdom in 2006 and 2007 concerning the connection between political donations an ...

scandal A scandal can be broadly defined as the strong social reactions of outrage, anger, or surprise, when accusations or rumours circulate or appear for some reason, regarding a person or persons who are perceived to have transgressed in some way. Th ...

. 'Headmaster in cash for peerages row is banned from driving'
''The Daily Telegraph'', 26 July 2006. At the end of the 2005–06 academic school year Smith retired and was replaced by the Deputy Head Teacher Kevin Wilson.

References

External links

Official site
{{authority control Secondary schools in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Catholic secondary schools in the Diocese of Brentwood Educational institutions established in 1992 1992 establishments in England Voluntary aided schools in London Dagenham