The school that makes sure no one gets left behind [Guardian.co.uk]
- Published: 15 September 2009
Shirley Robins, head of the effective learning centre, with Colin Wheeler, 14, who has excelled with the school's support. Photograph: Jim Wileman
No child leaves Treviglas community college in Newquay as a neet (not in employment, education or training). Headteacher Helen Mathieson simply doesn't allow it. Her school - the only 11-18 institution in Cornwall to be graded as "outstanding" by Ofsted, up from "satisfactory" just three years ago, she tells me - is "almost messianic" in its belief that every child should succeed.
"When I arrived here as a junior teacher in 1987, a careers adviser said: 'Oh no, Treviglas children don't go to college'. I found - still find - that shocking. There is no reason why any child shouldn't reach their potential," she says with absolute conviction.
For a college in a deprived area of Cornwall to become a no-neet zone is something of a triumph given the current national context. Last week, a report on educational trends by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showed that young people in the UK drop out of education, employment or training at a higher rate than in any OECD country apart from Italy, Mexico and Turkey.
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