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Manor Primary School, Wolverhampton

By Judith O'Reilly

Ten years ago, Anita Cliff walked into her first job as a deputy head teacher at Manor Primary, a school in crisis. She was in post six weeks before the then head went off sick and she was appointed acting head.

Standards of achievement were poor - only 44% of 11-year-olds at the school reached the required level in mathematics and just over half in English, school buildings were tired, and morale among staff low.

Today, the school is considered "outstanding" by Ofsted and its academic results are among the best in the country.

In a recent report, inspectors described "a powerful culture where all staff are passionate about pupils' learning", "exemplary" behaviour among pupils, high expectations and "exceptionally high" standards.

"We've come a long way in 10 years," Cliff says. "Our children are delightful. They are extremely hard-working and school brings out the best in them. We give them a really stimulating learning experience and the children respond to that. There is a belief in school that everybody can achieve their best."

Based in Bilston, Wolverhampton, Manor Primary recruits pupils from the nearby council estate. When children arrive at nursery as three-year-olds, they are below the national average in terms of skills. By the time they leave reception their achievement is considered to be average. But "average" is not a destination at Manor Primary, it is a stopping-off point to excellence. By the end of year 2, English, maths and science results in key stage 1 are significantly above the national average, and by the age of 11, key stage 2 SAT results are in the top 1% in the country.

Year on year, results just keep getting better. Our performance table, which ranks schools on their results in key stage 2 level 4 SATs over three years, ranked Manor Primary, 36th in the UK just two years ago. Last year, it rose to sixth and this year it ranks second only to South Farnham Junior School, which achieves identical perfect results for all children in English, maths and science, but finishes top because it is even bigger than Manor Primary and more children achieve the benchmark.

However, Manor Primary's children aren't just reaching the required level expected of an 11-year-old (level 4), they are surpassing it. This year in English, 84% performed at level 5 (considered to be the level of a 13-year-old); 91% in maths, and 100% in science. The scale of this achievement is hard to overstate; just 11 independent fee-paying prep schools achieved better results at level 5 in 2008, the most recent year for which we publish results. And all this happens in a large school of 420 children (compared with the average size of a primary of about 260) where 23% of children come from an ethnic minority background, the biggest second language being Punjabi.

Cliff, who is described by Ofsted as "inspirational", said it took two years to haul standards above the national average, three years to be significantly above and four years to be in the first percentile nationally. "Since then, that's where we've stayed."

Naturally, with superb results, the school is extremely popular and there are 150 applications for 60 places and a tightly drawn catchment area of 0.7 miles. Parents are understandably supportive. One parent told Ofsted inspectors that Manor Primary was "an excellent example of what a school should be." Another, that it was "absolutely brilliant", and yet another that she was "truly grateful for the inspirational teaching" the children received.

In 1999, as the UK readied itself to celebrate the new millennium with the official opening of the Millennium Dome, in Wolverhampton Anita Cliff and her team spent their autumn half-term holiday painting classrooms yellow. Later, they brought in contractors - a key element in the new era for Manor Primary was the complete redecoration of the building and the purchase of new furniture for every classroom.

"It stimulates the children," Cliff says. "If a place is drab and dowdy, that doesn't lift or inspire them. What we also did was display children's work so they could see it was valued and other children could aspire to have their work mounted and put up on the walls. You need to lift the workplace."

Other money was spent on ICT. "It enhances the curriculum and enables children to achieve higher levels - after all, ICT is their future. They will have to be able to use it as a tool in everything they do in any workplace of the future, and we are trying to give them the best foundation possible for that."

Even the three-year-olds have robust hand-held computers called FizzBooks, each with its own camera, movie-maker and touch screen, which are new to the UK educational market. At eight-plus, pupils get portable notebooks with detachable keyboards, longer battery life and a bigger memory. With this level of investment, it hardly comes as a surprise to hear the children are also performing at level 5 in ICT.

Virtual reality is one thing, but the children at Manor Primary also benefit from learning about things first-hand and finding things out for themselves.

"We want our learning to be real, so if we are learning about a river, we go stand in a river. If we are learning about the Romans, we go to a Roman settlement and dress up in togas and handle Roman artefacts. And if we can't get a visit for something like the Aztecs, we have workshops with a production company who will bring costumes and artefacts in. Our learning is not just about books and research."

Key to everything is the quality of teaching on offer, described by Ofsted as "stimulating and highly skilled".

Cliff says: "In the early days there were issues with the quality of teaching, but we have built up a team of inspiring teachers and - on the whole - they are the same teachers who were here before.

"What we've done is work with staff. It's a matter of empowering them, giving them a voice while showing them what you want to see in terms of teaching and learning within a challenging, engaging and inspiring curriculum."

Teachers video themselves teaching and are given the opportunity to reflect on their own practice. They themselves are coached by the school's leadership team into analysing what they do well and what their next steps should be. Teachers then put an action plan in place to achieve their own developmental targets.

Cliff leads by example. The school's budget for investment is partly the result of bringing in external funding from the work she does to support other schools' heads and leadership teams. She is a consultant head teacher for the Wolverhampton local authority and a "local leader of education" across the Black Country, which includes not only Wolverhampton but Walsall, Dudley and Sandwell. The school itself is in the process of becoming one of the top five schools for the quality of its teaching in the country, according to the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children's Services, which involves staff sharing their own expertise in helping satisfactory schools become good and good schools become outstanding.

Cliff claims the curriculum is "extremely rich and broad" with "lots of visits and lots of visitors". Inspectors were impressed that staff were "continually striving to provide an even more creative and imaginative curriculum".

Residentials are considered an important part of the curriculum - providing an opportunity for abseiling, quad biking, a zip wire, and "the leap of faith", where children climb up a telegraph pole and leap off it, only to be lowered by harness to the ground.

"Our children believe they can achieve. We are building confidence and self-esteem all the time. They learn they can challenge themselves and that it is safe for them to take a risk."

Subjects are "very tailored" to a children's needs with lots of positive feedback. "We have stars and wishes" says Cliff. "We tell the children 'You are a star because ...' and we say what needs to be improved with, 'My wish is for you ...' or 'This would be even better if ...' We are very positive and very consistent. Children love to have their work marked and need that sort of feedback."

She eschews worksheets and takes pride in the quality, quantity and range of writing in books and on display. "Filling in worksheets is not what learning is about. We develop the children's core skills so they are able to write about what they are doing and record in a variety of interesting ways across the curriculum."

Manor Primary has an outdoor classroom and has already taken over a neighbouring community hall as a dance, drama and music studio. Cliff's next project is even more ambitious - a media centre with its own editing suite, green screen, lighting and cameras. There, the children will produce high-quality films and podcasts for broadcast and acquire enhanced IT and editing skills.

Her work in turning Manor Primary around and sharing her knowledge with other heads and schools earned Cliff an OBE for services to education in 2007. But she refuses to take the credit.

"The OBE was an accolade for the work the whole school community does. We have exceptional teamwork. Everybody works incredibly hard to provide a fantastic 'wow' experience for the pupils. We've created something very special here - it's a place where everybody contributes and everybody is valued. I'm very privileged to work here as part of such an inspiring team."