Tanfield. A small, ex-mining village in County Durham. It’s not a place you’d expect much from, right? Well, Steven Clough, headteacher of Tanfield School, has plans to change this. 

Having been labelled “inadequate” by Ofsted and the Chronicle running a story describing “boisterous and unruly” behaviour accompanied by “weak” teaching, Tanfield School reached a low point in February 2019 and the following months, leading to only 90/158 student places being filled the following year. According to Steven Clough, this caused parents to have “lost faith in us, and rightly so”. Low grades were almost an expectation at this time too, as progress 8 results placed the school in the bottom 300 of the country. After this, Clough knew he had to help the school. He described how he put in place “a new knowledge rich curriculum and teaching and learning model” during his first year at Tanfield. 

Covid-19, an event we all know well, became a huge turning point for the school. Deciding to prepare for the worst, the staff and students were all trained in the Google for Education apps, and each student was ensured to have a device to work on. This preparation significantly helped the school and its reputation. Despite no GCSE results to change their progress 8, Tanfield clearly showed strength and perseverance through that difficult time. 

As a student of Tanfield myself during this time, I was able to see the full extent of these changes. Since coming to the school in 2017, utilising advice from the “High-Performance Podcast”, Clough instilled three non-negotiable behaviours in the form of Hard Work, Trust and Fairness. According to him, these ensure both staff and students “never give up”, “are honest” and always “play by the rules”. 

These changes helped the school go from the bottom 300 in the country with progress 8 scores of almost -1, up to being the second best school in County Durham, and being placed in the top 8% of schools in the country with students leaving with almost two thirds of a grade higher in each subject. According to Clough, this, alongside the students’ reactions on results day, is the “greatest reward” from being a teacher, and has even stated that it’s “why I do the job”. 

However, the top 8% of the country just isn’t enough for Clough, as he explained how each year, he sets the challenge to the staff and students of being, the best school in Stanley, in their Trust, in County Durham and ultimately be in the top 1% of schools in the country. He told me how he doesn’t see an end goal” due to his belief that “if you stand still you go backwards”, which he uses to instil the idea of constant reflection in staff and students to constantly better themselves. 

Overall, with Tanfield’s main aim now being to give each student the opportunity to have their dream life, I would say that this village has a lot coming for it in the future.