Board of Trustees Chair Erin Roth announced in an email Jan. 9 that the Office for Standards in Education rated the school as “Outstanding” in a recent report created after their inspection Nov. 14-16. Ofsted’s previous inspection in December 2021 had downgraded the school’s rating from “Outstanding” to “Requires Improvement.”
Interim High School Principal Jack Phillips said the new rating is a “validation of the work and effort” the school has put in to meet Ofsted’s requirements.
“This is an affirmation of the great work we do day in and day out that we’ve always done and has always, until 2021, been recognized as outstanding,” Phillips said.
Nina Christodoulou (’25), who was interviewed by Ofsted during the recent inspection, said she believes the “Outstanding” rating has been rightfully earned.
“We were all saying really positive things about [the school] and how, like, we were feeling supported, so I feel like that makes sense,” Christodoulou said.
Despite feeling happy at the news of the recent inspection’s rating, Phillips said he was partly frustrated given the lack of significant differences in the school since the last rating.
“We have not fundamentally changed ASL, and so to think that we were a fundamentally different school…I don’t buy it,” Phillips said. “We are an outstanding school, and there’s no question about that.”
Moreover, Christodoulou said she feels the school “deserves an outstanding” and believes the new rating will be “really good for the school” in the future.
Phillips said the recent report signifies an opportunity for the school to move forward.
“What I hope is that it kind of closes a chapter in ASL’s history, one that is not viewed, I think, in that sort of best light,” Phillips said. “It gives a chance to sort of, from a place of strength, figure out now ‘Okay, how are we moving forward in the best interests of our students?’ rather than meeting some compliance requirement that the Department for Education says we have to.”
