Staff and pupils have described how a school has battled out of special measures to achieve its best ever GCSE results and turn its reputation around.

Failings at Holmesdale School in Snodland led to declining results and falling student numbers before it was placed into special measures in 2018, but changes to the leadership structure have seen a reversal of fortunes - and incoming acting head Lee Downey wants to spread the good news.

"I want to shout it from the rooftops," explained Lee last week, two days after taking over as acting headteacher. "I'm so proud of where the school is now. It is by far the best position it's been in since I've worked here, without a doubt."

That's no small claim. Lee began working in the school as a PE teacher in 2005, when it was rated good by Ofsted, and has seen it follow a rollercoaster of ups and downs since then.

It's fair to say the lowest dip on that rollercoaster came when Holmesdale entered special measures.

"I think in 2018 it was the lowest I've ever felt professionally," he said. "At the time I'd just been put onto a leadership as an associate leader so went into Ofsted as an associate leader. Being put into special measures was not a shock actually, and everything that came out of that report unfortunately we had to agree with. It was what was seen in the school and it was true, and it was down to three or four years where we just had some poor leadership in the school – accountability wasn't there and that led to a slope effect where year after year we didn't improve."

"At that point we had a really high staff turnover which was biggest impact."

When Swale Academies Trust took over, the school began to turn things around under the leadership of head teacher Glen Prebble and executive head Nicki Hodges, but Lee also puts success down to those staff who stuck with the school through thick and thin.

"I've seen the school completely turn around," he adds. "The consistency of teachers day in day out is far better. Students need to feel they're cared for and that some cares about their education, which is difficult for supply teachers.

"We've got a core group of staff that were here when we were in special measures and are here now – and they have been the linchpin of how it's turned around – because it's very easy to walk away when the going gets tough – and it was hard, it's hard work."

And Lee said he too had never been tempted to leave.

"As crazy as I may be, I love this place. I'm so committed, hence why I'm still here. I was hard, it's hard work getting a school out of special measures."

"The main factor is that group of staff that said 'you know what we can do this', because our kids were amazing, and we've got some really supportive families out there – the kids deserve their education, they deserve a good quality of education so we just knuckled down and got on with it."

With Swale having stabilised staffing levels – last year only one teacher left due to retiring – while student intake has also increased, with 115 pupils entering Year 7 this year, compared to around 80 the previous year.

For Lee, the real indicator of the school's success is the Progress 8 measure of +0.02 – a figure which shows pupils progress at Holmesdale is better than at most schools, the national average being set at 0.

That progress has led to 61% of students achieving a Grade 4 in both English and Maths, and the school aims to build on the results.

Lee says much of the recent improvements came when Covid hit, and the school was forced to change the way it operates.

"Someone asked me what did you do," he explains. "We didn't sit still in Covid – we made sure we did things to the best of our ability virtually, and made sure students had access, made sure they had laptops and sent laptops to those that didn't have them."

Another key focus was on research, with teachers attending a 'journal club' to share ideas, while another major change came in focusing on what knowledge students have retained – and what they haven't retained – from lessons.

He adds: "Then they adjust the curriculum and ensure that within their curriculum they're building in time to cover the bits that they don't know, to prepare them for the exams.

"We've got a real focus on memory recall and retention to ensure that in every lesson the students are doing some recall about something they've done previously – it might be last week, it might be last term, it might be last year.

"I think has been a massive push in why we've done so well."

Now Lee's mission is to get the message out to the wider community that Holmesdale is changing, so that the label of "special measures" is no longer attached to the school.

And he's also reaching out to the community in the wake of reports on anti-social behaviour in Snodland - but he says the yobs reported to be causing issues in Rectory Close last month are not from the school.

"This is a real issue for us," adds Lee, "because when they're identifying youths in Snodland, the initial reaction to that is they're Holmesdale students and we're working really hard with our PCSO and school police officer to make the community realise that they're not our students.

"There are students from other schools that come to the area. We're aware of students that are coming on the train into Snodland. I don't know who these youths are.

"Could it be some of our students? Potentially, but I'm fully aware from the work we do with the police that there are a lot of youths, a lot of teenagers that are causing issues in the area that aren't ours. And we work really closely to identify other students to support the police in doing that.

"It's just really difficult for our staff to see things like that, because we're the only school in Snodland, it's automatically associated with the school – that's something we need to break down – it's almost stereotyping to say that if you are a teenager in Snodland you attend that school. It's not the case, so in terms of our behaviour within school, we've got the lowest suspension rate within the trust, we're really trying hard to keep students in school, and the behaviour in school has improved.

"All of us have got to work together. That's something that we're going to look to do – we want to go out and support the community in that because we want the students in the community to come to this school.

"What we're going to be doing because of the article is we're going to start putting some of our staff out before school and after school to make sure it's not our students. If it's our students, we act on it - we speak to the parents and we get things resolved. The community need to know that we're supporting them as well. It's just making sure that the community realise – don't just assume they're from our school. If they are we will support and help to change that, with the police who work with us and with the parents as well."

But Lee says he wants the focus to be on the school's achievements – and points to the successes of pupils like Joanna Peggie and Kiril Kirilov, who were among Holmesdale's top achievers in this year's GCSEs.

Both Joanna and Kiril explained how they had personally seen the school improve since joining in Year 7 - and had benefited from more consistent teaching and improved practices,

Joanna added: "I think there was some difficulty with Year 10 being interrupted by lockdowns multiple times. The first lockdown was just a complete write off - that was a mess, but we're going to ignore that! The second lockdown was a lot more organised and you actually had teachers and staff.

"Going back to Year 10, we had lead lessons for English starting then, we also had OSL (out of school learning sessions for GCSEs) in year 10 and that moved on to Year 11 - the school really supported us I think.

"I ended up putting my nose to the grindstone. I didn't do too much revision at home because personally I have not much motivation or attention outside of school, as I have ADHD. "

Kiril Kirilov also explained how things improved and said the teaching methods played a big part in his success.

"As a student I'm pretty lazy, but I listened, paid attention in class and engaged in class - went to all the OSLs and just listened to what the teachers said and suggested - I followed their leadership and I did well."

And with both Joanna and Kiril now looking ahead to possible university courses, Lee said the school was looking to follow their lead.

"These two are a perfect representation of how well we did," he added. "But they're more than their results – the person they are, the person they develop into – that's what we're trying to create, someone that can go on and do something, and use their results to better themselves."