A fresh start for Melksham Oak with new senior leadership team

The new senior leadership team at Melksham Oak Community School say they are looking forward to helping the school flourish and encouraging students to have high aspirations.

The town’s only secondary school was in the public eye last year following parents’ complaints and teacher strikes; however, the new team is now looking forward to a fresh start. New executive headteacher David Cooper has taken over the leadership of the school from former headteacher Haris Hussain. With a fresh senior leadership team working alongside him, David, who has 30 years of teaching experience, said he is looking forward to guiding the school on its next journey.

“We are all about transforming lives, and we want students to receive the best quality education possible,” said David, who trained as a science teacher. “We want to ensure their transitions from primary school are successful and that they leave with high aspirations. We aim to provide them with the support, advice and guidance they need to become the best they can be. Another key focus is fostering an atmosphere around the site where students are kind and respectful to each other and to adults. We are encouraging them to communicate politely in the school environment, helping them develop soft skills that will make them stand out later in life, whether when speaking to potential employers or universities. We want their educational experience here to be second to none.”

David will balance his duties at Melksham with being the headteacher of Devizes School, which is also part of the White Horse Federation, a multi-academy trust that manages several schools in the area. He plans to be based at Melksham Oak Community School three days a week, overseeing the strategy of both schools. Associate headteacher Abbie Clark will manage the day-to-day running of the school. “That doesn’t mean the two schools have to become carbon copies of each other,” says David. “We may choose to implement something at one school if it works well at the other. However, schools will retain their own identities. Our focus is on improving things for students, not stifling innovation. It’s all about allowing the schools to flourish and develop.”

Melksham Oak has recently faced criticism from parents concerned about a lack of communication from the school. However, David emphasised that maintaining ‘strong lines’ of communication and listening to stakeholders is a key part of the senior leadership team’s aims. “We want to create regular opportunities for parents and the community to come in and meet us,” he said. “We also want to reach out through social media and local media to communicate what we stand for and what we are doing. We’re planning regular feedback opportunities through forms and questionnaires, and we’re exploring different ways to connect more with the community—whether through work experience, educational visits, activities in the community, or sport and theatre groups working with us. For the first time, the school has an assistant headteacher responsible for personal development.”

Highlighting the positive improvements already taking place, associate headteacher Abbie Clark said, “We’ve already made significant progress on the ground. Students are greeting staff with ‘Good morning, Miss’ or ‘Good morning, Sir’. It’s about setting high standards every day, and it’s a team effort, with the whole staff on board. We have an amazing staff team here. The results from last year show a lot of strengths, and when the league tables were published, our results stood up as a solid set,” David added. “There is a lot of very, very good teaching happening in the school. There are already clear indications that students are making good progress during their time here. We’re now focused on taking the school on its next journey. Let’s not forget that the school was recently awarded a ‘Good’ rating by Ofsted.”

Pictured: executive head teacher David Cooper and associate head teacher Abbie Clark with the senior leadership team