THE head teacher of Marlwood School has stepped down.
Seema Purewal took charge of the school in Alveston in September 2021 and oversaw continued improvements that led to the school being given a ‘good’ rating by regulator Ofsted at the end of last year – six years after going into special measures.
Will Roberts, the chief executive of Castle School Education Trust, which runs Marlwood, told parents Miss Purewal had taken the “enormously difficult” decision for personal reasons.
He said: “Miss Purewal has worked incredibly hard on behalf of Marlwood School over the last three years.
“She has navigated the school successfully through a period of significant change, not least addressing the legacy of the pandemic, overseeing the refurbishment of the main school buildings, and achieving a Good inspection outcome when Ofsted visited last Autumn.
“As you can imagine, the decision to leave Marlwood has been an enormously difficult one for Miss Purewal.
“For personal reasons, she has decided to step down straight away rather than at the end of the year, and we fully respect her reasons for doing so.
“We are grateful to Miss Purewal for her service to the school and wish her well for the future.”
Former Castle School head takes over
Mr Roberts said former Castle School head teacher Joe Docherty had been appointed as executive head teacher at Marlwood “with immediate effect”.
He said: “Mr Docherty knows Marlwood well from his role as CSET’s Director of Secondary Schools.
“We will be advertising for a head of school to start in September, to lead Marlwood on a day-to-day basis under Mr Docherty’s overall direction.
“This arrangement will ensure that Marlwood benefits from experienced leadership through a period of change for the school.
“I am sure that the school community will make Mr Docherty welcome in his new role, and I know that he is looking forward to meeting pupils and parents over the coming weeks.”
Head made ‘tough choices’
The school in Vattingstone Lane was rated as ‘inadequate’ by the regulator in 2017.
It was subjected to a series of “monitoring visits” by Ofsted, as a new head teacher, Del Planter, worked to address the criticisms.
In December 2019 the school was finally taken out of special measures.
After Mr Planter moved on Miss Purewal took over in September 2021 and set about finishing the job of reshaping the school.
Ofsted visited again last November and the inspectors’ report said the school is now good in all areas.
Speaking at the time Miss Purewal, who came to South Gloucestershire after 20 years teaching in the West Midlands, said the school could now “start a new chapter”, after a journey which “has not always been easy”.
She said: “As head teacher, it has been my job to drive the improvements, so I have had to make tough choices, which were sometimes not popular with children and parents.”