School - Season 1

Budget cuts and student anxiety are amongst the challenges facing the school.

The head teacher of Marlwood School in Gloucestershire faces a perfect storm.

The pressure on Marlwood School increases when Ofsted announces an inspection in two days.

School this week follows students with Asperger's, Downs Syndrome and other special needs, whose future level of funding to support them in a mainstream school is currently the subject of intense national debate.

Bad behaviour in the classroom is undermining learning and threatening several schools' results in the multi-academy Castle School Education Trust. Chief Executive Will Roberts and his team decide to introduce Ready To Learn, a strict new behaviour management system.

The school year is drawing to a close and the GCSE exams are looming. After being the lowest performing secondary school in the Academy Trust the previous year, the team at Mangotsfield employs targeted measures to improve its next set of GCSE results. The government gives an allowance or pupil premium to schools for each disadvantaged pupil to help them close this gap. At Mangotsfield there are 14 underachieving pupil premium boys. The progress of these students will be closely monitored by Ofsted. Mangotsfield is currently classed as 'requires improvement' by Ofsted but the school is vying to achieve the status of 'good'. To achieve this they must prove they've made sufficient progress in closing the gap between the pupil premium students and their peers. And Ofsted are coming to inspect the school the next day.