A FORMER teacher who stepped up as a governor and brought a school out of special measures and guided it to the outstanding category has received marks for her work – MBE.
Elizabeth Jones spearheaded the renaissance of Ashton’s St Damian’s after an Ofsted judgment placed it into special measures.
She helped form a new governing body and appointed a new headteacher to start the turnaround, as well as putting in place new ways of working.
What she did had a huge influence on the Lees Road establishment making its way up the ranking system, until in 2017 it was graded outstanding in all categories.
Now she has been honoured with an MBE in the Queen’s Jubilee Birthday list, the 83-year-old who lives in Stalybridge insists she only did what she had to do.
Elizabeth, who retired from teaching in 2006, said: “I love working there to give the kids a great education, everyone deserves it.
“When St Damian’s went into special measures, I was determined to get it back to where it was.
“All the governors got involved with everything. We didn’t just nod our heads, we asked questions and challenged people.
“We made sure everything was right to the best of our ability – and we appointed the headteacher who’s there now, Sheldon Logue, who’s outstanding.
“We knew what needed to happen, it was a case of getting the people who were in the school to do it.
“The Diocese of Salford put forward some people to be new governors and myself and another one joined that board with the aim of getting everything towards being outstanding.
“Thankfully, everybody was on board – we all wanted the same thing and worked towards it.
There was no resistance whatsoever.”
Changes were made – including making governors’ meeting monthly instead of once a term – and St Damian’s improved.
And the moment it was graded outstanding was a sweet success for Elizabeth and her colleagues, with her admitting the special measures rating may be a good thing in the long term.
She added: “It was amazing. It was awful going into special measures. I was actually on holiday when we were inspected by Ofsted.
“It was a bad winter, it was snowing hard and the school was being rebuilt, so it was a building site. It was very difficult to keep things going.
“The headteacher at the time rang me and said, ‘We’ve gone into special measures.’ That was just awful.
“It was a big shock to find out what was lacking – you had to go there to find out. If that hadn’t have happened, we’d have probably just coasted along.
“But in the long run, that rating was definitely a benefit. It made everyone sit up and think.
“One thing I did do, which I didn’t want to at the time as I thought there would be complaints, was suggest a governors’ meeting every month.
“It’s a lot of time to give up but they all agreed and we’ve carried on doing that. Everyone now is so well-informed about what’s needed and what’s going on.
“There’s no one person or one committee that’s got all the information, everyone’s got it. It was a big step but it’s worked a treat.”
Elizabeth has had to keep her MBE a secret for a few weeks after the official notification dropped through her letterbox.
However, it was not greeted with all-out enthusiasm.
She told the Correspondent: “It was a massive shock to get the letter, which came a few weeks ago.
“I had no idea. I didn’t want to open it as I wondered what it might have been. I’ve done jury service twice and I don’t want to do that again.
“It’s a once in a lifetime thing. Things like this don’t happen to normal people.”