The principal and senior management at the Berkeley Institute are spending more time mentoring teachers in the classroom in an attempt to improve student attainment.

Michelle Simmons told The Royal Gazette that this term has seen far more of a hands-on approach adopted by herself and her deputies — and she believes it will pay dividends when it comes to graduation time.

Mrs. Simmons said the change came about after the release of the Hopkins Report — a highly critical inquiry into the state of public education which recommended that headteachers needed to spend far more time in the classroom "evaluating the quality of learning" — earlier this year.

"We have paid attention and we are just trying to be proactive in terms of effecting some of the change that we know is going to benefit children," said Mrs. Simmons.

"I have devoted much more of my days to going in and giving teachers feedback. I'm trying to support them, mentor them, coach and assess them. The goal is to ensure our teachers are as effective as they can be so that students are learning effectively.

"Teachers have responded very positively. I think teachers are very pleased to see that there is support for what they are trying to do in the classroom."

She added: "Our focus this year is just on doing better and better and trying to accelerate the rate of student success."

The school has seen a number of other changes implemented this term in a bid to improve standards. They include:

• Lunchtime and after-school tutorials for students who feel they need extra help. "There is a lot of support in place," said Mrs. Simmons.

• Parents being informed of students' grades more often — now about once every six weeks thanks to the introduction of extra grading periods. "It means parents have a better flow of information from the school as to where their children are," said the principal.

• A homework club for selected students which meets twice a week to ensure they are completing projects properly and on time.

• The introduction next January of a mentoring programme with Appleby law firm and YouthNet. Volunteers from Appleby will spend one lunch hour per week with a student in a bid to help them make positive life choices.

• Extra GCSE classes after school and on weekends. Berkeley offers 11 GCSE subjects and two more will be added next September.

• Final year students being assigned mentors who help them to use their study periods in the most productive way possible.

• An expanded arts and technical programme. The school will put on a musical — its first for years — in March. It will also stage the Island-wide Shakespeare Festival for schools next year.

• Posters around the school to remind students of the grades they need to achieve to move on to the next year. If they fail to make the grade, they are no longer "socially promoted".

• More dialogue with middle school teachers on what is required of students when they reach secondary school.

• Students using the school's wireless network facility to work online on projects on their laptops at weekends and after-hours.

Mrs. Simmons admitted that the school still faced challenges, particularly when students first arrive at Berkeley from middle school. "Our real work is right at the front end of the school," she said. "It's clear that we have a major challenge with the skill set and the readiness that comes to us. But these are the students we receive and we have to work with them.

"We are receiving students who are gifted and we are receiving students who struggle even with the basic essentials that they need."

Mrs. Simmons claimed earlier this year that Berkeley would have an almost perfect graduation rate of 98 percent for 2007 after all its final year students had completed summer school.

But the Ministry of Education later poured cold water on the claim, arguing that the principal's figures only took into account those students who completed the final year of school and did not include pupils who dropped out throughout the course of the year. The Ministry has not released official graduation rates yet this year, but in 2006 it said 46 percent of Berkeley students graduated.

Mrs. Simmons said last week: "We just want to make sure that we graduate 100 percent. I guess we'll then shock everyone completely but that 100 percent graduation rate is coming."