King Solomon Academy was the highest-performing comprehensive in the country at GCSE level last summer, with 95 per cent of its pupils achieving at least five A*-C grades, including English and maths.

That feat - which placed the academy above 25 selective grammar schools, just seven years after opening - came despite its location in one of London’s most disadvantaged wards.

And the academy’s head, Max Haimendorf, believes that his school’s achievements can be replicated. Speaking at a recent Teach First conference, Mr Haimendorf - who was in the charity’s first cohort of teacher trainees - said the high grades were the result of “what we did five years ago in Year 7”.

Now, as school leaders anxiously await next week’s GCSE results, here are the eight simple steps that Mr Haimendorf said represented his recipe for success:

1. Prioritise relationships and consistency that drive a small-school culture

Mr Haimendorft introduced a system at King Solomon Academy (KSA), in central London, where each maths teacher taught only a single year group. “I think the secondary way of teaching children, where you are trying to maintain relationships with 200 kids, 300 kids, 400 kids, is complete madness,” said the head, who believes that mastering quality teaching across three separate key stages is “impossible” and “superhuman”.

2. Take a warm/strict approach that demands excellent behaviour

The school has adopted its approach to behaviour from Doug Lemov, author of the guide Teach Like a Champion, who has said that teachers should find a good balance between being kind and being strict.

Mr Haimendorf said that KSA tried to put strong relationships at the heart of what it does, rather than “military diktat”.

Every pupil has a “pay slip” that measures their attendance, punctuality, homework and behaviour in one metric, which leads to rewards or punishment.

3. Ensure that you have strong relationships with families

At KSA, all the staff have been given a paid-for work mobile phone that pupils and parents can ring and text, so communication is quicker. Meanwhile, Mr Haimendorf visits the home of every child before they start at the school.

“In secondary schools, [home visits] should be normal,” he said. “Why would you start a relationship with a family and it’s so impersonal that the only relationship with them is they wave their kids off to your school and might come to parents’ evenings?”

4. Have a pipeline of developed and retained talent

All teachers have been given weekly one-hour coaching sessions with their line managers on how to improve. Mr Haimendorf said that he ensures there is “no dead wood” in his staff by recruiting ambitious, talented people. These include top graduates straight from university who are trained on the job, and many Teach First participants.

5. Have an aspirational view of all pupils attending academically rigorous universities

The mission of KSA is for all pupils to be able to go on and attend university. Classrooms at the academy have been named after the universities that teachers at the school attended, and trips to universities are organised for pupils as early as Year 7.

“By the time that they are 15, 16, 17 years old and making real choices about life, then university won’t be an alien thing to them,” Mr Haimendorf said. “They won’t be lost or confused by it.

“I am going to make it normal, expected and achievable for them to go to a top university.”

6. Spend more time on a narrow curriculum - starting with English, reading and maths

A key part of KSA’s GCSE strategy has been giving Year 7 pupils 12 hours of English and two-and-a-half hours of silent reading a week. English homework and reading are also expected to be completed every night.

“I do genuinely believe children being able to read is the ingredient to all academic outcomes,” Mr Haimendorf said.

But he recognised that implementing a big change like this can be challenging. “I do think there is politics in schools and heads of departments just see their personal value as how many hours of curriculum they have,” the headteacher said.

“It’s really dysfunctional, as it means that whenever they can, they will just grab more curriculum time - whether it is good for the children or not.”

7. Have a data-driven system in place

“I think this is just good teaching and good curriculum management,” Mr Haimendorf said. “There are different strands that mean that we are focused on detail and focused on our children’s learning day-to-day, week-to-week, which I think is vital.”

Pupil outcomes were viewed “as a key performance measure” for heads of department at the school, which “provide clear metrics for leaders to understand, measure and maximise their impact”.

8. Ensure uncompromising governance and leadership

Mr Haimendorf said that a clear vision of goals, shared by school leaders and governors, could help to drive success. Describing his governors’ ambition to wipe out the attainment gap, he said: “It’s unwavering, it’s ambitious and it’s going to happen. That’s very different to how other governing bodies see their work. It gives me a lot of permission and confidence to try and be bold for the kids.”

A levels and the future

KSA is already adapting its formula to meet new challenges. Yesterday, the school received its very first set of A-level results. And the prospect of getting those grades through, Mr Haimendorf admitted earlier this summer, had been worrying.

“Having teachers who hadn’t really taught A level very much, or at all in many cases, makes the whole operation very difficult,” he said. “We just need to be better at teaching A level.”

The academy is now making A levels and getting pupils “university-ready” its number one priority, and it is making changes to its curriculum and performance management process to reinforce this emphasis.

“If you look at successful private schools, GCSEs are just not a thing,” Mr Haimendorf said. “That’s not what it’s really about. We have got to build that in our school.

“Having a brilliant A-level department is what I care about. If that means we get 60 per cent A* to B [GCSE grades] next year compared to 80 per cent, that would be sad, but we need to build excellence.”

@Eleanor_Busby