What does the school need to do to improve?
(Information for the school and appropriate authority)
- Leaders have not secured a positive culture of mutual respect and appropriate behaviour. A significant minority of pupils regularly disrupt others’ learning, spoil others’ experiences of school and make others feel uncomfortable being themselves. Leaders need to establish an ethos of kindness and respect, where rules are followed and difference is celebrated.
- Leaders have not made the school a place where pupils feel safe to pass on concerns or where pupils are confident that concerns will be dealt with effectively. This means that too many pupils feel there is not an adult to turn to in the school. Leaders need urgently to ensure that all pupils have an adult in school to talk to if they are worried and that all adults deal well with concerns that are brought to them.
- Leaders’ curriculum plans do not set out well when pupils should learn different topics, meaning that some work is disjointed, does not follow well from the previous topic or does not advance pupils’ understanding at an appropriate rate. As a result, pupils do not learn as much as they should. Leaders should ensure that all curriculum plans set clear aims for what pupils should learn and when.
- Too many teachers do not use the leaders’ chosen pedagogical strategies effectively. For example, teachers do not use questioning well to make pupils think hard about their learning. This limits pupils’ interest and their depth of understanding. Leaders need to ensure that their strategies to secure high-quality teaching are used by all teachers.
- Leaders do not train teachers effectively on how to meet the needs of pupils with SEND and they do not check how well teachers use the strategies that pupils need. As a result, pupils do not get sufficient support to achieve well. Leaders should provide teachers with appropriate training and check that teachers make use of the strategies leaders’ identify to help pupils with SEND.
What does the school need to do to improve further?
Make sure all teaching reflects the best seen by ensuring:
- work is always matched to students’ learning needs and provides sufficient challenge
- all students know their targets, and how to achieve them
- marking is regular and that students follow the advice provided
- questioning and discussion engages all students in expressing their own ideas and understanding, and encourages independent learning.
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