Derby Manufacturing UTC Ofsted Report

Full report

In accordance with section 44(1) of the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Rapidly improve the school’s procedures to keep pupils and students safe by ensuring that:
  • safeguarding leaders have the time and resources to fulfil their roles effectively
  • safeguarding leaders undertake timely and effective action when dealing with a concern about a pupil’s welfare
  • safeguarding leaders maintain comprehensive and accurate records of their actions
  • all staff understand the actions they must take when they have concerns, including any concerns about the actions of other adults towards pupils.
• Rapidly improve the impact of leadership and management by ensuring that:
  • leaders and governors regularly check the effectiveness of the school’s safeguarding procedures and undertake timely action when they find that the procedures are insufficiently robust
  • leaders at all levels, including governors, have an accurate understanding of the quality of the school’s provision and use this to plan the necessary improvements
  • plans for school improvement and for the use of pupil premium funding contain measurable outcomes by which leaders can evaluate their effectiveness
  • subject leaders receive appropriate support so that they are effective in their role, particularly their whole-school leadership responsibilities
  • governors, in response to the recent external review of governance, continue to develop their knowledge and understanding of their leadership role, so that they provide effective challenge and support leaders’ checks on the quality of teaching result in the necessary improvements that will bring about consistently good classroom practice across the whole school leaders make sure that all teachers apply the school’s behaviour policy consistently so that pupils understand what constitutes appropriate behaviour leaders ensure that all teachers provide pupils with feedback in line with the school’s assessment policy leadership of the sixth form secures the necessary improvements in the quality of teaching to promote better outcomes for students in both the academic and work-related subjects.
• Improve the quality of teaching, to secure more rapid progress in pupils’ achievement, by ensuring that every teacher:
  • has high expectations of the quantity and quality of work that pupils complete in each lesson
  • ensures that pupils have positive attitudes to their learning and engage well in lessons
  • makes effective use of assessment information to plan activities that are at the right level, depending on pupils’ starting points, and that enable pupils to become secure in their knowledge, skills and understanding.
• Improve pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare by ensuring that:
  • pupils’ attendance rapidly rises to be in line with the national level for all pupils
  • pupils receive independent careers advice and guidance
  • pupils receive regular opportunities across the curriculum to become secure in their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and their understanding of fundamental British values.
• Improve the quality of teaching and the advice and guidance for students in the sixth form, so that the proportion of those who move from Year 12 into Year 13 increases, and so that students prepare more effectively for their next steps at the end of Year 13. An external review of the academy’s use of the pupil premium should be undertaken to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

• Senior leaders and governors have not undertaken regular, rigorous checks of the school’s safeguarding procedures to ensure that they are effective.
• Senior leaders and governors have failed to ensure that, in the time that the school has been open, the quality of teaching is consistently of a high enough standard to enable pupils to make the progress that they should. As a result, pupils significantly underachieve across a range of subjects, including English and science.
• Senior leaders have not ensured that all staff have high enough expectations of pupils’ behaviour and that they consistently implement the school’s behaviour policy. Inspectors observed staff failing to challenge pupils who engaged in inappropriate behaviour, including swearing.
• Senior leaders’, including governors’, evaluation of the effectiveness of the school’s provision is over-generous. They do not have an accurate understanding of: the effectiveness of leadership and management; the quality of teaching; the progress pupils make; the quality of the sixth-form provision; and how well pupils behave.
• The inaccuracy of their view of the quality of the school’s provision has prevented leaders and governors from taking appropriate action to secure the required improvements. For example, there are too few actions within leaders’ plans for improvement that focus precisely on bringing about rapid improvement to the quality of provision, and in particular the quality of teaching.
• Furthermore, proposed actions within the school’s improvement plan lack specific, measurable outcomes. As a result, governors and leaders are not able to check with precision and rigour the effectiveness of these actions in bringing about the necessary improvements.
• The principal has recently widened the range of staff with whole-school responsibilities to include subject leaders. However, these leaders have not received sufficient support to ensure that they are fully effective in their new roles.
• The increased rigour with which leaders now check on the quality of teaching has yet to bring about the necessary improvement in classroom practice. Leaders’ own records indicate that there is too much variability in the quality of teaching.
• Leaders have now resolved previous inaccuracies in teachers’ assessment to ensure that accurate information is available about pupils’ starting points when they arrive at the school. However, leaders have not ensured that all teachers use this information effectively and consistently to plan work at the right level. As a result, pupils continue to underachieve across a range of subjects, including in English and science.
• There are now more opportunities for staff to undertake training. Staff meet regularly to discuss teaching and learning and can take advantage of training that another school provides. However, leaders have not ensured that this training is having the necessary impact on improving the quality of teaching across the whole school.
• Leaders use additional funding to provide an appropriate range of support for eligible pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities. However, leaders’ plans for the use of the pupil premium do not contain sufficiently precise and measurable outcomes by which they, and governors, can assess the effectiveness of the strategies they use.
• The external support that the school receives has yet to enable senior leaders to bring about the necessary improvements to the provision.
• Occasions for pupils to become secure in their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development are currently limited. Consequently, pupils do not receive sufficient opportunities to learn about different religions and cultures. Inspectors found that pupils’ understanding of what constitutes fundamental British values was inconsistent. While some pupils have an effective understanding of these values, others do not.
• The curriculum provides pupils with effective opportunities to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding across a range of subjects, including engineering and manufacturing. This is in keeping with the school’s ethos of developing pupils’ technical knowledge and skills and of preparing them for employment in the engineering and manufacturing industries.
• A range of enrichment and extra-curricular activities enhance pupils’ understanding of the engineering and manufacturing industries. These activities build upon the strong links that the school has developed with local and national employers. Pupils visit local companies and take part in national engineering competitions. Clubs and societies that take place at the school provide pupils with opportunities to explore their other interests, including chess, film and computing.
• It is recommended that the school does not appoint newly qualified teachers.

Governance of the school

• Governors do not meet their statutory duties to keep the school’s pupils safe.
• Since the school’s opening, governors have not provided sufficient levels of challenge and support to senior leaders, during a time when there has been a number of changes of senior leaders.
• Governors’ knowledge and understanding of the school’s performance information has, until recently, not been strong enough. As a result, they have not been able to ask sufficiently precise questions of the information that senior leaders have given them.
• A rigorous, external evaluation of governors’ effectiveness has recently taken place. The report provides governors with very clear guidance about what they must do to ensure that they are secure in their knowledge and understanding of their responsibilities. The report also advises governors about how they can provide senior leaders with appropriate levels of challenge and support. At the time of the inspection, however, not all governors had read this report’s findings.
• Governors are fully committed to the school’s vision. They are determined that the school should support local employment needs within the engineering and manufacturing industries.
• Governors use their own professional connections and their business knowledge to ensure that the school has strong links with local businesses and enterprises.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.
• Leaders who are responsible for safeguarding do not have sufficient time or resources to fulfil their role effectively. Their other leadership responsibilities can take them away from their role as safeguarding leaders.
• Safeguarding leaders do not always take timely action in response to concerns raised about a pupil’s welfare.
• Safeguarding leaders have not ensured that their records are accurate or complete. They were not able to provide inspectors with a thorough account of the actions they had taken to keep pupils safe in particular instances.
• Staff are not fully aware of their responsibilities and duties in relation to following up safeguarding concerns they may have about the actions of another adult. For example, staff that the lead inspector met were not aware that they may refer such concerns directly to the local authority’s designated officer if they feel that senior leaders are not responding effectively to issues raised.
• A minority of parents who expressed a view said that their child does not feel safe at the school.
• Staff are vigilant of their pupils’ welfare. They are quick to pass on to safeguarding leaders any concerns that they may have about a pupil’s welfare.
• Safeguarding leaders work with parents and with a range of local agencies, when appropriate, to support pupils about whom they have a safeguarding concern.
• Pupils who inspectors met, and those who responded to the pupil survey, said that they feel safe at the school. They said that they have an adult to whom they can go if they have a concern. They are confident that the adult will take effective action to help them to resolve their concern.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

• Over time, the quality of teaching has not been of a high enough standard to ensure that pupils make the progress that they should. This has led to pupils underachieving across a range of subjects.
• Not all teachers have high enough expectations of the quantity or the quality of the work that pupils should complete.
• Not all teachers use information about pupils’ prior learning to set work that is at the right level. On such occasions, pupils receive work that is either too easy or too difficult and which does not allow them to become secure in their learning and make the progress that they should.
• When work is not set at the right level, pupils are quick to disengage with their learning and resort to low-level disruption. This slows their learning, and the learning of others. Some pupils told inspectors that the behaviour of other pupils stops them from learning.
• Pupils do not always understand why they are completing the tasks set by their teachers and how these tasks will help them to develop their understanding. This prevents them from becoming secure and confident in their learning.
• Teachers do not always take effective action to clarify pupils’ misconceptions. When this is the case, pupils do not become secure in their knowledge and understanding.
• Not all teachers provide pupils with feedback that is in line with the school’s assessment and marking policy. Pupils are not always clear about what they must do next in their learning to ensure that they make the progress of which they are capable.
• Where learning is more effective, teachers plan work that is at the right level, given pupils’ various starting points, and provides pupils with sufficient challenge. Teachers regularly check on pupils’ understanding and clarify any misconceptions. When pupils are not sure about what they are learning, teachers provide well-targeted support. In these lessons, pupils engage well with their learning.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.
• Safeguarding leaders have not taken effective action to ensure that pupils are safe.
• Not all pupils have positive attitudes to their learning. Some pupils are happy to engage in low-level disruptive behaviour that indicates poor attitudes to their own learning, and to the learning of others.
• Until very recently, pupils have not received independent careers advice and guidance. It is too early to evaluate the effectiveness of the actions that senior leaders have taken lately to resolve this.
• Not all pupils have a secure understanding of what constitutes fundamental British values. This is because opportunities to learn about these values are currently limited.
• Pupils learn about the different types of bullying, including physical bullying and homophobic bullying. Pupils say that bullying is rare and that teachers deal with it effectively when it does occur. The school’s records confirm that this is the case.
• Pupils learn how to be safe, including when online and when in the local community.
• Pupils understand how to live healthy lives. They learn about the importance of making the right decisions when it comes to what they eat and the relationships that they have. They are aware of the risks involved in making the wrong decisions.
• Leaders undertake thorough and regular checks on the attendance, behaviour and welfare of the few pupils who receive their education away from the school site. Leaders receive timely updates on the progress that these pupils make from the leaders of the alternative provision that pupils attend.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.
• Some pupils do not behave appropriately in lessons. Their poor behaviour disrupts their own learning and that of others. Inspectors observed such behaviour on more than one occasion, including pupils swearing. Teachers did not always challenge pupils about their behaviour.
• Pupils’ behaviour during break and lunchtime is not always appropriate. On several, separate occasions, inspectors overheard pupils using inappropriate language during their social time. Staff did not always challenge pupils about their use of such language.
• The rate of exclusions is above the national average. This is indicative of the fact that a number of pupils do not show the necessary respect to each other, to members of staff and to the school environment.
• The school’s records of the use of the isolation room show that incidents of poor behaviour that do not warrant an exclusion from school are not reducing.
• Absence, including regular absence, is too high, and has been since the school opened. The progress of current pupils who are regularly absent is too low. This is because they are not at school regularly enough to learn.

Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

• In the school’s first set of published GCSE results in 2017, pupils’ progress across a range of subjects was considerably slower than that made by other pupils nationally. This was due to the inconsistency in the quality of teaching across the school.
• Pupils’ achievement in English in 2017 was well below national. On average, pupils attained up to a grade below that which pupils with similar starting points attained nationally.
• The school’s current performance information shows that pupils in Years 10 and 11 continue to underachieve in English. Currently, in Year 11, just under half of all pupils are more than one grade below their target grade.
• Across a range of subjects, average-ability pupils in 2017 made significantly less progress than that made nationally by pupils from the same starting point. Average-ability pupils in Year 11 are underachieving in a range of subjects, including in English and science. Teachers do not consistently set these pupils work that is at the right level.
• Pupils significantly underachieved in science in 2017. Currently, too few Year 11 pupils are on track to make the progress that they should. Too many are working at more than one grade below their target grade.
• Attainment in computer science and business studies was too low in 2017. This continues to be the case for current Year 11 pupils.
• In Year 10, the most able pupils are not making sufficient progress across a range of subjects, including English, science, modern foreign languages and geography. These pupils do not receive work that is of a consistently high enough level of challenge to ensure that they make the progress that they should.
• Disadvantaged pupils’ progress is well below that of other pupils nationally. The support that these pupils receive, including through the pupil premium, has yet to secure the necessary improvements in their progress and their attendance. Any improvement in progress between the disadvantaged pupils of different year groups is from a very low base.
• Pupils make stronger progress in mathematics. This is because there has been greater consistency and better quality in leadership and in teaching in this subject.
• Pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities make strong progress. These pupils receive well-targeted support, particularly from the leader who has oversight of these pupils’ welfare and achievement.
• Almost all pupils who left the school at the end of Year 11 in 2017 successfully moved on to places of education, training or employment with training. However, the proportion that chose to continue with their studies at the school was very low.

16 to 19 study programmes Inadequate

• Safeguarding leaders have not taken effective action to ensure that students are safe.
• Over time, leadership of the sixth form has not ensured that students receive teaching that is of a high enough quality to enable them to make the progress that they should.
• The progress that students made in the academic subjects in 2017 was well below average. The progress of current students in these subjects continues to be low.
• The proportion of students who remain at the school at the end of Year 12 is low. In 2017, just under half of the students left the school at the end of Year 12 to pursue their studies elsewhere.
• Until very recently, students have not received the independent careers advice and guidance to which they are entitled. Not all students know about the full range of education, training and employment opportunities available to them when they leave the sixth form.
• Teachers do not always set work that is sufficiently challenging. When this is the case, students do not make the rapid progress that they should in their learning.
• Students’ progress in work-related subjects in 2017 was stronger than that in academic subjects.
• As with key stage 4, students’ opportunities to develop their spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding are limited. There are insufficient occasions across the curriculum, for example, for students to develop their understanding of fundamental British values.
• Students develop their numeracy and literacy skills effectively in the sixth form.
• Students attend and behave well in the sixth form. They demonstrate positive attitudes towards each other and their teachers.
• All of the Year 13 students who left the school in 2017 successfully moved on to places of higher education or higher level apprenticeships.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 142129 Derby 10041553 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Technical School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Gender of pupils in 16 to 19 study programmes Number of pupils on the school roll Of which, number on roll in 16 to 19 study programmes University technical college 14 to 19 Mixed Mixed 200 61 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Principal Graham Schuhmacher Richie Wheatcroft Telephone number 01332 477400 Website Email address www.derbymanufacturingutc.co.uk office@derbymanufacturingutc.co.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• Derby Manufacturing UTC is a technical school that has specialisms in engineering and manufacturing.
• The school is smaller than the average secondary school, and provides education for pupils in key stages 4 and 5. The school opened to pupils in September 2015.
• The school is located in the centre of Derby.
• The school is owned by Derby Manufacturing UTC, which is an academy trust. There is a governing body, members of which also act as directors and trustees of the trust.
• The proportion of the pupils that are female is well below average.
• The proportion of pupils who are from minority ethnic groups is above average.
• The proportion of pupils who are eligible for the pupil premium is above average.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is above the national average. The proportion of pupils who have an education, health and care plan is significantly below average.
• The school uses two alternative providers for a small number of its pupils. These are Derby Pride Academy and The Kingsmead School, both based in Derby.
• The current principal took up his post in September 2017. The vice-principal took up her post in April 2018.
• In 2017, the school did not meet the government’s floor standards for pupils’ achievement at the end of key stage 4.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning in 39 lessons and one tutor time. Some of the visits to lessons took place jointly with senior leaders, including the principal.
• During their visits to lessons, inspectors looked at pupils’ work and spoke with pupils.
• Inspectors looked at pupils’ books as a separate activity.
• Inspectors held a range of meetings with school leaders, including: the principal; senior leaders; leaders responsible for safeguarding; subject leaders; leaders of the sixth form; pastoral leaders; the special education needs coordinator; the leader responsible for personal, social, health and economic education; leaders responsible for careers guidance; and a selection of staff.
• The lead inspector met with members of the governing body, including the chair of governors and the safeguarding link governor. Another inspector met with representatives of companies that work closely with the school and that have representatives on the governing body.
• An inspector spoke by telephone with representatives from the two alternative providers used by the school.
• The lead inspector spoke by telephone with a representative of the Baker Dearing Trust and a representative of the Department for Education.
• Inspectors observed pupils’ behaviour before school, between lessons, and during breaktime and lunchtime.
• Inspectors met formally and informally with pupils from Years 10 and 11, and with students from the sixth form.
• Inspectors took into account the 18 responses to Ofsted’s online survey, Parent View, including the 15 responses to the free-text service.
• Inspectors took into account the 16 responses to the online staff survey and the 17 responses to the online pupil survey.
• Inspectors reviewed a range of documentation relating to the school’s provision, including: self-evaluation and improvement planning; the quality of teaching; behaviour and attendance; achievement; governance, including the recent external review of governance; and safeguarding.
• The lead inspector checked the school’s single central register and the school’s system for recruiting staff.

Inspection team

Simon Hollingsworth, lead inspector Peter Nelson Jackie Thornalley Tracey Ydlibi Her Majesty’s Inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector