Lodge Park Academy 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?

• Urgently improve pupils’ personal development and behaviour by ensuring that:
  • all staff consistently apply the behaviour policy so that pupils behave well, and time is not wasted in lessons
  • all staff have high expectations about pupils showing respect to others in the school community
  • the provision for pupils’ social, moral, spiritual and cultural development enables pupils to develop a fuller understanding of and respect for people of different faiths and cultures.
• Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management, including governance, by ensuring that:
  • trustees support the new leadership of the school to make the necessary and urgent improvements to the school, and hold leaders to account to ensure that these improvements are made
  • trustees support leaders to secure permanent, high-quality teaching staff across the school
  • assessment information is accurate, so that leaders and governors are better informed about pupils’ progress
  • additional funds are spent effectively to improve the progress of pupils with SEND, pupils who start the school with low attainment in reading and mathematics, and disadvantaged pupils
  • the training for subject leaders enables them to improve the quality of teaching in their areas
  • the training for all staff ensures that their needs are identified and met and enables them to improve their practice
  • there are more opportunities to share good teaching practice across the school.
• Improve the quality of teaching and outcomes for all pupils, particularly for disadvantaged pupils and boys, by ensuring that:
  • the proportion of lessons covered by temporary staff reduces rapidly, so that pupils’ behaviour in class improves and they are better able to focus on their learning
  • teachers use accurate information about what pupils can do to plan learning that meets pupils’ needs and enables them to make good progress and behave well
  • teachers have high expectations of what pupils can achieve and provide them with work that is appropriately challenging
  • pupils complete work to the best possible standard
  • teachers plan learning that interests and motivates pupils to learn. An external review of governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved. An external review of the school’s use of the pupil premium should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

• Trustees have let down successive cohorts of pupils by failing to secure permanent, effective leadership for the school, or to improve the quality of teaching. Leaders have not acted swiftly enough to halt the steady decline in pupils’ outcomes. Current pupils continue to underachieve.
• The school has had three principals in the last year. Changes to leadership have been confusing for staff, parents and carers, and pupils and have stalled the school’s progress.
• Since the previous inspection, the quality of teaching has declined. It is now inadequate, because too many lessons are covered by temporary teachers and because leaders have not supported teachers well enough to improve their practice. Poor teaching is contributing to pupils’ negative attitudes and underachievement.
• Expectations are too low. Leaders have failed to ensure that all pupils behave well and, consequently, too much learning time is disrupted. This contributes to too many pupils underachieving.
• Parents are rightly concerned about many aspects of the school, including its leadership and management, and pupils’ behaviour. Leaders and trustees have not engaged well enough with parents, or taken sufficient account of their views.
• The current executive principal was appointed in January 2019, bringing a new vision and much-needed strategies for managing pupils’ behaviour. These changes have been welcomed by staff and pupils but are too recent to have led to sustained improvements in behaviour.
• The quality of professional development is not consistently effective. Newly qualified teachers (NQTs) value the training they receive in the school, but training for teachers has failed to have a positive impact on pupils’ outcomes.
• Some subject leaders have benefited from training and coaching from the trust, and have found this helpful. However, this has not been sufficient to improve the overall quality of leadership in the school or to build the school’s capacity to improve.
• Trustees and leaders have an accurate view of the strengths and weaknesses of the school, but have not developed long-term plans for the school’s improvement. The executive principal has strengthened the quality of improvement planning, but it is too early to see the impact of this.
• Leaders do not use additional funding effectively or evaluate its impact carefully. There is no coherent strategy for the use of the pupil premium funding, the Year 7 catch-up funding or the funding to support pupils with SEND. These groups of pupils make weak progress.
• The curriculum does not lead to pupils achieving well in GCSE examinations. Pupils do not follow a broad curriculum.
• Extra-curricular activities include music, art and sports clubs. Pupils particularly enjoy the wide range of sports enhancement activities, which include participating in competitive events.
• Leaders do not ensure that pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is consistently well promoted. Displays are designed to raise pupils’ awareness of different faiths and values, but the curriculum does not ensure that pupils’ understanding is sufficiently well developed.
• Leaders have recently introduced a personal, social and health education programme (PSHE) for pupils that includes learning about British values. Consequently, this is at an early stage of allowing pupils to develop a good understanding of fundamental British values needed to be a good citizen in modern Britain.
• It is recommended that the school should not appoint NQTs because pupils’ behaviour is inadequate.

Governance of the school

• Trustees have failed, over successive years, to improve the quality of leadership and teaching. This failure has led to a decline in standards.
• Trustees do not hold leaders to account well enough.
• Trustees have not ensured that the additional funding provided to support disadvantaged pupils, those with SEND or those who join the school with low attainment in English and mathematics has been spent effectively. They have not reviewed the impact of the use of this funding for last year and, consequently, have not published this information.
• The trust appointed a new academy scrutiny committee in November 2018 to govern the school locally. Previously, governors did not challenge school leaders well enough about low standards. Members of the new committee understand their roles, but are yet to meet. It is therefore too soon to judge whether the committee is effective in raising standards.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Governors and leaders ensure that safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose. Records are detailed and clearly documented. The school has policies to ensure that pupils are well protected. All staff, including governors, undertake safeguarding training. The checks undertaken on staff and visitors and in recruitment are stringent.
• The procedures for monitoring the safety and welfare of pupils who are not currently receiving education on the school site are robust. The school works closely with alternative providers to ensure that safeguarding procedures, including the monitoring of attendance, are secure.
• Staff understand the issues which may lead to pupils being unsafe or at risk of harm. However, pupils’ awareness of the dangers of radicalisation and extremism is limited.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

• Too many pupils do not have permanent teachers. The quality of teaching provided by temporary staff is poor. Pupils say that behaviour is much worse in the lessons taken by temporary teachers and too many lessons are disrupted by poor behaviour.
• Too often, teaching is poorly planned and ill matched to pupils’ abilities. As a consequence, pupils, especially boys, show little engagement or interest in their learning. The overall quality of teaching does not enable pupils to achieve as well as they should.
• Teachers do not regularly check on pupils’ understanding in lessons or plan learning that is appropriate to pupils’ needs. They do not sequence their teaching well, resulting in activities being either too easy or too difficult. Lessons do not take into account pupils’ starting points.
• The teaching of English, mathematics and science is not good enough. Too often work is repetitive and too easy to help pupils to catch up with others nationally. For example, in a mathematics lesson, pupils were continuing to work through a set of ratio questions that were too easy and failed to encourage pupils to think. Consequently, several lost concentration quickly and began to talk loudly with others.
• Teachers’ expectations of what pupils can achieve are too low. Work given to pupils is frequently not demanding enough in all year groups, particularly for average-ability pupils. Consequently, pupils, especially those of average ability, do not make the progress of which they are capable.
• Assessment information is not yet consistently accurate, and so leaders are not able to use it to intervene appropriately when pupils fall behind in their learning. Teachers are unable to plan for the next steps in pupils’ learning. Leaders have very recently reorganised classes in key stage 3 in many subjects, including English, mathematics and science. They have done this to enable teachers to plan better to meet the needs of pupils, based on how well they have previously achieved. It is too early to see the impact of this.
• Scrutiny of pupils’ workbooks shows that there are wide variations in the quality of assessment. Frequently, teachers do not provide feedback to pupils in line with school and departmental policies. Pupils say that the feedback they receive is very variable, even between teachers in the same department, although they do value the feedback that they receive.
• Parents receive basic information about how well their child is making progress. However, they do not always know what their child needs to do to improve.
• In the more effective examples of teaching in the school, pupils enjoy their learning, take pride in their work and work quietly. Teachers use questioning effectively to probe what pupils know and understand. For example, in an art lesson, pupils were working on developing their own pieces of abstract art. They were able to do this well, because the teacher had high expectations of the quality of their work and provided effective dialogue and feedback to individual pupils to help them develop their work further.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.
• Too many pupils show a lack of respect to other pupils and adults. When challenged to work in lessons, some pupils are rude in their verbal response to teachers. When incidents of poor behaviour do occur, some pupils are unwilling to take responsibility for their actions and apologise.
• Many pupils have negative attitudes towards their learning, largely as a result of their teachers changing frequently. When pupils have the same teacher consistently, they have more positive attitudes towards learning in that subject.
• There are mixed views about bullying in the school. Pupils are confident that they can report incidents of bullying to staff, but they say that it is not always resolved well. The majority of parents believe that the school does not deal with incidents of bullying well. Inspectors found that, when bullying occurs, it is mainly in the form of name-calling. Leaders are aware of this and have structures in place to resolve bullying issues. These are generally successful.
• Pupils are taught how to stay safe and healthy through the PSHE programme. They also learn about developing resilience, ambition and aspiration but this is yet to have an impact on some pupils’ attitudes towards staff, each other and their learning.
• Pupils in Year 11 receive careers advice. Visiting speakers share a wide range of opportunities that are available to pupils after Year 11. However, the programme of careers advice and guidance is far from comprehensive. Not all pupils are well prepared for their next steps in learning.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.
• Although some pupils behave well in the school, too many do not. Lessons are frequently disrupted due to the poor behaviour of a significant minority of pupils in key stages 3 and 4. This poor behaviour includes both persistent low-level and, at times, high-level wilful disruption, particularly evident in the large number of lessons taken by temporary teachers. Pupils say that many lessons are disrupted by poor behaviour, especially in lower-ability groupings.
• During social times, many pupils engage in boisterous behaviour indoors that some other pupils find intimidating. For example, inspectors saw pupils jumping on their peers and pushing pupils into others, including an adult, in the canteen at lunchtime. Pupils say that this is common.
• Whole-school attendance is similar to the national average, although it is low for disadvantaged pupils. Leaders follow up pupils’ absences rigorously, and this has led to a small increase in attendance overall over the past few years. However, persistent absence remains too high for disadvantaged pupils.
• The majority of pupils say they feel safe in and around the school, despite the poor behaviour. However, some younger pupils feel intimidated by older ones at times. Inspectors agree that pupils are safe at this school.
• A small number of pupils attend some lessons in other educational settings. Rigorous checks are made by the school to ensure that these pupils attend regularly and make progress.

Outcomes for pupils

Inadequate

• Outcomes have been very low for all pupils since the previous inspection. In 2018, outcomes showed no improvement overall from the previous year, and pupils underachieved in all the subject areas that had large examination entries.
• From their starting points, progress for all pupils was very low in English, mathematics, science and humanities in 2018. It showed no improvement from 2017. This pattern is replicated for those of average ability, for boys, and for pupils with SEND.
• Outcomes for disadvantaged pupils improved in 2018 from the previously very low point. In English and mathematics, disadvantaged pupils made broadly average progress, largely due to the additional support they received in these subjects. However, progress was particularly low in science and humanities. Additional support had not been provided in these subjects.
• Leaders’ information about how well pupils are currently achieving is not always accurate. This is because the information is not sufficiently well moderated and validated. As a result, leaders, including middle leaders, are not able to intervene quickly enough to address any underperformance.
• Progress in science is particularly poor. There are still many temporary teachers in science, and, consequently, too many pupils are underachieving across key stages 3 and 4.
• Current data provided by the school shows that, overall, boys are making less progress than girls in English and mathematics. Progress for Year 11 disadvantaged pupils has declined from the improvements seen in 2018. Work in pupils’ books supports the picture given by the school’s data. Leaders are aware of this decline, but a lack of clear planning is hindering improvement.
• Pupils with SEND achieve less well than other pupils in the school. Additional funding to support this group of pupils has not been effectively used.
• Although rates of progress were low for the pupils who left Year 11 in 2018, almost all progressed into education or employment.

16 to 19 study programmes Requires improvement

• Leaders in the sixth form have high ambitions for students’ academic attainment and their personal development. They know their students well, monitoring their performance and intervening when students fall behind.
• Outcomes improved in 2018, such that students’ progress was broadly average overall. In the previous two years, outcomes were low. Students’ progress in work-related subjects has been stronger than in academic courses.
• Teaching in the sixth form is more effective than that seen lower down the school, but is not consistently good. Students told inspectors that, even when their teachers have left, other permanent teachers have taught them well for the most part. However, the quality of teaching in the sixth form remains too variable across a range of subjects to ensure that students consistently make good progress.
• Students who have not previously achieved passes in GCSE English or mathematics receive close support that enables them to attain these qualifications. Although numbers are small, nearly all of these students were successful in attaining a GCSE standard pass in the relevant subject.
• Students have a range of opportunities to develop their personal, social and employability skills. They undertake work experience and participate in activities outside of their lessons, such as volunteering to support younger pupils in their classes. They support Year 7 pupils with their reading by working with them at lunchtime. Such opportunities enable the students to grow in confidence and to develop the knowledge and attitudes that help them to succeed.
• Students receive careers advice and guidance that helps them to understand their next steps when they leave the sixth form. Students learn about university courses and work-based training opportunities through a carefully coordinated programme.
• Almost all Year 12 students continue with their studies into Year 13. This is because, prior to joining the sixth form, students receive close support to ensure that they make appropriate subject choices.
• Students learn how to keep safe, including online, and how to live healthy lifestyles, through the PSHE programme.
• In 2018, almost all students moved on to higher education, employment or training at the end of Year 13. Leaders are particularly proud of the overwhelming majority of students who progressed to university, many of whom were the first generation in their families to do so.

School details

Unique reference number 139060 Local authority Northamptonshire Inspection number 10082315 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Secondary Comprehensive 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 Academy sponsor-led 11 to 18 Mixed Mixed 895 64 Appropriate authority Board of trustees Chair Principal Telephone number Website Email address David Ross Robert Sloan 01536203817 www.lodgeparkacademy.co.uk principal@lodgeparkacademy.co.uk Date of previous inspection 22–23 November 2016

Information about this school

• This is an average-sized secondary school.
• The school is part of the David Ross Education Trust.
• The overall responsibility for the school lies with the board of trustees. Each school within the multi-academy trust is governed by an academy scrutiny committee.
• The vast majority of pupils are of White British heritage.
• The school has a smaller proportion than average of pupils with SEND.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is in line with the national average.
• The school currently uses four alternative providers: Progress School, Brighter Future Behaviour and Well-being, Phoenix School and CE Academy.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors visited 36 lessons, five of which were seen jointly with senior leaders. Inspectors made short visits to tutor time and an assembly.
• Inspectors observed the behaviour of pupils at breaktime and lunchtime and as pupils moved around the school.
• Inspectors scrutinised, in detail, a range of pupils’ books in a range of subjects.
• Inspectors held a number of meetings with the principal, senior and middle leaders, the chair of the trustees, the chair of the academy scrutiny committee and other governors.
• Inspectors spoke with a wide range of pupils from all year groups in meetings, in lessons and around the school at breaktimes and lunchtimes.
• The inspection team looked at a wide range of the school’s documentation, including the school’s evaluation of its own performance, the school action plan, data on pupils’ attainment and progress, attendance and behaviour records, safeguarding procedures, evaluations of the quality of teaching and the minutes of the governing body meetings.
• Inspectors took account of the 122 responses to Ofsted’s online Parent View questionnaire, the 116 free-text comments from parents and the 17 responses to the online staff questionnaire. There were no responses to the online pupil questionnaire.

Inspection team

Jamie Clarke, lead inspector Jason Brooks Bernadette Green Kathryn Hardy

Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector