The Manor Academy Ofsted Report

Full report

In accordance with section 13(4) of the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that the school no longer requires special measures.

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve pupils’ outcomes from good to outstanding, by:
  • sharing more widely the best teaching practice seen, for example, in English and mathematics, so that lessons routinely stimulate and inspire pupils, deepen their resilience and enable them to thrive.
• Strengthen pupils’ understanding of the fundamental British values and their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, by:
  • developing a more systematic and concerted approach to this aspect of the curriculum
  • developing the curriculum in religious education so that pupils are equipped with secure knowledge about the beliefs of different faith groups in modern Britain
  • increasing opportunities for enrichment, including through extra-curricular sports and the creative and performing arts.
• Increase the range and quality of activities in the sixth form to enhance students’ wider personal development, including their confidence, character and resilience and their teamworking, leadership and problem-solving skills.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• Leaders and managers have secured rapid improvements to the school, particularly in the last year.
• With very good support from the chief executive of the Two Counties Trust, the head of school has established an ethos where pupils work hard, behave well and receive typically good-quality teaching.
• Parents and carers are increasingly confident about the quality of education provided by the school and they are right to be.
• Leaders have acted decisively to tackle the weakest teaching. Highly effective performance management arrangements have resulted in the weakest teachers leaving the school. Good-quality staff have been recruited in their place, including some talented newly qualified teachers.
• Staff morale is high. Leaders have skilfully steered the school out of special measures by setting clear and high expectations of staff while being mindful of teachers’ work-life balance.
• Strategies to support teachers whose practice is not always strong enough are effective. Successful coaching, mentoring and teachers’ wider professional development have resulted in clear improvements in subjects where teaching has previously been weak.
• The quality of middle leadership has improved strongly. Faculty and subject leaders are playing a key role in developing the quality of teaching further and in ensuring that pupils’ needs are well met in the classroom. Many middle leaders are working towards nationally recognised leadership qualifications.
• Leaders have ensured that the additional funding provided through the pupil premium is used well. Disadvantaged pupils’ achievement has improved markedly as a result. The school’s pupil premium strategy is regularly reviewed, including by governors, to ensure that it is effective.
• Similarly, good use is made of the Year 7 literacy and numeracy catch-up funding. As a result, the large majority of pupils who join the school with below the expected levels of attainment in English and mathematics are able to catch up by the end of Year 7.
• Provision for pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities is well led. The special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) regularly monitors the quality of teaching to ensure that it meets pupils’ different needs. The ‘pupil passports’, devised collaboratively between specialist staff and the pupils themselves, have enhanced teachers’ understanding of pupils’ individual needs.
• Pastoral support is increasingly effective. The heads of year and the recently appointed pastoral support officers are playing a key role in ensuring that pupils feel safe and protected, are well supported, and achieve and attend well.
• Leaders have worked hard and effectively to remedy key weaknesses in the curriculum that in the past have hindered pupils’ achievement. For example, teaching in key stage 3 is now delivered through discrete subjects rather than through the ineffective approach that previously was in place. Pupils much prefer this arrangement. They recognise the positive impact the changes have made to their subject-specific knowledge and understanding.
• The range of subjects offered in key stage 4 has improved to better meet pupils’ diverse needs and aspirations.
• Provision for pupils’ personal, social and health education (PSHE) is much improved, having previously been poor.
• Strategies to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and their understanding of fundamental British values are less well developed. Provision for religious education is improving but has not yet ensured that pupils’ understanding of different faiths is secure. Not all of the older pupils in the school have had the opportunity to study music, as a result of poor curriculum decisions made in the past.
• Leaders and governors are currently investigating ways to improve the range of extra-curricular activities following feedback from pupils that they would like more, particularly in sports and the arts.

Governance of the school

• The school’s governance arrangements are much improved. Precise lines of accountability ensure absolute clarity in the different roles of members of the trust, trustees and the local governing body.
• Members of the local governing body have played a key role in holding leaders and managers to account for the quality and impact of their work. Governors have devised a highly effective approach to ensuring that the information they are given by school leaders is accurate. They regularly visit the school to observe learning and to speak to staff and pupils. They gather parents’ views through their regular attendance at the parents’ forum.
• Governors have used their expertise to support the school’s improvement, for example through the audits they have undertaken of the school’s use of pupil premium funding and its safeguarding arrangements. Governors can point to clear improvements made to the quality of provision as a result of their work.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Leaders and governors ensure that all the necessary checks are made on the suitability of staff.
• Leaders check, systematically, that staff have read and understood the school’s child protection policy, statutory guidance and the staff code of conduct.
• Staff receive regular and good-quality training in child protection and are vigilant to the signs that a pupil might be vulnerable to harm. They do not hesitate to report concerns to the specially trained designated safeguarding leaders.
• Leaders are well informed about risks to pupils’ well-being and adapt teaching and the curriculum in response to emerging concerns. This ensures that pupils are well equipped to manage the risks associated with using the internet, for example.
• Leaders and governors ensure that pupils who receive part of their education elsewhere are safe and protected. Good communication with alternative providers enables leaders to act swiftly if a pupil fails to attend their placement. Similarly, strong arrangements are in place to ensure that pupils are safe when they undertake work experience.
• Vulnerable pupils, including children in the care of the local authority, are well cared for. Leaders keep a watchful eye on these pupils and work effectively with social care professionals to ensure that the pupils are safe and protected.
• Leaders do all they can to ensure that pupils who leave the school part-way through their secondary education do not go missing from education. They are tenacious in tracking these pupils to ensure that they have enrolled at the receiving school.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Pupils receive teaching that is mostly of good quality. Some teaching, for example in English and mathematics, is exceptionally strong.
• The dramatic reduction in the proportion of lessons taught by temporary staff has ensured much greater consistency in the quality of teaching. Virtually all lessons are now taught by specialist, permanent staff.
• The pupils who spoke with inspectors were unanimous in their view that teaching is much better than before. The quality of teaching in subjects which previously were plagued by poor teaching or instability in staffing is much improved, for example in science and modern foreign languages.
• In the lessons observed, the pupils behaved well and worked hard. Strong relationships between pupils and staff made a good contribution to pupils’ learning.
• Strategies to strengthen teachers’ skills in providing work that is suitably challenging, including for the most able pupils, are proving to be effective. Teachers routinely make good use of the ‘hashtag challenge’ to provide work that extends pupils’ thinking.
• Teachers use their strong subject knowledge to ensure that pupils are well prepared for public examinations. They make good use of assessment to ensure that pupils are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to achieve well.
• Almost all teachers monitor pupils’ work and their achievement very effectively.
• Occasionally, teachers do not allow pupils sufficient time to complete work to the high standard they expect, including for pupils who have SEN or disabilities. Isolated examples were seen where teachers had not ensured that all pupils had completed the tasks set before moving on to further work.
• Some of the teaching is truly inspiring. For example, in a Year 11 English lesson, pupils demonstrated drive and ambition as they scrutinised Willy Russell’s use of language to portray class division in the musical, ‘Blood Brothers’. The pupils told inspectors that they wanted to produce the best answers they could because they did not want to let their teacher down. The inspector noted, ‘This was a lesson I did not want to leave.’ Similarly, high-quality teaching was seen in mathematics.
• Leaders have rightly identified that to improve further, such practice needs to be shared more widely across the school to deepen pupils’ resilience and thirst for knowledge.
• A very small though rapidly decreasing proportion of teaching requires improvement in order to be good. Leaders know where teaching needs further work and have clear plans in place to tackle the remaining weaknesses.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• All of the pupils who met with inspectors reported that they feel safe in school. They recognise and value the increased pastoral support available to them through the appointment of heads of year and pastoral support officers.
• Pupils are well informed about potential risks to their well-being through the school’s programme of PSHE. They spoke confidently to inspectors about how to manage potential risks to their welfare posed by drugs and alcohol, for example. They understand the characteristics of healthy relationships through the good-quality sex and relationship education they receive.
• Pupils reported that bullying is rare. They expressed confidence in the school’s arrangements to protect them from bullying and their teachers’ ability to deal with it when it occurs. A very small minority of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities said that, occasionally, they were subject to name-calling.
• Pupils, especially older pupils, benefit from good-quality independent careers information and guidance. Well-established arrangements for work experience provide pupils in Year 10 and students in Year 12 with first-hand opportunities to learn about the world of work. Year 8 pupils said they were well supported in making their subject choices in preparation for key stage 4.
• Strong strategies are in place to open up opportunities for the most able pupils. For example, older, able, pupils have benefited from working with PhD students on science-related projects, leading to the visits to high-performing universities such as the University of Oxford.
• Pupils’ knowledge of fundamental British values and of Britain’s diverse communities is not fully secure. The curriculum does not promote their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development as well as it does their learning in academic subjects and in PSHE.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Pupils reported, unanimously, that behaviour has improved since the last inspection. They attribute this to better teaching, more stable staffing, the work done by the heads of year and the strong leadership provided by the head of school and executive headteacher.
• The school’s records show a dramatic decline in the number of behaviour incidents and an increase in the number of achievement points awarded.
• The proportion of fixed-term exclusions has reduced dramatically. No pupils have been excluded in the current calendar year. Similarly, the proportion of pupils sent to the inclusion unit as a result of poor behaviour is much reduced.
• The school’s work to support pupils who exhibit particularly challenging behaviour is much improved. Specialist on-site provision has been developed so that more of these pupils receive their education on the school site rather than through alternative provision than was previously the case. While the attendance of these pupils remains much lower than average, it has improved, including for pupils who previously attended school only rarely.
• Leaders ensure that the small proportion of pupils who continue to receive some of their education elsewhere are kept safe and achieve well.
• Most pupils attend school regularly; this includes most disadvantaged pupils. Pupils respond well to initiatives such as the ‘24 day challenge’ because they know their good attendance will be rewarded. The school takes firm action to tackle persistent absence.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• Since the last inspection, pupils’ progress by the end of Year 11 has improved considerably. For example, their progress overall was in line with the national average last year, having previously being below average.
• Progress in English and mathematics has become consistently aligned to the national average and attainment has risen markedly in these subjects.
• Highly effective leadership by the head of mathematics and good teaching have ensured that progress in mathematics has become a clear strength of the school, having previously been a key weakness.
• Despite considerable difficulties in staffing, pupils’ achievement in science improved last year to be broadly average, having previously been very low.
• Pupils who joined the school with below-average attainment achieved particularly well. Those who joined with average attainment on entry achieved in line with similar pupils nationally. This represents a significant improvement on past performance.
• Disadvantaged pupils achieve as well as their peers in the school and as well as non-disadvantaged pupils nationally. This was not the case in previous years and reflects the school’s much improved support for this group of pupils.
• Similarly, the achievement of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities was in line with the national average last year, having previously been too low.
• Leaders know that some of the most able pupils did not achieve as well as they should have done last year. Inspectors looked very closely at the achievement of this group of pupils, scrutinised their work, observed them being taught and spoke with some of the most able pupils about their learning. The evidence gathered supports unequivocally the school’s view that this group of pupils is now achieving well.
• Much-improved teaching is resulting in rising achievement in subjects which until recently have performed less well, for example in the humanities and modern foreign languages.

16 to 19 study programmes Good

• Leadership of the sixth form is much improved and is good. Students who spoke with inspectors were unanimous in their praise for the head of sixth form. They recognise and appreciate how he has improved their sense of belonging to the school in the year since he took up the role. The sixth-form leader has skilfully created a strong community spirit between the students in Years 12 and 13 from a previously low base.
• The quality of teaching, learning and assessment in the sixth form is good, including in subjects where achievement has previously been weak.
• Students’ learning benefits from the strong and productive relationships they have with each other and with their teachers.
• Teachers’ use their good subject knowledge to craft questions that challenge students to think deeply.
• Students make good progress in the sixth form. Attainment by the end of Year 13 has risen since the last inspection and continues to rise for current students. Disadvantaged students also achieve well. Currently, there are no students working to improve their grades in English and mathematics as all entered the sixth form having attained well in these subjects.
• Newly implemented checks on students’ progress ensure that leaders and teachers quickly identify students who require additional support to achieve well. Students say they value the extra help provided within and beyond their timetabled lessons.
• Completion and retention rates are good. This is because the curriculum is increasingly well tailored to students’ needs. A small but increasing range of vocational subjects complements the broader suite of A-level subjects available.
• While the number of students entering the sixth form has been typically low, far more of the school’s current Year 11 pupils have indicated their desire to stay on in the school’s sixth form than in recent years. This reflects their much-increased confidence in the school’s capacity to provide a high-quality education.
• Safeguarding arrangements for sixth-form students are effective. Students know how to stay safe and how to lead healthy lifestyles. Leaders have strengthened systems to ensure that students attend well and to ensure that they are properly accounted for when they have personal study time.
• The quality of impartial careers advice and guidance is much improved. Students currently in Year 13 who, previously, were critical of this aspect of the school’s work reported that it is now a strength of the sixth form. Students now receive good-quality information about alternative pathways to employment to complement the strong support provided to university applicants. As in the main school, students benefit from good provision for work experience. They are supported well in securing appropriate placements.
• The proportion of students who move on to further/higher education, employment and training is higher than the national average.
• This year, a formal tutorial programme has been implemented to support students’ personal development and planning for future careers. While there are some opportunities for students to engage in non-qualification activities, such as supporting younger pupils’ learning, these are not sufficiently rich or varied enough to ensure that students receive an outstanding sixth-form education.

School details

Unique reference number 137158 Local authority Nottinghamshire County Council Inspection number 10054226 This inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was also deemed a section 5 inspection under the same Act. Type of school Secondary School category Academy sponsor-led Age range of pupils 11 to 18 Gender of pupils Mixed Gender of pupils in 16 to 19 study programmes Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 820 Of which, number on roll in 16 to 19 study programmes 63 Appropriate authority Board of trustees Chair Karen Potts Executive headteacher Richard Vasey Telephone number 01623 425100 Website www.themanor.notts.sch.uk Email address enquiries@themanor.notts.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 1 March 2016

Information about this school

• The school is slightly smaller than the average-sized secondary school.
• Most pupils are from White British backgrounds.
• The proportion of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals is broadly average.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities and the proportion of pupils who have a statement of special educational needs or an education, health and care plan is below average.
• The school uses five alternative providers to provide education for a very small minority of its pupils. These are First Class, A Place to Call Our Own (Aptcoo), Tryline, Yess and Chesterfield Community Farm.
• The school meets the current government floor standards.
• The headteacher at the time of the last inspection left the school in June 2017. In the period before she left, the school was led by two acting principals. One of the acting principals was appointed as the head of school in September 2017. She has been appointed as the substantive headteacher, effective from September 2018.
• The school joined the Two Counties Trust in September 2016. The chief executive officer of the trust is the executive headteacher of the school. The trust delegates some responsibilities to a local governing body.
• When the Manor Academy was inspected in March 2016, it was judged to require special measures. Subsequently, the school was inspected on two occasions. At the previous monitoring inspection, leaders and managers were judged to be taking effective action towards the removal of special measures.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed teaching and learning in subjects across the curriculum and in all key stages. All of the observations were carried out with senior members of staff from the school.
• Inspectors met with senior and middle leaders, teachers, governors and the chief executive of the Two Counties Trust who, currently, is the school’s executive headteacher.
• Inspectors met with groups of pupils, including pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities and children in the care of the local authority. They also spoke informally with pupils during their visits to lessons.
• Inspectors scrutinised a wide range of documentation, including information about pupils’ progress and attainment, the school’s safeguarding arrangements, the Trust’s scheme of delegation, curriculum plans and records regarding pupils’ behaviour and attendance. They scrutinised the school’s self-evaluation and improvement plan and the minutes of meetings of the local governing body. They also considered the school’s curriculum plans.
• Inspectors considered evidence gathered from previous monitoring inspections and the responses of 80 parents who completed the Ofsted online questionnaire, Parent View.

Inspection team

Daniel Burton, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Andrew Fulbrook Ofsted Inspector Dave Bennett MBE Ofsted Inspector Chris Stevens Her Majesty’s Inspector