Bromley Trust Alternative Provision Academy Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Leaders should embed their new assessment and monitoring systems so they can more effectively track pupils’ progress across the curriculum.
• Refine how leaders and governors set targets for pupils’ attainment and subject achievement as part of their improvement planning.
• Teachers need to ensure that they challenge the most able pupils in their learning so that they consistently make the progress of which they are capable.
• Continue to improve attendance, particularly at key stage 4.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• The executive headteacher and senior leaders have turned their passion and aspiration for helping young people into a reality. Leaders, working with the staff team, have created a successful school. Pupils, despite facing a variety of difficult challenges, are happy, safe and making good progress.
• Leaders have ensured that there is a great deal of consistency across the school, for example as to how teachers and supporting adults follow school policies and procedures. Leaders manage teachers’ performance effectively and hold them to account for the quality of work. Middle leaders are developing their skills. Senior leaders support them when required in managing their curriculum areas effectively.
• Leaders and governors know the school well. They are honest in recognising its strengths and weaknesses. As a result, they have an accurate self-evaluation of the school’s work.
• Local authorities and other schools who place pupils at the school have every confidence in the school’s ability to offer children a good education and to keep them safe. The school works closely with families. As a result, school surveys show that parents and carers believe that the school meets the academic and welfare needs of their children. The school has a good reputation. Senior leaders are highly respected by the local community.
• Leaders’ regular surveys of staff match the outcomes of the Ofsted questionnaire for staff. Staff enjoy working at the school. They feel valued and have trust in school leaders. There is a strong sense of teamwork across the school. Staff new to the school or to the teaching profession feel supported by leaders, for example in developing their skills to meet the needs of pupils.
• Leaders use the additional pupil premium and the physical education (PE) and sport funding well. Pupils eligible for free school meals are making similar progress to their peers. New PE equipment supports pupils on the primary campus in engaging in physical fitness and taking part in a wide range of physical activity.
• The funding to meet the needs of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is used effectively. Additional adults support pupils well in accessing learning and to make good progress. When new pupils join the school, staff quickly identify their learning needs to ensure that they get the specialist support that they need.
• Pupils are ready for life in modern Britain. They learn to reflect on their behaviour and their previous experiences of school. With added support, they learn how to improve their social and communication skills. They understand the difference between right and wrong. This helps them make different decisions, for example in relation to their behaviour. One pupil commented, ‘I never watched the news until I started here.’ This reflected other pupils’ views about how they feel aware of the world around them, including its dangers and risks. Overall, pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is well developed.
• The curriculum offers pupils a range of good learning experiences in both primary and secondary. Subjects include design and technology, science, physical education and art. Leaders review the curriculum regularly to ensure that it best meets pupils’ needs. This includes introducing work-related and functional skills courses at key stage 4. Pupils in the primary phase are supported in preparing to move to their new school, including where this involves specialist provision. In the secondary phase, pupils feel motivated by being able to study courses that link to their careers and aspirations. The range of additional clubs and activities offered on the secondary campus is developing.
• Leaders identified the need to improve how they monitor pupils’ progress and evaluate the quality of teaching more deeply. As a result, they recently introduced new assessment and monitoring systems. Leaders are right to prioritise putting the new systems into place.
• Leaders use their accurate self-evaluation to put in place detailed improvement plans. However, leaders accept that they need to review some improvement planning processes. This includes reviewing the targets set for the most-able pupils and different subjects across the school.

Governance of the school

• The trust board knows the school well. Trustees have a wide range of skills and experience. They use their skills well in challenging and supporting school leaders.
• Trustees receive a wide range of information about the school’s work. They take ‘focused’ visits to the school where trustees meet a variety of school leaders, staff and pupils. They use the information from their visits to question leaders about the impact of their work, for example in relation to pupil premium expenditure.
• Trustees use external reviews of the school’s work, including in relation to safeguarding, to check on the accuracy of the information they receive from leaders.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• School leaders know the risks that pupils face in their local community and beyond. Pupils are well educated on how to identify and manage these risks, including gang affiliation, weapons, grooming and sexting. The school’s systems and procedures to manage safeguarding are thorough. Staff are well trained and have a high level of expertise in managing pupil welfare. They know pupils well, spotting and reporting any concerns in relation to a pupil’s behaviour or welfare quickly.
• Leaders deal with concerns quickly and use a variety of external agencies to provide early help and therapeutic support to pupils whenever it is required. Record-keeping of any child protection concerns is detailed, up to date and well managed. Leaders never give up when they feel that a child is not receiving the support that they think needs to happen. All pre-employment checks meet statutory requirements.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Leaders have put in place effective systems to ensure that they get to know pupils well from the first day that they start at the school. This includes gathering information in relation to a pupil’s academic, social, safeguarding and behavioural needs. Staff receive this information quickly. As a result, teachers and additional adults are well prepared to support pupils when they arrive into lessons.
• Teachers are supportive. They develop positive working relationships with pupils. This encourages pupils to take part in lessons, to cooperate well and to stay focused on learning. Pupils develop good social and communication skills from the time they start at the school.
• Adults who support teachers are highly effective. They do not do the work for pupils. They question, challenge and encourage pupils to work for themselves. They are skilled at knowing when to intervene and when not to. As a result, they help pupils, including those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, to make good progress.
• An example of effective teaching was seen in science in the primary phase. Pupils were creating circuits. The teacher asked open questions to specific pupils and then asked some pupils to try ‘lighting a second bulb’ in order to deepen their understanding of what they were doing. The additional adult then continued to question pupils. Pupils were proud of their achievements when they managed to persevere to make the two bulbs light up.
• Teaching helps pupils make good progress overall. Teachers reinforce basic literacy, including pupils’ spelling, punctuation and grammar skills. Teachers identify ‘gaps’ in pupils’ knowledge from their previous school. They then use these gaps to plan activities and to question pupils so that they deepen their knowledge and understanding.
• Leaders agreed during joint observations and reviews of pupils’ work over time that some teaching is not stretching and challenging enough, particularly for the most able pupils. This includes fully developing the most able pupils’ writing skills. As a result, the most able pupils are not consistently attaining as highly they should be.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Leaders make sure they have a wide range of information about pupils. Staff use the information to meet pupils’ individual safeguarding and emotional needs. This includes work around risks such as child sexual exploitation, gangs and drugs misuse. Staff monitor vulnerable pupils carefully.
• Leaders have ensured that pupils have a thorough understanding of how to keep safe, including when online. Pupils report that serious incidents are rare. They say that school policies, including handing in their mobile phones at the beginning of the day and the security of the school site, make them feel physically safe. Pupils learn how to keep fit and eat healthily in both the primary and secondary phase.
• Bullying is rare and if it does occur, pupils and parents say that staff deal with it effectively. Pupils have a good understanding of the different types of bullying. They treat each other with respect.
• Pupils at key stage 4 receive a good level of careers advice and guidance. This includes suitable work experience placements. Leaders are looking to further improve the range of work experience on offer at key stage 4 and to embed careers more deeply into key stage 3.
• During their time at the school, staff help pupils become confident and to believe in themselves. When inspectors spoke to pupils, their faith in the school and gratitude for what staff do for them was clear. The most able pupils are not challenged enough to fully develop their academic confidence so that they attain as much as they can.
• Pupils who are educated off-site attend one of two providers used by the school. Pupils study courses that motivate them to improve their attendance and behaviour. Leaders from the school have close contact with off-site providers to monitor pupils’ welfare.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Clear routines, high expectations and a commitment to consistency have secured the foundations of good behaviour. Pupils behave well, follow instructions quickly and talk confidently about how their behaviour has improved since they joined the school.
• Corridors, classrooms, outside areas and the canteen are calm and orderly. Staff supervise areas around the school actively. Pupils take responsibility for their own behaviour; adults rarely have to step in to resolve situations. One pupil’s words summed up the views of others when they commented that the school ‘does not feel like a PRU’ (pupil referral unit). Parents likewise feel that behaviour is good.
• Leaders avoid using fixed-term exclusions as a sanction for poor behaviour where possible. There were 19 exclusions in the last academic year across the school.
• Attendance is below the national average, particularly at key stage 4. Leaders have invested in improving their attendance processes. Case studies reviewed by inspectors and an evaluation of leaders’ actions show that they have been successful in improving attendance. As a result, over the last two years there has been a sharp reduction in the levels of persistent absence. Leaders know that attendance has to improve further, particularly at key stage 4.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• The process of getting to know pupils’ needs and abilities when they first start the school is thorough. Due to the variety of different but often challenging circumstances that lead to pupils starting at the school, their starting points are well below other pupils nationally.
• Carefully targeted support from additional adults and appropriate spending of the pupil premium have combined to help those eligible for free school meals and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities to make good progress from their starting points.
• Pupils in the primary phase make strong progress in reading, writing and mathematics. Observations of teaching and reviews of pupils’ work show that they also make good progress in other subjects such as science. Pupils in key stage 1 make good strides in improving their literacy and numeracy skills. Most pupils in the primary phase move on to specialist provision in line with their identified learning needs. They are well prepared and supported for this transition.
• In the secondary phase, for the last two years, all pupils have achieved an accredited qualification. Leaders have entered some pupils for qualifications at the end of Year 10. This has secured some good outcomes and has motivated pupils to believe they can be successful as they move into Year 11.
• All pupils leave key stage 4 with either a level 1 functional and/or a GCSE qualification in mathematics and English. The range of qualifications achieved, alongside targeted careers advice, in both 2015 and 2016 ensured that all pupils continued into education, employment or training. Leaders have increased the number of pupils who have left the school during key stage 3 or 4 and who successfully move into other mainstream schools. Leaders and governors want to further increase this number moving forward.
• Across the school, pupils learn to become more independent, confident and resilient young people. Pupils at key stage 4 could not speak highly enough of how the school has helped them prepare for their next steps. In the primary phase, adults nurture and care for pupils to help them become successful learners.
• Outcomes in some courses in key stage 4 such as sociology, human biology and citizenship have not been successful. Leaders have decided to remove these from the curriculum and have replaced them with work-related and additional GCSE courses that better meet the needs of current pupils. It is too early to see the impact of these decisions on pupils’ final results.
• The most-able pupils are not consistently making the same strong progress as other groups. This is because some teaching lacks challenge. Most-able pupils are not fully achieving their potential across the curriculum. Their attainment is not as high as it should be.

School details

Unique reference number 141116 Local authority Bromley Inspection number 10031696 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Alternative provision School category Academy alternative provision sponsor-led Age range of pupils 5 to 16 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 87 Appropriate authority Academy trust Chair Caroline Jolliff Executive headteacher Neil Miller Telephone number 020 8290 0274 Website www.bromleytrustacademy.org.uk Email address admin@bromleytrustacademy.org.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• The school complies with Department for Education guidance on what academies should publish.
• The school is a member of the London South East Academies Trust.
• The school has two campuses. The Hayes campus provides an education for pupils in key stages 3 and 4. The Midfield campus educates pupils in key stages 1 and 2. About two thirds of pupils on roll are educated at the Hayes campus.
• The school is led by an executive headteacher who is supported by two heads of school, one for each campus.
• The school is funded for 90 secondary and 45 primary places. Most pupils educated at the Hayes campus have been permanently excluded from their previous school. At the Midfield campus, most pupils are at the site on a short-term placement, either having been permanently excluded or receiving respite support. The number of pupils on roll fluctuates throughout the year.
• Most pupils are from a White British ethnic origin.
• The proportion of pupils who have education, health and care plans is well above the national average, particularly on the Midfield campus.
• The proportion of pupils eligible for pupil premium funding is above average. The school receives pupil premium funding for those pupils who are single-registered at the school. The school does not receive any Year 7 catch-up funding.
• Pupils who have their education off-site either attend Educational Excellence and Well-being (Croydon) or The Learning Centre (Beckenham).

Information about this inspection

• The inspection team visited lessons in a range of subjects across both the primary and secondary campuses. School leaders accompanied inspectors to all of the visits to classrooms. Inspectors also scrutinised a wide range of books, including looking at work with senior leaders, to evaluate the quality of pupils’ learning over time.
• The inspection team held a range of meetings with senior and middle leaders to evaluate the impact of their work. Inspectors also held meetings with trustees, including the chief executive officer and chair of the trust board, teachers new to the profession, staff and different groups of pupils. The lead inspector met with a representative of the local authority and an educational advisor to the trust board. Inspectors evaluated views about the school from meetings and telephone calls with local headteachers who work with the school. The lead inspector also had a telephone call with a parent.
• Inspectors reviewed the school’s surveys of pupils, parents and staff views. There were no replies to Parent View, Ofsted’s questionnaire for parents or the pupil survey. Inspectors evaluated 21 replies to Ofsted’s survey for staff.
• Inspectors scrutinised a variety of documentation provided by leaders, including: internal assessment information for pupils in all year groups; leaders’ self-evaluation; the improvement plan; minutes of trust board meetings; attendance and behaviour information; a variety of school policies; the single central record of recruitment checks; resources and teaching materials for pupils on how to stay safe; and a wide range of other information relating to the safeguarding of pupils.

Inspection team

Sam Hainey, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Francis Gonzalez Ofsted Inspector