Beaumont Hill 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?

• As a matter of urgency, improve the effectiveness of the school’s safeguarding arrangements by making sure that:
  • all checks on the suitability of staff are in place and the school’s central record of checks is complete and meets Department for Education requirements
  • pupils’ behaviour, including the use of physical restraint, is managed safely and effectively.
• Improve the effectiveness of leadership and governance by making sure that:
  • leaders and governors have an accurate and comprehensive understanding of all aspects of the school’s work, especially the arrangements for safeguarding pupils and the management of pupils’ behaviour leaders and governors closely monitor the impact of additional funding on the attendance and achievement of disadvantaged pupils and use this information to secure and sustain improvement in the outcomes they achieve.
• Improve the quality of teaching and accelerate the progress pupils make, especially disadvantaged pupils and those with social, emotional and mental health needs, by ensuring that:
  • teachers use assessment information to plan learning activities which are closely matched to pupils’ interests and levels of ability
  • teachers check whether pupils are working productively on tasks which secure, develop and deepen their knowledge and skills and, if not, provide additional help or more challenging work
  • teaching assistants provide the consistent high-quality help and support pupils need to make fast progress in their learning. 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 pupil premium funding 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

• Senior leaders and governors have not made sure that the school’s safeguarding arrangements are effective. Checks on the suitability of staff to work in the school did not meet statutory requirements at the start of the inspection. Equally, the use of physical restraint is not always recorded or followed up in a systematic or rigorous enough way. Senior leaders and governors do not have sufficiently robust oversight of this crucially important aspect of managing pupils’ safety and welfare. This gives serious cause for concern.
• Senior leaders and governors do not have a comprehensive or accurate enough view of important aspects of the school’s work. For example, their overall evaluation of the quality of teaching, learning and assessment does not align with the strengths and areas for improvement identified in their monitoring of teachers’ practice. Senior leaders have not given enough weight to the impact of teaching on the progress pupils make when making this judgement.
• There is a comprehensive programme of professional development and training which teachers and other staff value. Senior leaders have recognised that performance management has not been used well enough to improve teaching and, as a result, they have developed a new performance management system. It is too early to evaluate the effectiveness of this new approach.
• Additional funding, including the pupil premium, primary school PE and sport premium and Year 7 literacy and numeracy catch-up premium, is used to enhance and extend the curriculum and for targeted intervention work. However, senior leaders and governors have not kept a close enough eye on the impact of this additional funding on outcomes for pupils. While current plans identify how this funding will be used, they do not have clear or measurable enough targets for the difference it will make to pupils’ learning and development. This makes it difficult for senior leaders and governors to check whether the actions they are taking are, in fact, accelerating the progress made by key groups of pupils.
• The curriculum is carefully planned in response to pupils’ interests and needs. It includes a broad range of subjects and there are opportunities for key stage 4 pupils to work towards a wide range of qualifications at varying levels. The curriculum is enriched through lunchtime and after-school clubs and out-of-school visits, including residential trips. The school’s new personal, social and health education (PSHE) programme is helping pupils to develop important life skills and to increase their knowledge of how to keep healthy and stay safe. Similarly, pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is effectively promoted and, importantly, pupils are taught the values of respect and tolerance. This helps them to be well prepared for the next stage of their education and their lives as adults in modern Britain.
• The school’s assessment system and the approach to setting targets for pupils and tracking their progress has been in place for four terms. Much has been done to help teachers assess the standard of pupils’ work accurately. When evaluating outcomes for pupils, however, senior leaders have not checked whether the progress some pupils make over time is comparable with the progress made by other pupils with similar starting points nationally.
• Middle leaders have a strong grasp of their areas of responsibility. Those with responsibility for different subjects and key stages are ambitious for pupils and are working hard to secure improvement. Importantly, middle leaders who are less experienced, or have been appointed recently, have already identified the things they want to change and improve
• The parents who spoke to inspectors were unequivocally positive about the school’s effectiveness. Parents spoke about the effectiveness of communication between home and school and the helpful advice and support they receive from teachers and senior leaders. Some parents highlighted the value of information and training they have received about how to stay safe when using computers and the internet. The views of parents who responded to Parent View, Ofsted’s online questionnaire, and those who made written comments were more mixed. Some parents did not agree that their children are taught well or that they are making good progress. Similarly, some parents indicated that the school does not respond well to the concerns they raise.

Governance of the school

• The governance of the school is not effective.
• Governors have not discharged their core statutory functions because they have not ensured that safeguarding arrangements meet statutory requirements. This failure places pupils at an unacceptable level of risk.
• Governors meet regularly to discuss important areas of the school’s work. They have not, however, done enough to assure themselves that pupils’ behaviour is managed safely and well. Governors are not knowledgeable enough about, for example, the risks associated with the use of physical restraint or Department for Education (DfE) guidance on behaviour and discipline in schools.
• The use of additional funding, including the pupil premium, is discussed by governors at their meetings. Reports from senior leaders provide detailed information about how this funding is used. However, governors have not focused sharply enough on the impact of additional funding on the attendance, learning and progress of disadvantaged pupils.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.
• Leaders and governors have not made sure that safeguarding arrangements meet statutory requirements. In contrast, the support and help provided for many vulnerable pupils, including those with multi-agency plans, are well coordinated and effective. Case files show that senior leaders and staff make a strong contribution to protecting and helping this group of pupils and their families. Senior leaders have recently reviewed and updated the school’s safeguarding policy and a programme of training and updates focusing on the things that make children and young people vulnerable is in place.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• At times, teachers use assessment information to make sure that learning activities capture pupils’ interest and are pitched at the right level. In contrast, at other times, the work teachers set does not build on what pupils already know and can do. The progress pupils make is too variable. This is because of the variability in the quality of teaching, learning and assessment over time.
• Similarly, some teachers are quick to spot when pupils are ready to move on to new or more challenging work. At other times, teachers do not make sure that pupils are working productively on tasks which develop and extend their knowledge, skills and understanding. As a result, some pupils do not make fast enough progress.
• Sometimes, teachers do not explain what they are expecting pupils to learn clearly enough or question pupils about what they are learning. On other occasions, teachers and teaching assistants give pupils clear explanations, break tasks down into small achievable steps and challenge pupils to explain what they are learning. Pupils respond confidently and enthusiastically to this challenge, even when they find the work difficult.
• Teachers assess pupils’ work regularly and with increasing accuracy. They use their subject knowledge, for example in English, to pinpoint what pupils are doing well and what they need to do to improve their work.
• Teachers encourage pupils to read and plan opportunities for them to read aloud in small groups and in bigger class groups. The most able pupils use their phonics knowledge to read unfamiliar words, sometimes with minimal prompting from teachers. Pupils try hard and are willing to ‘have another go’ when they struggle with a word or a sentence. The positive praise they are given by teachers helps them to feel confident about their developing reading skills. Sometimes, however, pupils are given written information and instructions which they are unable to understand or follow.
• Often, teaching assistants provide effective support for individual pupils which helps them to keep focused and stay on task. However, at times, teaching assistants are less effective because they do not help pupils to understand an activity or make progress in their learning effectively enough.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate. This is because safeguarding arrangements are ineffective and, as a result, pupils’ safety and welfare are not promoted well enough.
• Importantly, however, pupils’ attitudes to learning are generally positive. Pupils work hard, apply themselves well and show resilience and determination, especially when they are tackling challenging work. Pupils respond enthusiastically when they are questioned and they are keen to do well. On the occasions when pupils’ attitudes to learning are less positive, teachers work hard to interest and motivate them.
• Pupils have a developing knowledge of the importance of healthy lifestyles. Equally, pupils are learning about how to stay safe when using computers, the internet and other technologies. This aspect of pupils’ safety and welfare has been effectively supported, in part, as a result of the school’s proactive work with parents.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate. Behaviour support plans for some pupils do not provide sufficiently clear information about how to help them behave well; nor do they specify, in enough detail, how incidents of challenging behaviour will be managed safely. Some records of incidents of challenging behaviour when physical restraint has been used are incomplete. Too often, insufficient attention has been given to following up these incidents with pupils and staff in order to learn lessons, improve practice and, crucially, assure pupils’ safety. The oversight of this aspect of pupils’ safety and welfare by senior leaders and governors is inadequate, considering the level of risk associated with some of the methods used by staff in the school.
• Levels of attendance are below the national averages for primary and secondary schools and a high proportion of pupils, especially disadvantaged pupils, are persistently absent. Some pupils with previously high levels of absence improve their attendance as a result of timely and effective support. For other pupils, however, their poor or irregular attendance remains a significant barrier to achieving better outcomes.
• Generally, pupils conduct themselves well throughout the school day. They are polite, respectful and kind towards adults and each other. Most pupils understand the school’s expectations and boundaries and value the praise they receive for good behaviour. Many willingly follow guidance and direction from adults when, for example, they are reminded to listen or keep focused on their work. Although some pupils told inspectors that bullying does occasionally happen, they also said that the adults who care for them deal with it quickly and effectively.

Outcomes for pupils Requires improvement

• While many pupils learn well and make strong progress, outcomes require improvement because the progress made by current pupils in English, mathematics and a wide range of other subjects varies too much. Equally, the progress made by some pupils in English and mathematics in 2015/16 did not match the progress made by other pupils who had similar starting points nationally.
• The school’s current approach to setting targets for pupils and tracking their progress has been in place for four terms. All pupils are set end-of-year targets which are based on their individual starting points. This approach is giving senior leaders a clearer picture of the progress current pupils are making. At this stage, however, it does not accurately reflect the variability in progress seen by inspectors in the work in pupils’ books and folders.
• The school’s tracking information for 2015/16 shows that a high proportion of pupils achieved and exceeded their individual targets in English, mathematics and a range of other subjects. Rates of progress were stronger in key stages 1, 2 and 3 than they were in key stage 4, and more pupils made expected progress or exceeded expectations in English, mathematics, science, art, computing, design technology and physical education (PE) than in PSHE or humanities.
• Tracking information for 2015/16 and for the autumn term of 2016/17 shows that fewer disadvantaged pupils and those who are looked after have made the progress expected in English and mathematics when compared to other pupils. Similarly, fewer pupils with social, emotional and mental health needs have made the progress expected in these subjects. Over time, the progress made by these key groups of pupils has not accelerated.
• In 2016, Year 11 pupils achieved level 1, level 2 and entry-level qualifications in a wide range of subjects and courses. A high proportion of Year 11 pupils moved successfully on to further education and training in the school’s sixth form and at local colleges. The transition to post-16 study is well supported and includes good-quality advice, guidance and support for individual pupils and their families.

Early years provision Inadequate

• The early years provision is inadequate because the school’s safeguarding arrangements are ineffective and, as a result, the early years statutory welfare requirements are not met.
• As a result of their complex needs, children start the early years with levels of development which are well below those expected for children of their age. These starting points are assessed accurately and the school’s tracking information shows that almost all children are on track to achieve their end-of-year targets in all areas of learning. However, this picture of consistently strong progress is not evident in the work in children’s learning journeys or in the observations of children’s learning and progress in lessons.
• The early years leader has identified key areas of the early years provision which need further work. She knows, for example, that developing the outdoor learning areas and improving the way children are helped to communicate are important next steps. Inspectors agree that the development of children’s communication skills is not consistently well supported. There are too few opportunities for children to communicate choices and the most able children are not helped to develop their phonics knowledge consistently well. Similarly, assessment information is not used consistently well to check whether children are making the step-by-step progress needed to achieve their individual end-of-year targets.
• Important aspects of children’s personal development and behaviour are well supported in the early years. Children develop their confidence and independence through learning activities which sustain their interest and active engagement. Children’s physical development is promoted well through activities led by health professionals. In a physiotherapy session, for example, children sustained a high level of interest and communicated clearly as a result of effective adult support.
• Senior leaders have developed a new assessment system which is creating more opportunities for parents to contribute to their children’s learning and development. Parents told inspectors that communication between home and school is strong and they value the high-quality information they receive about the progress their children are making.

16 to 19 study programmes Inadequate

• 16 to 19 study programmes are inadequate because the school’s safeguarding arrangements are ineffective.
• Students participate in a range of learning activities which focus on the development of their independence skills, life skills and employability skills. Study programmes include work experience and all students work towards a range of qualifications, including additional qualifications in English and mathematics. For some, this provides good progression from their work in key stage 4 and the qualifications they achieved in Year 11, but for others it is insufficiently challenging. This is because, sometimes, learning activities do not build on the skills students have already developed. As a result, some students do not deepen and extend their skills or gain confidence in using these skills in real-life situations.
• Students enjoy learning in a practical ‘hands on’ way. They respond positively to the clear and supportive guidance they are given by teachers and other adults. Sometimes, time is not used well and students repeat tasks without making meaningful progress. Also, at times, adults are too quick to ‘step in’ and help students. This does not help them to develop their independence and creates an over-reliance on teachers and other adults.
• The 16 to 19 leader, who has been recently appointed to this role, has identified aspects of the study programmes which need further work and is keen to tackle these quickly.
• Students behave well and are polite and respectful towards other people. They have a developing knowledge of personal safety and healthy lifestyles. Students receive good-quality individual advice about their next stage of education or training and their transitions are well supported. Many post-16 students progress on to community or college-based learning programmes at the end of Year 14.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 138093 Darlington 10012566 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 Special 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 Appropriate authority Chair Principal Telephone number Website Email address Academy special converter 2 to 19 Mixed Mixed 268 28 Academy trust John Sturrock Caroline Green 01325 254000 www.edv.org.uk bhsdata@educationvillage.org.uk Date of previous inspection 1–2 may 2013

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.
• Beaumont Hill Academy is a special school for 268 pupils aged 2 to 19 with a wide range of special educational needs. Almost all pupils have a statement of special educational needs or an education, health and care plan.
• It is part of a multi-academy trust of five schools. Three of the schools, Springfield Academy, Haughton Academy and Beaumont Hill Academy, are co-located in the Education Village, Darlington.
• Almost all pupils are from White British backgrounds and very few speak English as an additional language.
• The proportion of pupils who are eligible for the pupil premium funding is much higher than the national average.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed teaching and learning on both days of the inspection. They also spoke to pupils, listened to pupils read and examined the work in their books and folders. Several lessons were visited jointly with senior leaders.
• Meetings were held with pupils, parents, senior and middle leaders, four governors, two representatives from the Education Village Academy Trust and a representative from the local authority.
• Inspectors took account of 26 responses recorded on Parent View, Ofsted’s online questionnaire, including 18 written responses, and considered 51 responses to the online staff questionnaire.
• Inspectors examined documents relating to governance, self-evaluation, school improvement planning, pupils’ progress, attendance, behaviour, the curriculum and safeguarding.
• The lead inspector had a telephone conversation with the local authority’s designated officer for safeguarding.

Inspection team

Nick Whittaker, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Judith James Ofsted Inspector Suzette Garland-Grimes Ofsted Inspector