St Patrick's Catholic College, A Voluntary Catholic 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 act to develop a culture of safeguarding in the school by: improving pupils’ behaviour, particularly when they are between lessons and during breaks and lunchtimes ensuring that all pupils, and especially disadvantaged pupils and those who have SEN and/or disabilities, attend school and sustain high rates of attendance.
• Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment so that pupils make swift progress and outcomes improve by: ensuring that all teachers provide pupils with work which builds on their existing knowledge, skills and understanding in order to deepen their thinking ensuring that teachers make use of accurate assessment to plan engaging and challenging activities for pupils, particularly for the most able and disadvantaged pupils making sure that teachers apply the school’s assessment policy consistently to provide timely guidance for pupils so that they are aware of their next steps.
• Urgently improve the effectiveness of leadership and management, including governance, so that all pupils make good progress by ensuring that: leaders evaluate the impact of their actions effectively in order to accurately identify priorities for further improvement improvement plans identify clear and precise actions, including measurable criteria for success, along with meaningful and manageable timelines all teachers receive the appropriate professional development to develop their skills in the effective use of information about pupils’ prior attainment so that they can plan learning to match pupils’ different abilities additional funding, such as pupil premium, Year 7 catch-up, and the funding to support pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities, is used effectively and that the impact of this funding on the outcomes of pupils is monitored rigorously by leaders and governors governors hold school leaders to account through monitoring and checking processes which measure impact as well as actions. 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 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

• Leaders have not ensured that the school provides an adequate quality of education. Most pupils have underachieved considerably for some time.
• The school’s safeguarding arrangements are ineffective. Leaders do not ensure that pupils behave well and in a safe manner, particularly at social times. Pupils are not supervised well enough when they are moving around the school between their lessons. Pupils’ absence and persistent absence remain high and show little sign of improvement.
• Leaders’ evaluations of the weaknesses in the school have not been accurate enough to enable them to identify the areas for improvement which are a priority. Only very recently, and with a heavy reliance on external support, have they begun to develop this essential feature of their work.
• Senior leaders have not demonstrated the capacity to bring about necessary improvements. They have not taken effective action to tackle those weaknesses which they have identified. Improvement plans do not identify the clear and precise actions required to make the necessary improvements.
• Leaders have been slow to provide focused professional development for those in middle leadership positions across the school. As a result, the quality of this leadership is variable and is in the very early stages of development.
• Middle leaders do not always keep sufficient oversight of their subject departments and faculties. As a result, the quality of teaching varies within and between subjects. Senior leaders are not confident that feedback and assessment practice are as rigorous or as consistent as they would like them to be. Consequently, pupils across the school do not make good progress.
• Leaders have not evaluated the impact of the use of the pupil premium funding the school receives. As a result, they are unable to report effectively to governors, who then cannot hold them to account for the spending of this considerable sum of money.
• Leaders are unable to demonstrate that the spending of the Year 7 catch-up funding has had any impact.
• The leadership of the provision for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is a weakness. The special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) is relatively new in her role and there remains a lack of strategic overview for this aspect of the school’s work.
• The senior leadership team has undergone significant change in recent months due to staff absence, which in turn has further restricted the capacity to improve. There is now an increasing emphasis on improving teaching, learning and assessment. However, this is too little, too late, and is heavily reliant on external support.
• The curriculum has been redesigned to ensure that it provides opportunities for pupils in Year 11 to achieve appropriate qualifications. The curriculum offers breadth and balance and the opportunity for many to follow the English Baccalaureate pathway. There is a limited range of extra-curricular activities in which pupils enthusiastically participate.
• Leaders have now secured external support which is beginning to have an impact on the progress of current Year 11 pupils in English and mathematics. However, this support is very recent, and it is too soon to see its full impact.
• Inspectors recommend that the school should not appoint newly qualified teachers.

Governance of the school

• The governance of the school is inadequate. As an academy, the body now responsible for the school is the board of trustees. Trustees recently recognised that the local governing body lacked the capacity to ensure that school leaders were held to account effectively and hence this body was dissolved.
• Trustees do not have sufficient oversight of additional funding. For example, they have not ensured that leaders provide them with the accurate information they require to hold them to account effectively for the use of the pupil premium funding the school receives.
• Over time, trustees and the local governing body have not asked leaders the challenging questions they should have asked. Trustees and governors have been too ready to accept the little and infrequent information offered to them by school leaders regarding the outcomes of pupils. As a result, pupils have been let down by governors and school leaders. Trustees have only recently realised this and are now taking action. However, it is too little, too late.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective. Although the school’s policies and procedures relating to safeguarding are fit for purpose, there is not a culture of safeguarding among the pupils.
• Although pupils say they feel safe, they also say that bullying is not rare. During the inspection, parents and staff raised concerns with inspectors about a number of incidents relating to bullying and physical assaults by pupils on pupils.
• Leaders do not tackle poor behaviour effectively. Inspectors witnessed pupils pushing, shoving and exhibiting boisterous behaviour in corridors and social areas. At times, pupils sustained observable physical injury as a result. School medical records show that such behaviour is a routine occurrence, resulting in regular physical injury to pupils.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

• The quality of teaching and learning over time is inadequate. Too few pupils are making the progress they are capable of.
• Teachers do not regularly consider the knowledge, skills and understanding that pupils already have when planning learning. This is because the assessment of what pupils know and can do is not sophisticated enough to provide teachers with the accurate and reliable information they require to plan for the individual needs of pupils.
• Disadvantaged pupils and those who have SEN and/or disabilities are making inadequate progress. Inspectors found little evidence that any focused support provided to them is having an impact on their progress.
• Pupils who have different starting points are often given the same work. As a result, in some cases the most able pupils lack challenge and are repeating work which they have already mastered. Opportunities are therefore lost to extend their learning and deepen their thinking.
• The professional support and advice teachers have received to develop their skills, allowing them to use assessment more accurately and more effectively to inform their planning, have been of poor quality until recently. Changes in this approach to professional development are too recent to have had a measurable impact on the outcomes of pupils.
• The extent to which teachers follow the school’s assessment policy on feedback to pupils, providing them with next steps to improvement, is variable.
• In subjects where teachers have strong subject knowledge and higher expectations of pupils, such as those seen in a number of mathematics, geography and religious education lessons, teachers question pupils skilfully, allowing them to make more rapid progress.
• The external support the school has engaged with recently is beginning to have a positive impact on the quality of teaching, learning and assessment for older pupils. However, this is not replicated across the whole school.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.
• Pupils say that they feel safe; however, they also say they have concerns about bullying and behaviour around the school. A significant number of parents and staff expressed their concerns about bullying and poor behaviour through the surveys carried out as part of the inspection process.
• Attitudes to learning are variable. Pupils subjected to numerous changes of teacher in short periods of time were less positive about their experiences at the school. Inspectors found that this type of response from pupils was not uncommon.
• During the inspection, a minority of pupils made representations to inspectors to make known their dissatisfaction with the quality of education they are receiving.
• Some positive behaviour for learning was witnessed by inspectors in well-structured and controlled classroom environments. Even so, inspectors also saw many pupils who were not guided well enough in lessons who lacked engagement and confidence in their learning.
• The information and guidance provided through the school helps pupils in Year 11 to select their next steps for education and training.
• Pupils know how to keep themselves safe, for example when using social media and the internet. The school’s personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education programme prepares pupils for life in modern Britain effectively and has a focus on the current issues affecting them. An example of this can be seen in the school’s recent work with pupils on mental health.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.
• Attendance rates have remained below the national average over the last few years. Leaders have attempted to improve attendance through a range of strategies, but they have failed to secure improvement. Attendance is still too low, and the number of pupils who are frequently absent from school is high. The attendance of those pupils who are disadvantaged and who have SEN and/or disabilities is also too low despite the additional funding available to support leaders’ actions in tackling the problem.
• Inspectors observed that a significant number of pupils are not punctual to lessons. In response to pupils who were late, teachers and staff did not effectively challenge them.
• Despite leaders’ efforts, the behaviour of a significant minority of pupils is still not good enough, particularly between lessons and in social areas of the school. The use of fixed-term exclusions has reduced during the current academic year, in part due to the increased use of an internal exclusion facility.
• Between lessons, most pupils enjoy socialising and relaxing with their peers. However, a significant minority of pupils behave in a boisterous manner, lack self-discipline, and act in unsafe ways which risk harm to other pupils.
• A small number of pupils are educated at an off-site provision. Their progress and attendance are monitored rigorously.

Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

• Pupils enter the school with broadly average levels of attainment. By the time they leave the school at the end of Year 11, they have significantly fallen behind others nationally who had similar starting points.
• In 2017, all pupils made considerably less progress by the end of key stage 4 than the national average in the majority of their subjects. Overall, the progress of pupils was in the lowest 20% of all schools nationally.
• Disadvantaged pupils made considerably less progress than the national average in almost all of their subjects in 2017. Their progress in English, science and humanities was particularly weak. The proportion who achieved a standard pass in both English and mathematics was also well below the national average.
• In 2017, those pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities made considerably less progress than other pupils, in all subjects. Their progress in English was particularly poor.
• Pupils’ attainment was lower than the national average across a range of subjects in 2017. The proportion of pupils who achieved a standard pass in English and mathematics was lower than the national average, and in addition the number of pupils achieving a strong pass in GCSE English and mathematics was lower than that seen nationally, too.
• Inspection evidence, including that from the scrutiny of pupils’ work, shows current progress remains weak. Pupils are not making the progress they should be, given their starting points across year groups and subjects.
• Leaders are unable to identify accurately each pupil’s progress from their starting points. As a result of this, their current interventions, although extensive, do not focus appropriately on the learning needs of individual pupils. Consequently, pupils are still not making as much progress as they should.
• Leaders are optimistic that outcomes for all pupils are improving, yet there is little evidence to support their optimism. There has been some improvement in English and mathematics for the current Year 11 pupils through the schools’ work with the external support provided.

School details

Unique reference number 142281 Local authority Stockton-on-Tees Inspection number 10047360 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 Academy converter 11 to 16 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 507 Appropriate authority Board of trustees Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Kevin Duffy Clare Humble 01642 613327 www.stpatrickscc.org/ stpatricks.catholiccollege@stockton.gov.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• The school is a smaller than average sized secondary school.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is higher than average.
• The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is above average. The proportion who have an education, health and care plan is below average.
• Most pupils are White British.
• A very small number of pupils attend an alternative provision at the Bishopton Centre.
• The school belongs to the Our Lady of Light Catholic Academy Trust.
• In recent times the school has experienced significant disruption due to the high turnover of staff.
• The school has engaged the support of The Carmel Education Trust.
• The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils’ achievement and progress in English and mathematics by the end of Year 11.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning in 42 lessons and six registration sessions, some jointly with senior leaders.
• Discussions were held with senior and middle leaders, other staff and representatives from the school’s external support.
• Inspectors looked at pupils’ work in lessons and a sample of pupils’ work in books.
• Inspectors observed pupils’ behaviour before school, during lessons, around school, in registration sessions, at breaktime and at lunchtime.
• Inspectors spoke with pupils in discussion groups and informally around school.
• Inspectors scrutinised a wide range of documents, including the school’s self-evaluation, its improvement plans, minutes of meetings of the governing body, information about the attainment and progress of all pupils, records relating to behaviour, attendance and safeguarding and information on the school’s website.
• Inspectors considered the 43 responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, alongside the 39 responses to Ofsted’s staff survey and the 18 responses to Ofsted’s pupil survey.

Inspection team

Barry Found, lead inspector Jill Bowe John McNally Gordon Watts

Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector