Hameldon Community College 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?

• Develop leadership at all levels in order to effectively promote school improvement by: stabilising leadership across the school ensuring that there is a strong culture of safeguarding, by tackling bullying successfully, so that pupils feel safe at school formulating, agreeing and sharing a robust action plan that will improve the quality of education that the school provides introducing and implementing a more systematic and effective programme of ongoing training to support teachers to improve their teaching systematically evaluating the quality of teaching so that pupils’ outcomes improve taking effective steps to ensure instances of bullying are reduced rapidly improving attendance and reducing the proportion of pupils who are regularly absent from school taking effective action to improve pupils’ behaviour further reviewing and evaluating the curriculum so that it is broad and balanced and promotes good learning and progress.
• Improve the quality of teaching and learning and raise pupils’ achievement by: raising teachers’ expectations of what pupils can and should achieve, especially in their written work ensuring that teachers plan work that enables different groups of pupils to make strong progress removing barriers to learning for disadvantaged pupils, including those who are more able, so that they make the progress they should improving teachers’ use of questioning ensuring that teachers plan activities that meet pupils’ needs, sustain their interest and encourage them to develop their understanding ensuring teachers’ explanations are clear so that pupils understand what they have to learn. 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

• Over the last year, there has been significant instability in leadership. Pupils have suffered as a consequence. Leaders have failed to address inadequate teaching and pupils' weak progress and achievement. Expectations of what pupils can and should achieve are too low.
• Teachers have not received sufficient training to enable them to improve their teaching. Therefore the quality of teaching is not strong enough to accelerate pupils’ progress and tackle the legacy of pupils’ underachievement.
• Leaders do not have an appropriately rigorous school improvement plan in place. Consequently leaders, including governors, have not improved the quality of education that the school provides.
• The use of the pupil premium funding is ineffective. Leaders have not addressed the specific barriers that impede pupils’ learning. Disadvantaged pupils make poor progress.
• The school has experienced a steady decline in the number of pupils on roll since opening. The decline has increased recently. Because of this, the school's budget has decreased and so staffing has had to be reduced. This has led to restrictions in subject choices in key stage 4 and therefore limits pupils’ options for further education, employment or training.
• The curriculum was reviewed and adjusted for 2017. The curriculum for key stage 3 pupils is broad and enables teachers to deliver the full curriculum requirements.
• The school offers a range of extra-curricular activities. Sports events and clubs are popular and pupils are enthusiastic about taking part in activities after school.
• The local authority has provided support for the school since 2008. However, due to the significant instability in staffing, school leaders have not been able to use this support effectively to improve the quality of education that the school provides.
• The school uses some of the pupil premium funding and the Year 7 catch up funding to provide a wide range of interesting reading resources for key stage 3 pupils. This is proving to be effective and is leading to an improvement in pupils’ reading skills. Special educational needs funding is used more effectively. Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities receive effective specialist help to improve their reading skills.
• Pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is adequately developed as a result of the curriculum and assembly topics. Their understanding in these areas is supported by discussions with adults in lessons about moral issues in texts such as 'Romeo and Juliet'. Pupils enjoy social time with their peers and with staff at break and lunchtimes.
• Pupils understand the principles that underpin British values and talk confidently about issues such as extremism, exploitation and racism that pose a risk to these values.
• It is recommended that newly qualified teachers are not appointed to the school.

Governance of the school

• Governors have not ensured that safeguarding arrangements meet requirements. Governors are aware that the school website, which is currently under review, does not include all the necessary information. They have not had sufficient information from school leaders to make sure that additional funding to improve the progress and attainment of disadvantaged pupils has been used to good effect.
• The governing body has not been successful in ensuring that pupils' attendance improves. Governors are now aware that exclusions are reducing and behaviour is improving, based on reports from the school's senior leader.
• There have been no arrangements in place for the last 12 months to set improvement objectives for teachers, or to allow teachers to apply for an increase in status, pay or responsibility.
• Governors know that standards and progress are below the national averages, and well below average for some groups of pupils. They also know that there is too little evidence of improvement in pupils’ outcomes. They are aware that teaching is not of sufficient quality to enable pupils to make better progress. Governors' attempts to challenge school leaders to take more effective action have not been successful. It has been difficult for governors to pursue their concerns due to the lack of consistency in leadership over time.

Safeguarding

• Safeguarding is ineffective. This is due to high rates of persistent absence and because a number of pupils from both key stages feel vulnerable to bullying. The actions of leaders and staff are not always effective and, for some pupils, bullying continues. A proportion of parents who responded to the online questionnaire, Parent View, were not confident that bullying would be dealt with effectively by the school. A number of pupils do not feel safe in and around school.
• Leaders conduct checks rigorously when staff are recruited to the school to ensure that they are suitable to work with children. Regular training makes sure that staff know what to report if they think that a pupil is at risk or in a potentially risky situation. Staff are clear about who to report their concerns to, and how to complete the necessary documentation.
• The safety of pupils following courses away from the school site is checked regularly, as is their attendance, to ensure that pupils are able to progress well on courses that engage their interests and talents.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

• Teaching is inadequate. It has failed to ensure pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Teaching does not challenge pupils to develop their knowledge, understanding or their writing skills. Most pupils are keen to complete the tasks set in lessons, supported by teachers' guidance. However, the tasks themselves are not always sufficiently well planned to enable pupils to extend their thinking or to develop their understanding.
• Teachers do not plan well enough to meet the needs of the most able and the least able pupils. The work set is too easy for the most able pupils and too hard for those with lower ability. This means that neither group makes good enough progress. Although middle-ability pupils make relatively better progress they are still not fulfilling their potential because teachers’ expectations of what pupils can achieve are too low overall.
• Pupils often become bored and disengaged and resort to conversation which, in turn, distracts others from their work. As a result, the quality of learning declines.
• Pupils' written work is weak. Pupils’ work is characterised by single sentences in answer to a question set, with surface detail and little evidence of deeper knowledge. Teachers’ questioning overall is superficial and does not explore pupils' thinking or build deeper knowledge or understanding.
• The agreed whole school programme for assessing pupils' achievement has not been implemented well enough. Teachers and leaders therefore do not have a clear understanding of how much progress pupils are making.
• While pupils' reading skills are improving due to the effective support they receive from staff, opportunities are missed to develop pupils’ reading and writing skills more systematically across different subjects.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school's work to promote pupils' personal development and welfare is inadequate. A number of pupils say that bullying persists despite staff actions, and occasionally intimidation continues outside school.
• Pupils have excellent relationships with the permanent staff whom they trust to support them. Most pupils are keen to complete work in lessons and respond well to clear explanations and engaging resources and topics.
• Pupils who spoke with an inspector could describe very clearly how to keep themselves safe when using online technology, including mobile phones. They know the risks involved in using social networking sites, and know not to give information about their identity or location when online.
• Specialist staff provide skilled support and teaching for more vulnerable pupils who benefit from additional help to learn, or to manage anxiety or high levels of emotion. Specialist staff work closely with outside agencies to harness external support where needed.
• A specialist teacher supports the pupils who have a hearing impairment within the resource base. Pupils spend most of their time in main school lessons and access the specialist support as required, according to their individual needs. Pupils are supported in developing communication and friendships with both hearing impaired and non-hearing impaired peers.
• The behaviour of pupils being educated away from the school site improves once they are able to access a setting where they are well supported by skilled staff. Leaders in the school check that pupils are attending and behaving sufficiently well to succeed.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.
• Too many pupils are absent from school and the number has risen in the last two years. Disadvantaged pupils and pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities are absent more than other groups of pupils in the school. A large number of pupils are persistently absent from school. However, a more purposeful approach to reducing the number of pupils who miss school regularly has recently begun.
• The behaviour of the majority of pupils has improved since January 2017, with fewer pupils being sent to the subject leader because of inappropriate behaviour. The rate of exclusions is declining. This is because the school now ensures that pupils who may have been excluded from school in the past remain in school to complete their work. However, the disruption caused by some pupils in lessons means the concentration of other pupils is disturbed.
• Pupils’ attention wanders in lessons if they do not understand what they need to do, or the topics and materials they use do not engage their interest. Pupils spoken with said there were more instances of pupils being inattentive in lessons that were taught by newer or temporary teachers.
• The majority of pupils conduct themselves well in the dining room and at break time, and move around the school in an orderly way.

Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

• Pupils make inadequate progress from their average, to below average, starting points in Year 7. By the time pupils leave key stage 4, they have made insufficient progress and attain standards that are well below the national average. This was particularly the case for the most able pupils and disadvantaged pupils. Current standards seen in pupils' written work and in the school’s own assessment information do not indicate that standards are rising or that progress is improving. This is because teaching has not been effective in tackling the legacy of underachievement that has built up over time.
• The lack of effective teaching and support for disadvantaged pupils means the difference between their progress and the progress of other pupils nationally has not reduced. The school's use of the additional pupil premium funding has not been effective in improving the progress of this group of pupils.
• Outcomes for the least able, and for those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, are low. This is because teachers do not take enough account of where pupils may have gaps in their knowledge and understanding. Similarly, outcomes for most-able pupils are lower than those for the most able pupils nationally because pupils repeat what they already know. These pupils do not have enough opportunity to extend their knowledge or apply what they know to new situations.
• Pupils who follow courses away from the school site are able to make better progress. This is because they are following courses which engage their interests. The systems to assess their progress give pupils an accurate view of how well they are doing and what they need to do to improve their achievement further. This is not replicated for those pupils located at the main site.
• Pupils in the resource base spend the majority of their time in mainstream lessons but are supported additionally by the specialist teacher in the base. These pupils access individual support and so they overcome the barriers to their achievement. Some of these pupils are among the most able and achieve well.
• Pupils typically make better progress in the practical subjects that are included in the curriculum. Their outcomes are stronger in subjects such as physical education, art and food studies.

School details

Unique reference number 134995 Local authority Lancashire Inspection number 10032200 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Comprehensive School category Community Age range of pupils 11 to 16 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 295 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Alex Bird Interim Headteacher Peter Cunningham Telephone number 01282 683040 Website www.hameldon.lancs.sch.uk Email address sjohnson@hameldon.lancs.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 16 June 2015

Information about this school

• The school does not meet requirements on the publication of information about the most recent examination results, charging and remission arrangements, the school's complaints procedure, information about the governing body or the school's behaviour policy, on its website.
• Hameldon Community College is a smaller than average-sized secondary school. The local authority is currently consulting the community about the possible closure of the school, partly due to a declining pupil roll over time and the consequent lack of capacity of leadership to bring about the required improvements.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is well above national levels.
• The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds is below the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is above the national average.
• The school has an additional resourced provision for 20 pupils with hearing impairments, which draws pupils from a wide geographical area. This forms part of the school's provision for inclusion.
• The school has fallen below the governments' floor standards, which are the minimum standards for pupils' attainment and progress, for the last three years.
• A number of pupils are currently being educated away from the school site for all or part of the time; most pupils attend Coal Clough Academy but a small number attend Burnley College, The Heights School or the Car Surgery in Burnley, and the Alternative School, Pendle.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed pupils' learning in a range of subjects. Inspectors also visited classrooms during intervention sessions and visited the resource base for pupils with a hearing impairment.
• Inspectors spoke to pupils informally about their learning and activities in school.
• Inspectors considered a range of school's documents, such as development plans, records of governing body meetings, policies, safeguarding documents and the school's assessments. The school's records of the attendance, behaviour and safety of pupils educated away from the school site were also discussed.
• Together with the temporary headteacher and a senior leader, inspectors looked at a range of pupils’ written work across subjects since the beginning of the school year. Pupils were spoken to more formally about their work and their learning across all year groups.
• Several meetings were held with the temporary headteacher and a senior leader, with middle leaders and with teachers. Inspectors met with a representative from the local authority and with the chair and vice-chair of the governing body.
• Inspectors also considered the 26 responses to Parent View, Ofsted’s online questionnaire and took account of the responses to the staff questionnaires completed during the inspection. No pupils completed the pupil questionnaire during the inspection.

Inspection team

Nell Banfield, lead inspector Ofsted Inspector Erica Sharman Ofsted Inspector