The East Manchester Academy Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by:
  • ensuring that teachers plan more effectively for learning and progress across the school
  • ensuring that teachers’ expectations of what pupils can and should achieve rise further
  • increasing the level of challenge right across the school
  • embedding the new assessment system so that teachers use the information that they have about pupils to improve learning and progress.
• Improve pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare by:
  • ensuring that pupils’ rates of attendance rise further and that pupils arrive punctually at school
  • extending the improvements seen to pupils’ behaviour in lessons so that it is equally strong at social times
  • capitalising on the improvements to pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare so that pupils’ self-confidence and resilience continue to grow and flourish.
• Improve pupils’ outcomes by:
  • improving the progress and attainment of disadvantaged pupils across the curriculum
  • ensuring that the most able pupils make the progress of which they are capable.
• Improve the quality of leadership and management by:
  • implementing the findings of the pupil premium review to ensure that pupils reach their potential
  • strengthening subject leadership further so that middle leaders are fully accountable for the quality and consistency of teaching, learning and assessment in their subject areas.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• Leaders, governors and the trust have taken rapid, appropriate action to change the direction of this school. They have an accurate understanding of the quality of education that the school currently provides. Leaders’ approach to self-evaluation is extremely robust and improvement planning is sharp, detailed and appropriate.
• The executive headteacher and headteacher lead with drive, determination and a sense of moral purpose. They have already had a transformational effect on improving the school since it reopened and as a result, pupils’ progress is improving rapidly. Alongside their newly formed leadership team, they have taken the necessary steps to reverse weak teaching, overhaul an ineffective curriculum and address pupils’ poor behaviour.
• Leaders and governors have been effective in securing higher aspirations in pupils. Pupils now behave well in lessons and are keen to achieve.
• Leaders and governors have taken successful action to secure good teachers to support pupils’ learning. Leaders do not appoint staff unless they can provide the very best for pupils.
• Leaders ensure that staff collaborate well across the trust to improve the quality of education that the school provides. Key leaders and teachers from the other successful schools in the trust have secured employment at The East Manchester Academy to support further school improvement.
• Leaders use the funding to support pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities effectively. They deploy resources well. Leadership of this area is good.
• Leaders have evaluated the use of the literacy and numeracy catch-up funding. They monitor and track pupils who are eligible for additional support. Leaders have secure systems in place to assess the effectiveness of their actions to raise pupils’ literacy and numeracy skills. Current pupils who need additional support are beginning to catch up with their peers.
• Staff morale is high. They feel extremely well supported by leaders. Staff relish the ongoing training opportunities that leaders provide to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
• Leaders have robust quality-assurance systems in place to improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment. These systems are having the desired effect on improving pupils’ learning and achievement across their subjects.
• Leaders’ arrangements for assessing teachers’ performance are secure. Teachers and other staff know the high expectations that leaders have of them.
• Leaders, governors and the trust have taken swift action to ensure that pupils have access to a broad and balanced curriculum. They immediately recognised that the curriculum that they inherited did not support good teaching and learning and good outcomes for pupils. Leaders wasted no time in making the necessary changes to ensure that they plan the curriculum effectively to meet pupils’ needs.
• Pupils appreciate the wide range of extra-curricular activities that staff provide. It has a positive effect on their wider development.
• Pupils also have an excellent programme of spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. This, coupled with a highly effective personal, social, health and economic programme, means that they have many extended opportunities to grow and flourish and to develop as well-rounded young people. Leaders’ work in this area prepares pupils well for life in modern Britain.
• Leaders ensure that pupils learn about British values. Pupils are involved in elections, the student council and a wide range of leadership roles. Leaders’ commitment to ensuring that the school’s ethos is one of tolerance and respect for diversity is meritorious. All pupils are valued in this school, regardless of their beliefs, background or sexual orientation.
• Middle leadership is strengthening quickly. A team of subject leaders has overhauled the curriculum provision and has rapidly improved pupils’ learning and progress. However, subject leaders are not fully accountable for the quality and consistency of teaching, learning and assessment in their subject areas.
• Leaders have refocused the use of the pupil premium funding to support disadvantaged pupils’ progress. There are effective plans in place and a member of senior staff is accountable for the effect of this funding on pupils’ outcomes. However, leaders need time for the changes to have the desired effect on pupils’ outcomes.
• Leaders have not secured the same rapid improvements to pupils’ behaviour at social times as they have in lessons.

Governance of the school

• There is strong support from the Education and Leadership Trust. Members of the trust, alongside local governing bodies, seek out opportunities for sharing best practice across schools. The East Manchester Academy is benefiting from such arrangements.
• The trust has a proven track record of school improvement. It has extremely high expectations and aspirations for the pupils at The East Manchester Academy.
• The local governing body is highly skilled. A passionate and committed chair of governors leads this team. Although governors receive regular training and support from the trust, they recognise the need to undertake additional training to fulfil their role.
• The governing body exercises its statutory responsibilities with care and precision.
• The governing body takes concerns raised by parents very seriously. It routinely evaluates the effectiveness of the school and provides appropriate challenge and support to school leaders. The governing body makes appropriate changes in response to parental concerns, for example by extending the school’s dining facilities.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Leaders take pupils’ safety and welfare extremely seriously. There is a strong culture of safeguarding right across the school. Pupils have access to a range of professionals within the school should they have any concerns. Pastoral support is a key strength.
• Leaders have rapidly addressed issues with bullying. They have taken effective action to ensure that pupils always report bullying and that staff address any concerns. Leaders’ work in this area is striking. Pupils are very complimentary about the changes that leaders continue to make.
• Leaders are very committed to supporting pupils in staying safe online. They also take effective action to educate pupils about the dangers of radicalisation and extremism.
• Leaders work effectively with a wide range of outside agencies. They have secure lines of communication with parents where safeguarding concerns arise.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• Some teachers do not routinely plan lessons that enable pupils to make consistently good progress. On occasions teachers set work for pupils that is too easy. This is because some teachers’ expectations are not consistently high. Where this is the case, pupils do not make the progress that they should.
• In some lessons, teachers do not stretch and challenge the most able pupils to reach their potential. Leaders and teachers recognise that the most able pupils can and should achieve more. Leaders have effective plans in place to ensure that teachers have the knowledge and skills to challenge pupils more consistently right across the school.
• Leaders have rightly introduced a new assessment system to help teachers to plan for pupils’ future learning. However, teachers have not had sufficient time or training to be able to use the system to improve pupils’ learning and progress because it is so new. It needs time to embed.
• Leaders are not consistently sure that teachers’ assessments of where pupils are in their learning are accurate. Leaders have ongoing training and support in place to standardise teachers’ assessments across the group of schools in the academy trust.
• Teachers routinely set homework. Nevertheless, more careful thought is required to ensure that homework deepens pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding.
• Historically, poor-quality teaching has left wide gaps in pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding. Leaders are acutely aware of this and have introduced a wide range of support programmes. For example, staff now offer additional teaching sessions before school, during social times and after school to help pupils to catch up. Pupils value these opportunities.
• Where learning is most secure, teachers ask questions that deepen pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding. This is particularly the case in higher-ability English classes.
• Most teachers create a calm and positive learning environment. This is because they establish clear and effective routines, underpinned by the school’s behaviour policy. Pupils recognise the vast improvements that leaders have made to behaviour for learning.
• Teachers use praise and rewards effectively to encourage pupils to complete work to the best of their ability. They create plentiful opportunities to celebrate progress and achievement, for example in assemblies and through displays of pupils’ work.
• Where pupils learn best, for example in English, physical education, modern languages and humanities, teachers plan lessons that inspire pupils. In these lessons, teachers take risks to enable pupils to think widely and deeply about the key concepts that they are learning.
• Prior to the newly formed leadership taking over the school, teachers did not have access to a full range of teaching, learning and assessment policies. Leaders have introduced a new suite of effective policies. Consequently, the quality of teaching is improving.
• Teachers provide a wide range of feedback to pupils in line with school policies. Where learning and progress are most effective, teachers use feedback effectively to address pupils’ misconceptions.
• Teachers use other adults well in the classroom to support pupils’ learning and progress.
• Teachers promote pupils’ literacy and numeracy with increasing confidence. For example, some teachers create opportunities for pupils to develop their extended writing skills. Where this is most effective, it deepens pupils’ learning.
• Teachers’ subject knowledge is secure. In the best lessons teachers use their subject knowledge to inspire pupils.
• Pupils value their teachers and the commitment that they show to improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment. Teachers are determined that pupils will make good progress and achieve well.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Requires improvement

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Leaders’ work to promote equality and diversity across the school is striking. The executive headteacher and headteacher have a clear determination to raise pupils’ aspirations. Leaders’ overarching aim is to develop pupils who can be future leaders who make a valuable difference to society. Pupils undertake a range of ambassadorial roles, for example as empowering-women ambassadors, rainbow-flag ambassadors and mental-health ambassadors. Pupils place great value on these roles.
• Leaders’ work to reduce bullying is highly effective. They have taken swift and effective action to raise awareness of the effect that bullying can have on the school community. Pupils articulate clearly the different forms of bullying. Anti-bullying ambassadors receive appropriate training to support pupils of all ages. The online systems to report bullying are effective. There has been a rise in the number of bullying incidents reported because pupils are now confident that leaders will deal with issues quickly and effectively.
• Pupils’ gains in self-confidence and self-resilience are excellent. Leaders ensure that the school’s ‘super learning days’, the personal, social, health and economic education programme and the assembly programme focus on developing pupils’ stamina for learning. These opportunities help pupils to discover the wider contribution that they can make to the local community.
• The careers-education programme is very good. It has developed exceptionally well over the past year. The careers leader has a secure understanding of the opportunities that are available for pupils. For example, the lead promotes academic and vocational pathways with equal weight. Pupils and parents value the strong communication that they receive about careers guidance.
• Pupils receive a wealth of information about how to stay safe online. Pupils are confident that they know how to report any concerns that they have about online- safety issues.
• Teachers do not capitalise on the extensive leadership roles that pupils have across the school to inspire learning and progress in lessons. For example, teachers do not seize opportunities to incorporate the themes from the empowering-women group or rainbow-flag group into day-to-day lessons. There are missed opportunities for pupils to explore the role of women in science, mathematics or art, for example.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils requires improvement.
• Leaders have made significant improvements to pupils’ rates of attendance and they have reduced the proportion of pupils who are regularly absent from school. They recognise that pupils’ attendance remains a key priority. In addition, too many pupils are late for school.
• Most pupils behave well in their lessons because leaders have an effective behaviour policy in place and the quality of teaching has improved. The overwhelming majority of teachers apply the school’s behaviour policy consistently. In a very small number of classes, however, pupils’ behaviour is still not good enough. This is because teachers do not inspire pupils to learn and effective behaviour-management routines are not securely in place.
• Pupils’ behaviour outside lessons is not consistently good. Some pupils do not regulate their own behaviour sufficiently well in the playground, for example.
• The proportion of permanent and temporary exclusions from school has decreased significantly. This is because leaders have improved the quality of teaching and learning and they have raised teachers’ expectations of pupils across the school. Leaders also ensure that pupils receive rewards for their achievements at every opportunity. Pupils recognise how dramatically behaviour has changed across the school and they now want to learn.
• Leaders rigorously track pupils’ behaviour and achievement at alternative provision. As behaviour and learning have improved significantly across the school, the proportion of pupils attending off-site provision has declined.
• Leaders insist on high standards of appearance. Most pupils wear their uniform with pride.
• Pupils are proud to be members of their school community. Some pupils talk passionately about how they can make a difference through the school council, for example.

Outcomes for pupils

Requires improvement

• Provisional outcomes for 2017 are poor. Pupils made limited progress in English and mathematics. This is as a result of historically poor-quality teaching, an inappropriate curriculum and inadequate behaviour for learning. The new leadership team has since made far-reaching changes to ensure that current pupils now make much better progress.
• Similarly in 2017, disadvantaged pupils underachieved considerably. Historically, ineffective planning failed to remove barriers to learning for this group of pupils. Use of the pupil premium funding was poor. This has resulted in weak outcomes. Until new leaders arrived, no effective tracking was in place to ensure that this group of pupils reached their potential. Leaders have reviewed how they use this funding to improve pupils’ progress and achievement. It is now having the desired effect.
• Provisional outcomes for 2017 also show that middle-ability pupils and the most able pupils underachieved considerably. The incoming leadership team has now seized the opportunity to reverse poor-quality learning and lack of progress. However, this will take time.
• Current pupils make much more secure progress. Leaders and teachers are taking effective action to bridge the wide gaps in pupils’ knowledge, skills and understanding. Middle leaders have rewritten schemes of learning and teachers plan lessons far more effectively. Leaders have also introduced effective assessment procedures so that they know how well pupils are progressing.
• Leaders and teachers give freely of their time to provide additional learning opportunities for pupils who have gaps in their learning. Consequently, pupils feel more confident across subjects in which they are underachieving.
• Across the school and across a range of subjects pupils’ progress and achievement are improving. This is particularly the case in English, mathematics, science, humanities and modern foreign languages. This is because middle leaders and teachers have much higher aspirations for their pupils.
• Pupils’ work shows that they now take their learning much more seriously. Most want to achieve well. Leaders are building a ‘can do’ culture. Pupils are clear that teachers expect them to work hard and achieve well.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities now make better progress. There is a sharp focus on the effectiveness of funding to support these pupils. Regular reviews of this funding mean that leaders know which systems are effective. They also know which teaching and learning strategies they need to refine further. There is strong support from the academy trust to ensure that these pupils reach their potential.
• In 2017, provisional information indicates that the majority of pupils progressed to employment, education and training.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 144494 Manchester 10039874 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 Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Academy sponsor-led 11 to 16 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 980 Appropriate authority The academy trust Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Jessica Bowles Anthony Benedict 0161 230 8039 http://theeastmanchesteracademy.org.uk/ admin@temac.co.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• In September 2016, The East Manchester Academy opened as a new school as part of the Education and Leadership Trust. The trust consists of Whalley Range 11–18 High School, Levenshulme High School and The East Manchester Academy.
• A new headteacher and executive headteacher took up post in September 2016.
• The Cooperative Values of cooperation, self-reliance, teamwork and ethical approaches to business are at the heart of the school. School leaders have a strong mission and vision to educate, inspire and empower young people to be the next generation of leaders.
• The East Manchester Academy is an average-sized secondary school.
• Approximately three quarters of pupils are disadvantaged. This is much higher than the national average.
• The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is above the national average.
• Approximately half of the school’s pupils are from minority ethnic groups. The remaining half are of White British heritage.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is higher than the national average. The number of pupils with an education, health and care plan is lower than the national average.
• Some pupils are educated off site in alternative provision. Leaders make use of the Manchester Secondary Pupil Referral Unit, Manchester Vocational and Learning Academy, EdStart, Harpurhey Alternative Provision School, Manchester Settlement Alternative Provision, Brighter Futures and Academy 21.
• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website. It complies with Department for Education guidance on what academies should publish.
• As the school only opened in 2016, there is currently no validated information to show whether the school met the government’s floor standards.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed teaching in a range of lessons across key stages 3 and 4. Several lesson observations and learning walks were conducted jointly with senior leaders.
• Inspectors undertook an in-depth analysis of pupils’ work in several subjects across the school. This was jointly conducted with middle leaders. In addition, inspectors looked at a wide range of pupils’ work in lessons.
• Meetings were held with the executive headteacher and headteacher, senior leaders, members of the governing body and a representative of the academy trust, middle leaders, behaviour and attendance leads, safeguarding leads, teachers, support staff, newly qualified teachers and recently appointed teachers. Phone calls were made to a sample of alternative providers.
• A range of documentation was scrutinised by the inspection team, including: the school’s own self-evaluation; the school improvement plan; the school improvement partner’s reports; departmental review documentation; records of the quality of teaching, learning and assessment; records of ongoing teacher training; minutes of the meetings of the governing body; information about how well current pupils are progressing in their learning; analyses of pupils’ performance in 2017, safeguarding information, a range of school policies and behaviour and welfare and attendance records.
• Observations of pupils’ behaviour were undertaken before the start of the school day, between lessons, during breaktimes and at lunchtimes. Inspectors met formally with a range of pupils from both key stages 3 and 4.
• There were no responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View.

Inspection team

Jonathan Smart, lead inspector John Leigh Mark Burgess David Roberts Dympna Woods Deborah Bailey

Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector