Harrop Fold School 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?

• Ensure that leaders continue to improve the systems for safeguarding pupils by:
  • completing the review and rewriting of policies linked to safeguarding
  • further refining the information collected about pupils’ safety, welfare and behaviour so that it is easier to identify patterns
  • further improving the security of the school site.
• Ensure that senior leaders can effectively lead the wide-ranging improvements urgently needed by:
  • building stability and confidence across the whole school community
  • securing and deploying sufficient senior leadership time overall and, in particular, to allow them to attend to the most urgent priorities
  • further building staff morale.
• Ensure that the curriculum meets the learning needs of all pupils.
• Ensure that pupils’ behaviour improves and that all staff:
  • continue to implement the new behaviour policy with increasing consistency
  • demand that pupils attend lessons as expected
  • set the highest expectations for the culture of the school so that pupils accept that poor behaviour, including bullying and any other aggressive or disrespectful behaviour, is unacceptable.
• Ensure that pupils’ attendance improves by:
  • using the increased monitoring of attendance to further identify and act on any groups with high absence
  • addressing the lower attendance at afternoon school
  • continuing to challenge pupils’ families when they are condoning poor attendance.
• Ensure that systematic training for staff increases their skills and confidence in response to needs identified by the school, including – at an early stage – training for:
  • middle leaders on assessment and the efficient use of data
  • teachers on the best ways to support pupils’ learning needs, including those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who are disadvantaged
  • all staff on effective behaviour management, in and out of lessons.
• Ensure that pupils’ outcomes across a range of subjects improve as a result of consistently effective teaching and learning, by ensuring that teachers:
  • plan work that sets high expectations of pupils, whatever their starting points, and encourages them to do their best in their effort and presentation
  • use accurate assessment as a central part of their teaching strategies
  • build pupils’ understanding through effective questioning
  • support the development of pupils’ speaking and writing skills, whenever possible and appropriate, as part of learning.
• Ensure that parents’ confidence in and partnership with the school and its leaders improve by:
  • rapidly starting to resolve the issues of concern to parents
  • continuing to make clear the school’s highest possible expectations of how parents can contribute to and participate in their children’s education
  • improving how well communication systems work with parents.
• Ensure that governance actively supports school improvement by making sure that governors:
  • have a common understanding of the challenges that the school faces
  • have the knowledge and skills that they need, including about safeguarding and the use of data about the school’s performance
  • provide strong but supportive challenge to senior leaders, including concerning the school’s use of the pupil premium and other additional funding. 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

• This school has failed its pupils in far too many ways. It has let down its pupils in the past and, despite very recent changes, continues to do so with those pupils who currently attend the school.
• Since the previous inspection, pupils’ outcomes have become unacceptably poor. Over time, the ethos developed by leaders has made it harder for individual teachers to manage pupils’ behaviour. This poor behaviour has led to disrupted teaching and learning in far too many classes. Pupils have not been properly safeguarded and leadership practice has not focused on securing the best for pupils. Inspectors identified many long-term weaknesses which are now having a significantly negative impact on pupils. Some of these weaknesses have been hidden in the past by the actions of leaders.
• The reasons behind, and ethics of, some historic leadership decisions are not clear. For example, inspection evidence makes it clear that, over recent years, Year 11 pupils have been deleted from the school roll shortly before the date of the Department for Education’s annual census of schools each January, only to be readmitted at a later date. This type of action means that the examination results of pupils taken off roll temporarily do not appear in school performance tables. In addition, pupils’ safeguarding has been compromised by the inappropriate and informal exclusion of pupils and by the deliberate misrecording of attendance. Current senior leaders have taken immediate steps to ensure that these practices no longer happen.
• The school has attempted to have a highly inclusive ethos and, over time, has admitted pupils who have had difficult previous educational experiences. However, senior leaders’ approach to managing pupils’ attitudes and behaviour has reinforced low expectations and aspirations, for example by allowing some pupils not to attend lessons, some for extended periods of time. Leaders have not insisted that pupils engage in learning or found ways to ensure that this happens. As a result, some pupils do not have the awareness, skills or confidence to respond to the newly implemented higher behavioural expectations of current leaders without misbehaving.
• The interim headteacher and associate headteacher form a close team with complementary skills. Until shortly before the inspection, the school’s interim leadership arrangements had only included two experienced senior leaders from outside the school. This limited the time available for senior leaders to respond to the challenges that the school faces. Senior leaders have a detailed understanding of the school. The school’s self-evaluation document is accurate. However, the scope and scale of the actions that senior leaders identify in the school improvement plan mean that the most important priorities need to be better defined. Senior leaders have already introduced new and potentially successful approaches in many aspects of school life. However, it is far too soon for these to have had the impact urgently needed.
• The school is currently receiving significant support from the local authority through the interim leadership arrangements, additional staffing and consultants to give support, advice and training in English, mathematics and science and in managing pupils’ behaviour. This support has been arranged in partnership with a number of local effective schools and funded by the local authority. It is at an early stage.
• Middle leaders are keen and determined to make a difference in their areas of responsibility. However, their impact over time has been limited. They have not benefited from training that would have helped them to be more effective, for example in how to ensure that assessment is robust and links to well-understood national standards. Similarly, training for all staff has not provided them with the skills and confidence that they need, for example in relation to making learning effective and in behaviour management. The school’s system for managing the performance of teachers has not helped leaders to identify important training needs for individuals.
• The curriculum is not suitable. Until very recently, there have been too few opportunities for pupils to systematically learn about many aspects of personal and social education. There has been insufficient emphasis on particular risks and challenges that pupils may encounter, including drugs, knife crime and gangs. Pupils have not been taught in a sufficiently structured way about when informal ways of speaking and behaving are not appropriate. These failures mean that pupils are poorly prepared for their future lives as successful citizens in modern Britain. In addition, these failures indicate weaknesses in the way that the school develops pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural knowledge and skills. Leaders chose to reduce the time allocated to key stage 3 to two years, leaving three years for GCSE and other courses in key stage 4. This approach has not been successful because pupils do not have time to build the breadth of knowledge and skills needed to provide a foundation for their key stage 4 studies. School records indicate that roughly one third of pupils take part in extra-curricular activities outside the normal school day. While some very positive opportunities are offered, for example in the school’s musical theatre group, many pupils choose not to participate.
• The parents who made their views known to Ofsted though the online survey, Parent View, and through direct contact raised significant concerns about the school. Many issues were shared by a number of parents. The most common concerns were about pupils’ behaviour, in and out of lessons, the difficulty of communicating with the school and the impact of temporary teachers on pupils’ learning and behaviour. Inspectors found that the behaviour of far too many pupils is very poor. However, current senior leaders have introduced new systematic approaches to managing behaviour that include all teachers. It is too early to determine the long-term impact of these approaches. Inspectors noted that, on occasion, it can be hard to make telephone contact with the school, although leaders are aware of this and other communication difficulties. A first meeting of a parents’ forum that the school is setting up to allow positive engagement between leaders and parents is expected to take place soon after the inspection. Inspectors investigated the effectiveness of supply teachers. When these temporary members of staff followed the school’s systems, for example about managing pupils’ behaviour, and demonstrated their high expectations, pupils made gains in their learning. However, this was not consistent.
• Some parents have formed a group which initially campaigned for the reinstatement of the previous headteacher. This group is now vocal in raising its concerns about the school. Their concerns include some issues identified by inspectors and referred to in this report. However, the group’s extensive use of social media means that it is often impossible or inappropriate for the school to respond. This, in itself, may have contributed to some of these parents’ frustrations. In addition, leaders report that some of the things said about the school have had a negative personal impact on members of staff. The school currently does not have the benefit of all stakeholders working together to help to resolve the school’s difficulties. Some parents have not used the school’s formal complaints procedure when this would have been an appropriate way to raise issues.
• The members of staff who completed the online questionnaire and spoke with inspectors were, in the main, very positive about the recent changes in the school, although a few did not share this view. Staff explained the differences that they saw, for example pupils now receiving a fixed-term exclusion if they swear at a teacher. Inspectors saw staff working very hard and persisting in this, even when some pupils displayed unacceptable behaviour.
• The school may not appoint newly qualified teachers.

Governance of the school

• Governance is ineffective. While individual governors are committed, work hard and want the school to serve its pupils well, the governing body has not ensured that standards in the school are high enough, safeguarding is good enough or that leadership is effective.
• Much of governors’ recent time and effort have been spent considering the school’s current difficult circumstances. As with other members of the school’s community, their work has been hampered by the uncertainties about leadership. However, different groups of governors have very different views about the history and future of the school. This makes it very hard for the governing body to have an effective voice.
• There is additional uncertainty around governance because the previous chair of the governing body has very recently resigned. The previous vice-chair of the governing body has now become the chair. This change is known to governors, senior leaders and the local authority. However, it has not been communicated to parents. This creates a hurdle for parents who wish to have direct contact with the chair of the governing body.
• Governors have sought to respond to the weak progress and low attainment of pupils in the school. However, pupils’ performance in examinations has continued to decline. Governors do not have a good enough understanding of the nationally published information about the school’s results. In this and other respects, they have relied too heavily on information directly provided by senior leaders, without finding effective ways to cross-check that they have an accurate understanding of the school.
• There are specific examples of governors’ actions making a clear and positive difference to pupils’ experience. For example, having identified that teaching, learning and outcomes in science were particularly weak, governors ensured that the science team this year was strengthened with teachers new to the school. Inspectors saw some examples of effective practice in science.
• Governors have worked with senior leaders to reduce the school’s budget deficit, and they have had some success in doing this. However, not all funds available to the school are used effectively. For example, the additional funding available to support disadvantaged pupils and to help those Year 7 pupils lagging behind in English and mathematics has not secured the improvement needed. Similarly, the additional funding available for pupils with SEND does not have the greatest possible impact. When such pupils are in whole-class lessons, they are not helped well enough to build on the gains that they make when they are receiving direct support.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.
• Over time, the school’s systems and approaches have not ensured that pupils are as safe as possible. The school’s culture does not foster safeguarding.
• Practice in recruiting staff and completing the necessary checks on adults’ suitability to work with pupils has been weak. The school’s record of these employment checks has not met statutory requirements for a period of time. Senior leaders did not make this record secure until the start of this school year, despite the local authority making the school aware of its deficiencies after a review in May 2018.
• The school’s records of pupils’ attendance have been inaccurate, in part because some pupils who have been known to be absent have had their register mark deliberately changed so that they appear as present. In addition, some pupils have gained their present mark and then have left the school premises. Worrying issues such as these have meant that leaders and other staff have not known where some pupils are, putting them at risk.
• The school previously had a ‘no exclusion’ policy and, until this term, there have been no recorded fixed-term or permanent exclusions over the last few years. However, in the past, some pupils have been sent home or allowed to leave the school premises, both with and without parents’ knowledge, without proper recording of any details or treating these instances as exclusions. Leaders have not been in a position to ensure that such pupils are safe.
• The school site is not secure. During the inspection, pupils showed an inspector how they could easily leave the school site. While this particular problem was very quickly rectified, inspectors cannot be certain that there are no similar ways for pupils to leave the site or, of equal concern, for people who have no right or good reason to be on the site to enter.
• Some practice, while well intentioned, has not been properly considered in terms of the risks it could present to pupils and staff. For example, staff have made individual visits to pupils’ homes and collected pupils from there while travelling alone in their own cars.
• The school’s safeguarding and child protection policy provides a suitable framework for staff and others to know what is expected and what to do should a problem occur. However, other supporting policies, including a whistle-blowing policy, are not readily available. Current leaders are undertaking a review of all policies.
• The work of leaders and other staff in partnership with professionals from other agencies to respond to individual pupils’ child protection needs is well organised and effective. The records of such work are comprehensive. However, as these are paper-based, it is not as easy as it should be for staff to have a coordinated view of the information they contain.
• Current senior leaders have ensured that many of the weaknesses in safeguarding have quickly been addressed. However, the scale of the previous deficiencies means that there is still more to do to ensure that pupils are as safe as possible.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

• Over the last few years, teaching has not been good enough to make sure that pupils do as well as they should. The quality of teaching and the resulting learning is highly inconsistent. Learning is slowed far too often by pupils’ poor behaviour. This means that many pupils, including the most able, do not make sufficient gains.
• Where teachers have high expectations and good subject knowledge, these lead to pupils being motivated and trying hard. The effective learning that results from this was seen in Spanish in Year 9, with pupils’ written work in modern foreign languages further confirming that they learn well, whatever their starting points. Similarly, where teachers have built positive relationships with pupils and build on these through careful planning and accurate assessment, pupils make clear gains. In such circumstances, pupils behave well and have a good attitude towards their learning. However, far too often, pupils’ experience does not reflect the best seen in the school. Pupils’ learning is spoiled by pupils who let themselves down by failing to properly attempt their work or by actively disrupting learning. Teachers then spend time and effort focusing on such pupils, which means that others become bored and restless. When this happens, teachers tend to use their questions and the tasks that they set for pupils to control pupils’ behaviour, rather than to extend their learning.
• When teachers follow the school’s systems for managing pupils’ behaviour, pupils tend to try harder and therefore learn more. This applies equally to established members of staff and temporary teachers. Inspectors saw middle leaders providing active support to temporary teachers to help ensure that pupils learn properly in their classes.
• Teachers complete assessment at appropriate stages in learning. However, information from this assessment is often not used effectively enough by teachers and leaders to check on pupils’ starting points and to plan future teaching. This includes pupils who, for whatever reason, have fallen behind in their learning. Overall, assessment systems in the school lack accuracy. This means that teachers’ judgements about pupils’ likely success have also been inaccurate, often being too generous.
• Teaching does not pay enough attention to developing pupils’ communication skills. Some pupils lack the confidence to speak clearly in class. In addition, pupils’ books indicate that teachers are not helping pupils to develop their spelling and grammar skills or use subject-specific terms well enough. Some written tasks are not sufficiently demanding for the most able because they provide little opportunity for pupils to write at length. Too often, teachers do not insist that lower-attaining pupils finish incomplete or missing work in their exercise books. Teachers do not challenge pupils sufficiently to present their work as well as possible. Some pupils’ exercise books contain graffiti or very untidy work.
• Classes are provided for pupils who have valid reasons for not attending routine lessons. However, teaching in these classes does not meet their needs well enough. Activities are sometimes not designed with sufficient care to help pupils learn as quickly as possible. This includes some of the provision for the small number of pupils who speak English as an additional language. Pupils with SEND learn well when they are receiving focused support. Information about such pupils is shared with all teachers. However, such pupils’ learning is sometimes not maintained over time, for example when subject teachers lack knowledge of the best approach to take to respond to pupils’ specific needs.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.
• The school environment is not conducive to pupils feeling safe or being successful learners. Some pupils say they do not feel safe in school. Over time, staff have not made their expectations of pupils’ attitudes and behaviour high enough. As a consequence, some pupils do not develop the approaches needed to allow them to be as successful as possible in school or in later life. Some pupils have not been helped to understand when informal, or even casual, approaches are not appropriate, for example by openly referring to staff by their first names or nicknames. Pupils are often boisterous around the school.
• The curriculum has had insufficient focus on personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) education. Sometimes, the PSHE education provided has been poorly delivered and, as a result, such work has not been valued by pupils. Some pupils’ abilities to understand aspects of safe and healthy lifestyles are limited. This includes their awareness of how to stay safe when they are online or using social media.
• Pupils and parents identify that there is bullying in the school. Some pupils say that they are well supported if this happens, but others would not report it to staff and would ‘sort it out themselves’. Some find different ways to avoid such issues, for example by attending the school’s support room rather than routine lessons.
• The school’s provision for pupils for whom routine lessons may not always be suitable – for example because they have SEND, challenging behaviour or potential vulnerabilities
  • has many shortcomings. This provision is limited by the available staffing, resources and accommodation. For example, the provision for pupils who have temporarily been required to work separately from other pupils because of their poor behaviour is currently based in a food technology room.
• This year, the school has increased its use of off-site alternative provision to meet the needs of the most challenging pupils. All such provision is organised through Salford City Council. The council checks that alternative providers are suitable. The systems in place ensure that there is close liaison between the school and these providers, for example about pupils’ attendance and behaviour. While it is early in their attendance at this provision for a number of the pupils included, it appears that they are already making gains in their learning and achieving wider success.
• While the school provides helpful careers education for pupils, this is not monitored carefully enough or its impact considered. Staff miss opportunities to help potentially vulnerable pupils after they leave the school because there is no systematic follow-up with further education providers.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.
• Far too many pupils let themselves down, for example by disrupting lessons and swearing at each other and sometimes at staff. Inspectors saw instances of pupils fighting and smoking on the school field.
• There are far too many occasions when pupils stop concentrating, chat to each other or talk over the teacher or a class discussion. Some pupils prefer to use their mobile telephones in lessons rather than complete the work set. Some pupils find it very hard to accept teachers’ reasonable instructions to do as they are asked, for example in putting a mobile telephone away.
• The number of pupils who do not attend their lessons but choose to wander around the school is of particular concern. Not only do such pupils miss out on their own education, they sometimes cause a nuisance to other classes. Leaders report that this problem has reduced significantly since the start of this school year. In the past, pupils whose behaviour was poor in class or who left lessons for other reasons were often removed from the situation and dealt with by particular members of staff. This approach means that some pupils now find excuses to avoid learning and put themselves in a position where it is harder for staff to help them be successful. Leaders informed inspectors that a number of pupils had said to them that they had not attended normal lessons for a number of years.
• Leaders have introduced a new behaviour policy. This has made their expectations clear for pupils, parents and staff. When staff, including supply teachers, follow this policy, pupils’ behaviour improves. Leaders have also started to monitor the number and types of behavioural incidents. As such records are not available from before this term, it was not possible for inspectors to consider the detail of patterns in pupils’ behaviour over time. The new policy includes the use of exclusion. There have been a large number of fixed-term exclusions so far this term. These result directly from the firmer approach being taken by the school, for example to pupils swearing at staff.
• The open areas in the school buildings are generally tidy and well looked after by pupils, with the high-quality examples of pupils’ artwork on display being respected. However, pupils sometimes leave classrooms untidy and they drop litter on the school field.
• Pupils’ attendance is too low and generally reduces year group by year group as pupils get older. In addition, afternoon attendance is lower than that in the morning. A very high proportion of pupils are absent for long periods. It is not possible to compare current rates of absence to historical patterns because registration records were not reliable until late on in the previous school year. The school’s poor attendance figures indicate that some pupils and their families do not place sufficient value on education.

Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

• Pupils do not make enough progress to enable them to attain high enough results, including in their GCSE examinations.
• Since the previous inspection, the progress pupils made from their starting points in the school has reduced. The most recently available published information on pupils’ outcomes indicates that, in 2017, Year 11 pupils’ rates of progress in English, mathematics and science were in the lowest 5% of schools in the country. Pupils’ overall progress was rather stronger because it was boosted by results in the non-GCSE European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) qualification. Of further concern, the overall progress made by Year 11 pupils in 2017 reduced compared to similar pupils in 2016. The exception to this was in mathematics. However, the additional gains made in mathematics were very small.
• Typically, pupils achieve at least half a grade lower in each of their GCSE examinations than all pupils nationally with similar starting points. Disadvantaged pupils and the most able pupils do even less well. In 2017, both of these groups of Year 11 pupils were over a grade behind similar pupils across the country in English and mathematics. In science, the most able pupils’ progress only matched that achieved in the lowest 1% of schools.
• Early information about Year 11 pupils’ achievement in 2018 indicates that their overall progress declined further and particularly so for disadvantaged pupils. This decline means that the difference between their progress and attainment and those of other pupils – in the school and nationally – is widening. Leaders have not used the additional pupil premium funding to support disadvantaged pupils effectively. Results in 2018 did not include the ECDL.
• The progress of pupils currently in the school is highly variable. Pupils’ written work, inspectors’ discussions with pupils and direct observation show that there are differences between and within subjects. Some pupils’ progress over time is hampered because learning is restricted by poor behaviour. Despite this – and to their credit – some individual pupils continue to try very hard and, therefore, succeed. In some classes, with some teachers, pupils make continuing gains.
• Leaders and other staff do not have an accurate understanding of current pupils’ progress. The weaknesses of assessment in the recent past means that any previous records available do not give a reliable picture. This means that this information can give leaders, other staff and governors a highly false sense of security.
• The school’s new assessment system is in its early stages. Leaders have only collected assessment information about Year 11 pupils’ current attainment so far, in line with the school’s plans for arranging different year groups’ assessment. This information indicates that – at this relatively early stage of the school year – current Year 11 pupils’ achievement is similarly weak to last year. However, leaders identify that there may still be considerable uncertainty in the accuracy of assessment because middle leaders and teachers do not have well-practised skills and confidence in assessment procedures. Leaders do not have reliable information about the current achievement of different groups of pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and the most able.
• While pupils attending alternative provision appear to have made a good start this year, it is too early to determine the final impact of this provision.
• Pupils with SEND make gains in their learning. These are stronger for those whose needs are detailed in education, health and care (EHC) plans.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 133351 Salford 10042489 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 Community 11 to 16 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 949 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Richard Critchley Damian Owen 0161 790 5022 www.harropfold.com harropfold.highschool@salford.gov.uk Date of previous inspection 25–26 September 2013

Information about this school

• The school currently has an interim headteacher and interim associate headteacher appointed from another school. The previous executive headteacher resigned early this school year. A number of leaders are in interim posts, as some leaders are currently on long-term absence.
• The chair of the governing body has recently resigned and been replaced by the previous vice-chair.
• The school is receiving support brokered by the local authority, mainly focusing on English, mathematics, science and pupils’ behaviour. This includes support from Greater Manchester Learning Trust, Buile Hill High School, St Patrick’s Teaching School and the local youth service. The local authority is also providing direct support, for example around governance and careers education.
• The school is an average-sized secondary school.
• The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is much higher than the national average. Deprivation within the school’s community is high.
• The proportions of pupils with SEND and who have an EHC plan are above average.
• The school population is much less stable than that seen in many schools.
• At the time of the inspection, the school was using six alternative providers, mainly for pupils in key stage 4. These providers are Citywall, City West, EdStart, Salford Open Learning, SMS Coaching and The Sports School.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors met with the interim headteacher, senior leaders, middle leaders and other members of staff.
• Inspectors met with groups of pupils and spoke with others in lessons and during breaktimes.
• Inspectors observed teaching and learning, and scrutinised a sample of pupils’ books. In addition, other workbooks were examined during lessons.
• An inspector met with a representative of the local authority.
• An inspector met with the chair of the governing body, accompanied by another governor, a group of four governors and the previous chair of the governing body, who remains a governor.
• Inspectors scrutinised school documents about outcomes, teaching, learning, attendance, behaviour and leadership. These included the school’s record of self-evaluation and the school improvement plan. In addition, records and information about safeguarding and minutes of governing body meetings were considered.
• Inspectors reviewed 84 responses to Parent View, Ofsted’s online questionnaire, including 47 additional written comments. Inspectors also considered additional information provided to Ofsted during the inspection by parents. An inspector met with a parent who is the coordinator of a group of parents who have concerns about the school. Inspectors considered information about parents’ concerns provided by this parent.
• Inspectors considered 48 responses from members of staff to Ofsted’s online staff questionnaire.

Inspection team

David Selby, lead inspector Erica Sharman Linda Griffiths Deborah Bailey

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