Chamberlayne College for the Arts 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?

• Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management to raise achievement and improve pupils’ attendance by ensuring that:
  • leaders have the skills and capacity to identify, implement, monitor and evaluate improvements in the areas for which they are responsible leaders raise achievement and improve the quality of teaching in English, mathematics and science as well as across all other subjects
  • governors challenge leaders more urgently on the attendance and achievement of pupils and the quality of teaching, especially for those pupils that are disadvantaged and/or need to catch up with their literacy and numeracy skills in Year 7.
• Rapidly improve the quality of teaching to raise pupils’ achievement, by:
  • ensuring that teachers have high expectations of what disadvantaged pupils, boys, pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, the most able pupils, and most able disadvantaged pupils can do and can achieve
  • ensuring that teachers develop the skills and expertise to fully support pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities
  • planning learning activities that meet pupils’ needs and match their starting points
  • ensuring that teachers make regular checks on pupils’ learning and adapt tasks appropriately
  • increasing pupils’ experiences of writing for a variety of purposes improving the standards of pupils’ presentation, spelling and grammatical skills
  • ensuring that lessons are free from low-level disruptive behaviour. 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 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

• Since the last inspection, leaders have not taken effective action to halt a decline in standards. Leaders did not evaluate the school’s strengths and weaknesses accurately enough. As a result, leaders were too slow to address weak teaching and a decline in pupils’ attendance, behaviour and academic performance. In the last three years, pupils’ outcomes have fallen rapidly and remain low.
• Senior leaders are not ensuring that the school improves rapidly. Overall leadership capacity is weak. A deputy headteacher has been seconded from a local school to provide additional capacity to the leadership team, but improvement in pupils’ outcomes is still too slow.
• The effectiveness of subject leaders varies considerably. Too few are aware of the strengths and areas that need improvement in their areas of responsibility. Consequently, they are not taking appropriate action to rectify the most significant weaknesses in pupils’ progress or to provide effective support for the teachers they lead.
• The school’s curriculum is not serving pupils well. In particular, lessons do not meet pupils’ literacy needs well enough. Pupils’ writing is underdeveloped across all year groups. Therefore, pupils’ lack of literacy skills hampers their progress in all subjects. Initiatives designed to improve pupils’ literacy skills are ineffective. In other subjects, the most able pupils are not challenged sufficiently. Less able pupils follow courses in modern foreign languages and humanities that are too challenging and they have not achieved well as a result.
• The acting headteacher has sensibly evaluated the current curriculum provision as not fit for purpose. Plans for improvement are at a very early stage and have not had sufficient impact.
• Pupils enjoy and engage well with the school’s extra-curricular activities, including sports clubs. Pupils speak positively about opportunities for taking part in music, shows and performances. Pupils’ progress in performing arts is better than in the other subjects.
• Leaders have not ensured that pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities have effective support. As a result, their progress is limited, especially in writing.
• Following the decline in standards, the local authority was too slow to respond. Leaders were not challenged sufficiently well to bring about rapid improvement. In recent times, the local authority has intensified support and challenge. However, the support has not led to an improvement in pupils’ achievements because the support has come too late.
• At the time of the inspection, the acting headteacher had been in post for six weeks, after joining the school as deputy headteacher at the beginning of the academic year. Within a short period, he has accurately evaluated the weaknesses of the school and started to implement relevant plans for improvement. Leaders, teachers, pupils and parents are positive about the changes that he is beginning to lead.
• The school may not appoint newly qualified teachers.

Governance of the school

• Governors have not done enough to prevent the school’s decline since the last inspection. They have not held school leaders to account for the use of the pupil premium funding and Year 7 literacy and numeracy catch-up funding effectively. Consequently, the progress of disadvantaged pupils and Year 7 pupils with low literacy and numeracy skills remains weak. Furthermore, this information is not explained on the school’s website clearly, as is required.
• Governors do not have the breadth of skills required to enable them to hold leaders to account for the achievement of pupils and the quality of teaching. While they are beginning to increase their capacity, they remain over reliant on the headteacher to guide them.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• All staff are well trained and are kept up to date with current advice so that they keep pupils safe effectively. Checks to ensure that staff appointed to the school do not pose a threat to pupils are robust and effective.
• Pupils report that they feel safe. They are able to explain how to keep themselves safe. Pupils say that bullying is rare and that adults will take action should they have a concern.
• Most parents who responded to the online questionnaire agree that their children are safe in school.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

• The quality of teaching is inadequate. Teachers do not expect enough of pupils and fail to evoke their enthusiasm and commitment to learning. This means lessons are often negatively affected by poor attitudes to learning. Consequently, pupils underachieve across most subjects including English, mathematics and science.
• Teachers’ planning does not take into account the different starting points of the pupils in their classes. Pupils’ individual learning needs are not met appropriately. As a result, tasks sometimes lack sufficient challenge for the most able pupils or are too hard for those requiring additional support.
• Teachers do not consistently give helpful advice on what pupils need to do to improve their work. Sometimes, when guidance is given teachers do not insist that pupils respond to it. Teachers do not use assessment well enough to ensure that teaching improves pupils’ progress.
• Typically, teachers’ questions do not explore in sufficient depth what pupils already understand. Therefore, teachers’ explanations or planned activities can sometimes be too easy or too hard. As a result, pupils are not challenged, fall behind or become despondent. Pupils’ make slow progress.
• Teachers’ expectations of what pupils can achieve in the presentation of their work are too low. Consequently, pupils do not develop such skills sufficiently. Graffiti and unfinished work are prevalent in some pupils’ books. Standards of presentation are too low.
• Teachers do not support pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities well enough. Teachers’ skills to plan for pupils’ varying needs are underdeveloped. These pupils do not receive sufficient guidance to learn well.
• Pupils do not receive enough support to improve their literacy skills. Pupils who join the school in Year 7 and who are behind in their speaking, reading and writing do not get enough support to catch up. Other pupils do not have their skills developed well, especially in writing. Pupils’ grammatical and spelling mistakes often go unnoticed. Pupils do not have enough opportunities to practise their writing at length. Some pupils express frustration that their weak literacy skills continue to hold them back.
• Teachers have not ensured that pupils with poor attendance catch up. Many pupils have gaps in their learning and some books have missing or unfinished work. As a result, pupils with poor attendance are unable to keep up with their peers.
• In the performing arts pupils learn well. Teachers in these subjects ensure that tasks and activities are set at the right level. As are result, pupils enjoy these lessons and achieve well.
• Teachers are helping Year 11 pupils to prepare for examinations and these pupils value the extra support. Although Year 11 pupils are making steady progress, it is not rapid enough to make up for the legacy of underachievement in the past.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare requires improvement.
• Careers advice is helpful and pupils are well supported in their choices for future study or career destinations. An external careers specialist provides impartial advice. Sound careers guidance has resulted in a reduction in the number of pupils who are not in education, employment or training post-16 and an increase in applications to further education colleges. Pupils are supported well in taking their next steps.
• Leaders have developed pupils’ knowledge of fundamental British values well. For example, inspectors observed an assembly for Year 9 pupils that focused on respect. Excellent reference to pupils’ local context helped pupils to understand the importance of difference and tolerance. Consequently, over time pupils develop a secure understanding of democracy and life in modern British society.
• Pupils do not receive sufficient guidance on choosing a healthy diet. They have access to unhealthy snacks from a vending machine and only have limited opportunities to consider diet and health in the curriculum. As a result, their knowledge of maintaining a healthy lifestyle needs improvement.
• Pupils report positively about the support they receive from staff. For example, recent developments to the curriculum to support pupils with their mental well-being have been well received. Consequently, pupils feel well cared for and that their concerns are taken seriously by staff.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.
• Too many pupils do not value their education and are absent, or persistently absent, from school. During the inspection, over a tenth of pupils were not in school or attending work experience. Leaders are not taking effective action to address these issues. As a result, attendance is too low.
• Recently, the acting headteacher has introduced a new behaviour policy. This initiative is in an early stage of development. Staff and pupils report that there are signs of improvement in pupils’ behaviour, with only a minority of pupils not responding to the new higher expectations.
• While the learning ethos in lessons is mostly calm and orderly, there are instances of inattentiveness that disrupts other pupils’ learning. Pupils, parents and teachers also report that there is some poor behaviour that affects pupils’ learning.
• Exclusion rates have been above average in the past. This year, because of some improvements to the management of pupils’ behaviour, the exclusion rate is falling.
• A small number of pupils at risk of permanent exclusion attend a local provision, The Compass School. Pupils continue their education or have specialist support and return to the school if appropriate. Leaders maintain regular contact with this provision to ensure pupils make progress and attend regularly.
• The majority of pupils behave well around their school. They are polite to each other and to visitors. At break and at lunchtime they socialise and treat each other with respect.

Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

• In 2016, unvalidated GCSE results show that year 11 pupils performed well below average and in the lowest 10% of schools. All groups of pupils performed significantly below average in English, mathematics and science. Only around a third of pupils gained a GCSE grade C or better in English and mathematics, with boys attaining significantly less well than girls.
• Many pupils enter Year 7 with skills and understanding below those of other pupils nationally. Teachers’ planning does not cater well enough for their needs and they do not make the progress that they should.
• Most pupils study humanities and languages. Pupils’ rates of progress in 2016 in these subjects were also significantly below average and in the lowest 10% of schools.
• Disadvantaged pupils do less well than others in the school with just over a quarter gaining a C grade or above in English and mathematics GCSE examinations. In the last three years, the gap has widened between disadvantaged pupils at the school and others nationally. Leaders have not ensured that funding has been used well to provide effective additional support for disadvantaged pupils.
• Too many groups of pupils underachieve. In all year groups, disadvantaged pupils, boys, pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, the most able pupils, and the most able disadvantaged pupils do not make the progress they should from their starting points. Pupils’ absence and inconsistencies in teaching negatively impact on achievement.
• In the current Year 11, rates of progress in all subjects are still too slow. While there are strategies to help pupils catch up, there is not enough evidence to show that pupils are making up for slower progress in the past. Year 10 pupils were on work experience during the inspection but pupils’ work in books across a range of subjects did not demonstrate rapid progress.
• Pupils’ literacy skills are underdeveloped. They have weak writing skills, including in formulating sentences and extended pieces of writing. Spelling is often inaccurate. Many are not achieving the standards expected for their age. Too many pupils cannot do well in other subjects because their difficulties with literacy have not been sufficiently supported.
• Assessment systems at key stage 3 are confusing and not understood well by pupils or staff. Consequently, the school’s information about the progress of pupils is unreliable and internal comparisons between subjects or groups of pupils cannot be made. Leaders are not able to take action in order to accelerate the progress of groups of pupils that fall behind.
• Pupils attain higher standards in performing arts and sports studies. Many pupils make good progress from their starting points in these subjects.
• Teachers make accurate assessments of pupils’ GCSE performance through trial examination papers or through moderating work with other schools.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 116454 Southampton 10024744 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 comprehensive School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Foundation 11 to 16 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 469 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Acting headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Maureen Tomlinson Nick Giles 023 80447820 www.chamberlayne.org head@chamberlayne.org Date of previous inspection 21–23 March 2013

Information about this school

• The school does not meet requirements on the publication of information about the Year 7 literacy and numeracy catch-up premium. It does not give details on its website of how the funding was spent last academic year, nor of the impact it had.
• Chamberlayne College for the Arts is a smaller than average secondary school.
• The previous headteacher, who was in post at the time of the last inspection, left the school in December 2016. Governors have not yet secured permanent leadership of the school. The current acting headteacher was appointed in January 2017 after joining the school as deputy headteacher in September 2016. A local school, Oasis Academy Mayfield, provides a seconded deputy headteacher and extra leadership support through a recent informal arrangement.
• Most pupils are from a White British background. A small proportion of pupils are from minority ethnic heritages.
• A small number of pupils attend the Compass School that provides alternative provision for pupils who are at risk of permanent exclusion.
• The school did not meet the government floor standards in 2015 and 2016. These set the minimum expectations for pupils’ learning and progress.

Information about this inspection

• Year 10 pupils were undertaking work experience on the days of this inspection.
• Inspectors observed teaching and learning in over 30 lessons. Many observations were undertaken jointly with the acting headteacher, deputy headteacher or members of the senior leadership team.
• Inspectors carried out a scrutiny of disadvantaged pupils’ work across year groups and subjects.
• Meetings were held with the acting headteacher, seconded deputy headteacher, members of the senior leadership team, a selection of staff including middle leaders and newly qualified teachers. Inspectors also considered 41 responses from staff to the online questionnaire.
• Inspectors met with governors, the principal of Oasis Academy Mayfield and a representative from the local authority.
• Inspectors considered 18 responses to the online parent questionnaire and a further nine written responses from parents.
• Meetings were held with pupils and 16 online questionnaire responses from pupils were taken into account.
• Inspectors looked at a number of documents including leaders’ evaluation of the school’s effectiveness; the school improvement plan; analysis of the school’s performance data; information on the progress of particular pupil groups; information relating to the attendance and behaviour of pupils; safeguarding and child protection records and minutes from governor meetings.

Inspection team

Susan Child, lead inspector Richard Carlyle Julie Summerfield Anne Turner Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector