Central CofE Academy Ofsted Report

Full report

In accordance with section 44(1) of the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Create a culture that keeps all pupils safe by ensuring that:
  • the trust and leaders understand and fulfil their statutory responsibilities
  • leaders systematically record all concerns and communications about pupils’ well-being and document their decisions and actions
  • all adults know what to do if they have a concern about a pupil.
• Leaders and governors need to ensure that:
  • the trust fully understands the weaknesses in the school and then holds leaders to account for school improvement
  • they have accurate information about the progress that groups of pupils are making
  • parents have access to a website that contains all of the required information
  • middle leaders have a positive impact on teaching and learning
  • pupils access a broad and balanced curriculum
  • bullying and poor behaviour are properly recorded and appropriate actions are taken to resolve issues and promote improvements.
• Improve teaching and learning and pupils’ progress by ensuring that:
  • teachers have high expectations of what pupils can achieve and how they present their work
  • planned learning takes account of pupils’ starting points, including the most able
  • teachers recognise and address pupils’ misconceptions and poor spelling
  • pupils get more opportunities to develop their problem-solving and reasoning skills in mathematics.
• Improve pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare, by:
  • increasing the number of pupils who come to school regularly
  • improving the moral and social development of pupils, so that they are kinder to each other and more respectful to each other and adults
  • ensuring that there are clear policies and procedures for managing pupils’ behaviour and that staff understand and follow these consistently. 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

• The acting headteacher is responsible for almost every aspect of the school’s work. As a result, the school has limited capacity to improve.
• Leaders do not have enough information about pupils’ progress. A new system has been introduced. However, leaders and the trust have no insight into the progress that different groups of pupils are making.
• The curriculum is not broad and balanced. Some subjects such as design and technology are hardly ever taught. Other subjects, such as history, geography and science, are not taught frequently enough. The provision for pupils’ cultural development is inadequate. Pupils lack opportunities to appreciate, respond to or make music and art.
• Middle leaders are beginning to develop an understanding of the significant shortcomings in teaching, learning and assessment. However, they have not yet been able to have a positive impact on pupils’ progress.
• The management of staff’s performance is ineffective. Teachers are not held to account for the progress that pupils are making.
• Additional funding such as pupil premium and sports funding is not used effectively. Leaders and the trust do not have clear plans to spend the funding or clarity about the difference they want it to make. Funding to support the progress of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is not used effectively and these groups of pupils therefore make inadequate progress.
• The provision to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral and social development is weak. Leaders know this. Recent changes to collective worship have begun to focus on pupils’ spiritual development. However, work in religious education limits pupils’ opportunities to reflect and think deeply. The weaknesses in pupils’ social and moral development are evident in pupils’ poor behaviour and the lack of respect they can show towards their teachers and peers.
• Leaders over time, have not had a clear system to record bullying or poor behaviour. Significant incidents of unruly, unsafe and unkind behaviours have not been logged. The new system to record incidents is not used as effectively as it needs to be. A high proportion of incidents that now get recorded are not then transferred to the ‘overview’. Consequently, leaders and the trust still do not have a clear enough picture of what is happening in school.
• Leaders exclude pupils, both internally and externally, without a published policy or clear and shared procedures.
• The school’s website is incomplete. It provides parents with no information about how the school manages behaviour, exclusions, keeps pupils safe or how additional funding, such as pupil premium, is used.
• Staff and parents are positive about the work of the acting headteacher.
• Inspectors strongly recommend that the school should not seek to appoint newly qualified teachers until further notice.

Governance of the school

• The local governing body is not effective. Governors have not focused on the most important things in the school such as safeguarding, teaching and learning, and pupils’ progress. Too much time is devoted to peripheral issues, such as residential trips. Governors are too reliant on what school leaders and the trust tell them.
• The academy trust has not improved any aspect of the school since it converted. The trust’s new system for auditing the strengths and weaknesses in the school clearly shows that many aspects of the school’s work have declined since November 2016.
• The trust’s support and challenge for school leaders is ineffective. Sustained and substantial weekly support has had no impact. As a result, school leaders have not brought about improvements in teaching and learning. There has been too much focus on plans to improve Year 6 outcomes and limited or no focus on reviewing safeguarding, developing consistency in behaviour management, or ensuring that all pupils access a broad and balanced curriculum.
• The trust is clear about its shortcomings.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.
• Leaders have not ensured that staff have read and understood important statutory guidance to keep pupils safe. The trust does not have effective oversight of the school’s work to safeguard pupils.
• Leaders do not have adequate systems to record concerns about pupils’ well-being. Too many different forms exist and consequently important concerns are not systematically followed up. Confidential documents are not stored appropriately. Leaders and staff do not record concerns about pupils’ well-being effectively. Leaders do not record their actions, decisions or communications about concerns effectively.
• Staff are not clear about what to do when they have a concern about a pupil. Leaders do not always hear about significant incidents that are unsafe.
• Leaders do not have an up-to-date policy to safeguard pupils.
• Staff in school use restraint, including those not trained to do so. The trust does not have a policy regarding the use of restraint and the school does not log when restraint is used.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

• Teachers do not have high expectations of what pupils can achieve.
• Planned learning does not build on what pupils know and can do. As a result, work is often too easy. Pupils have to listen to things that they already know.
• Pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities cannot always access the work that they are asked to do. Adults do not always adapt it for them.
• Adults do not systematically recognise or clarify pupils’ misconceptions. The oldest pupils in the school can repeatedly make basic spelling errors and these are not picked up. Standards in writing are very low.
• Pupils who find reading difficult are not well supported in their choice of books. As a result, they make limited progress in developing their basic skills.
• Teachers’ and leaders’ subject knowledge is not as good as it should be. Sometimes adults unintentionally introduce errors into pupils’ work, including spelling errors.
• Pupils’ problem-solving and reasoning skills are significantly underdeveloped because mathematics teaching is inadequate.
• Learning in subjects such as history, geography and art is limited because subjects are not often taught. When they are taught, too much work is focused on basic labelling of things, finding missing words, copying things or colouring things. As a result, pupils do not develop the subject knowledge and skills they should.
• Progress in science is weak because it is rarely taught. When it is, pupils are given very limited opportunities to engage in practical work and develop age-appropriate scientific enquiry skills.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.
• Policies and procedures to keep pupils safe are ineffective.
• Some pupils feel safe. However, some do not. Pupils do not always feel that adults will listen or help them. Some pupils have been called names such as ‘fat’ or ‘gay’ for a sustained period and are unhappy.
• Pupils show little pride in their work. Standards of presentation are incredibly low. Adults have very low expectations of pupils.
• Logs of bullying, including racist incidents, are inadequate. Pupils have conflicting views regarding bullying. Some pupils feel that adults deal with it, others do not.
• Pupils have a good understanding of how to stay safe online.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.
• Behaviour around the school is inadequate. Some lunchtimes are unruly and unsafe. Pupils frequently ignore adults’ requests to listen or line up. Older pupils use bad language freely when playing outside.
• Behaviour in classrooms is inadequate. Pupils frequently disrupt each other’s learning. Pupils often talk when adults are talking. Some adults do not supervise pupils effectively. As a result, some pupils engage in unsafe activity that is not seen by staff.
• Pupils do not come to school often enough, particularly those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities and those pupils who are disadvantaged. Leaders do not systematically record, track or know how many pupils are persistently absent.
• There are a high number of significant incidents of unkind, unsafe and poor behaviour. Not all are recorded. The number of exclusions is high.
• Pupils and parents say that some adults shout at pupils.
• During this inspection, inspectors also saw pupils behave well during an assembly.

Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

• Standards in English, mathematics and across the curriculum are too low. Pupils’ progress is inadequate in all subjects.
• Progress is inadequate for all groups of pupils, including those who are disadvantaged and those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. Additional funding for these groups is not being used effectively.
• Pupils who come into school with low starting points do not catch up.
• The most able pupils do not make good progress. In mathematics, work is too easy and pupils repeatedly get all of their work right.
• The standard of pupils’ written work is poor. Pupils’ spelling is inadequate.
• Standards in art are low. Pupils do not develop age-appropriate knowledge and skills in science, history and geography.

School details

Unique reference number 143553 Local authority West Sussex Inspection number 10034619 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 Junior School category Academy special sponsor-led Age range of pupils 7 to 11 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 266 Appropriate authority Academy trust Chair David Allison Headteacher Kim Huggett (Acting headteacher) Telephone number 01243 783709 Website www.centralceacademy.org Email address office@centralschool-chichester.org.uk Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• The school does not meet requirements on the publication of information about exclusion arrangements, behaviour, pupil premium, physical education (PE) and sport premium, charging and remissions, special educational needs and/or disabilities, equalities or complaints.
• The school does not comply with Department for Education guidance on what academies should publish about exclusion arrangements, behaviour, pupil premium, PE and sport premium, charging and remissions, special educational needs and/or disabilities, equalities or complaints.
• The school became a sponsored academy and joined the Diocese of Chichester Academy Trust in November 2016.
• The acting headteacher has only been in post a few weeks. The group executive principal has been working in the school for up to two days a week since the school became an academy.
• The school is of average size.
• The proportion of pupils entitled to pupil premium funding is less than half the proportion found nationally.
• The proportion of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities is broadly in line with the national average.

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors observed learning throughout the school, often with middle leaders.
• Inspectors looked at pupils’ work during lessons and spoke to pupils about their learning.
• Meetings were held with senior leaders and with representatives of the local governing body and academy trust. Documents relating to governance were reviewed.
• Parents’ views were considered through conversations with parents at the beginning of the school day. The views of staff were considered through meetings.
• Pupils’ views were heard through many conversations with all inspectors at break, lunchtime and around the school. Inspectors spent time in the lunch hall and on the school field.
• Inspectors considered a wide range of documents, including leaders’ evaluations of the school’s effectiveness, improvement plans and leaders’ analyses of the quality of teaching. Inspectors also evaluated information relating to pupils’ behaviour and attendance.
• Inspectors reviewed safeguarding records and the central record of recruitment checks on staff and the trust.

Inspection team

Mark Cole, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Doug Brawley Ofsted Inspector Dom Cook Her Majesty’s Inspector