Ebn Academy 2 Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment further so that:
  • all pupils, particularly the most able, are consistently challenged to make rapid progress especially in mathematics and science
  • all pupils have a secure understanding of radicalisation and extremism
  • teaching focuses more sharply on addressing the specific needs of pupils.
• Work with parents and carers to improve the attendance of pupils who continue to be regularly absent and/or who arrive late to school so that these pupils make better progress.
• Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management by ensuring that:
  • leaders routinely evaluate the information available to them and check the impact of their actions to better identify priorities and maximise improvement.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• Leaders promote a culture of mutual tolerance and respect. Positive relationships between leaders, staff and pupils support pupils’ development effectively.
• Training for all staff is well planned and coordinated. Leaders use professional development to encourage, challenge and support teachers’ improvement. Staff value their training and it has contributed to improvements in the quality of teaching.
• Shared training with other schools in the partnership and external moderation of pupils’ work are helping to improve the standard of education. Good working relationships with the other schools in the trust support the smooth transition of pupils from their mainstream school and helps them to settle quickly.
• Leaders routinely monitor the quality of alternative provision and add rigour to the process by seeking external opinions. Leaders have ensured that the high quality of care given to pupils at the school is matched in alternative provision. The pupils who access that provision make good progress.
• The curriculum is broad and balanced and provides many and varied opportunities for pupils to learn. The range of subjects and courses helps pupils to acquire knowledge, understanding and skills in most aspects of their education, including literacy, humanities, mathematical, scientific, technical and social learning. This supports good progress.
• Accredited courses are offered in both academic and vocational subjects. The flexibility of the curriculum enables pupils to complete courses they may have started in their mainstream school, so no learning is lost.
• The wider curriculum also contributes well to pupils’ mental and personal well-being, their safety, and their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Pupils value the help and support that the staff give them to help them to move successfully into adulthood.
• Leaders collect a lot of information about individual pupils through the school’s systems. However, they do not use this information efficiently to maximise pupils’ progress. For example, leaders were unaware of the positive impact that ‘attendance week’ had on improving pupils’ attendance.
• Historically, additional funding has been spent appropriately to support disadvantaged pupils. However, the spending plan for 2018/19 is not based on a detailed evaluation of the impact of last year’s spending. Therefore, it is not targeted to meet the needs of current pupils.
• Parents are overwhelmingly supportive of the school. A typical comment was, `My child is doing so well he wants to come in the morning. The spark has returned to his eyes.’

Governance of the school

• Governance is strong.
• Governors are ambitious for staff and pupils. They have the experience, knowledge and skills to fulfil their roles well. They have a secure understanding of their responsibilities and they know the school’s strengths and weaknesses. They have a clear vision for the development of the school and they are fulfilling their statutory duties and responsibilities effectively.
• Governors make sure that all aspects of performance management are effective. Appropriate arrangements are in place for the performance management of the headteacher.
• Governors take their safeguarding duties seriously. They have a named governor for safeguarding whose responsibility includes routinely checking the single central record. Governors ensure that the vetting procedure for employing new staff is robust.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective in both the school and in alternative provision.
• Leaders engage with parents and other stakeholders well to make sure that all pupils are supported and safe. Staff training is comprehensive and up to date. For example, staff are fully briefed on children missing education. The designated safeguarding lead is well supported by his deputies and any concerns are followed up swiftly with the appropriate action.
• Staff take their responsibility to care for and keep pupils safe seriously. They know what to do if they have a concern about a child. All staff who completed the staff survey said that pupils are safe in school. Parents and pupils agree.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• The respectful relationships between adults and pupils contribute to the school’s positive learning culture. Teachers have secure subject knowledge and they help pupils to develop good behaviours for learning, for example showing respect for the opinions of others.
• Pupils develop their resilience and enjoy the challenge of learning when they apply the idea of ‘the learning pit’. Pupils use this approach in lessons if they want to have their ideas probed and challenged by teachers. It is used most effectively in English. For example, this level of challenge helped to deepen pupils’ knowledge and understanding of a war poem and pupils made rapid progress. However, not all subjects currently use this approach equally well.
• Displays in classrooms help pupils to develop their subject knowledge. For instance, during the inspection, classroom displays were used effectively in English to help pupils explain the meaning of difficult concepts.
• Teachers closely monitor pupils’ work so that mistakes are dealt with quickly. This develops pupils’ learning and helps pupils to re-engage when they may have lost focus.
• Most teachers give feedback in line with the school’s assessment policy. However, sometimes feedback does not help pupils to improve their work and this limits their progress.
• When teaching is most effective, staff plan activities well. Time is used efficiently to give pupils the chance to review and further develop what they have learned. This results in pupils making faster progress.
• In lessons where questioning is used well, teachers skilfully probe pupils’ responses and challenge their thinking. In geography, for example, skilful questioning by the teacher resulted in pupils deepening their understanding of the effects of regeneration on the local area.
• Leaders collect a great deal of information about pupils during their introduction to school that helps them to identify pupils’ individual needs. However, despite being shared with staff, this information is not routinely used to inform the planning of learning. This results in some work being too easy or too difficult for pupils.
• Staff regularly take opportunities to promote reading, writing, mathematics and communication skills in a range of subjects. Leaders are keen to ensure that these core skills are deeply embedded in every subject area.
• Teachers use internal and external moderation effectively to ensure the accuracy of their assessment information. As a result, some teachers use this information well to identify where pupils need additional support and challenge, but this is not yet consistent across all subjects.
• Parents are given clear information on how well their child is progressing relative to the standards that they are expected to achieve. Parents are also given information on how to help their child improve.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is good.
• Established routines, which begin at the start of the day with the leaders’ ‘meet and greet’ at the school’s entrance, set the tone. This positive approach continues throughout the day, both in classrooms and during unstructured times. Staff help pupils to conduct themselves well. The school is calm and orderly.
• Staff and pupils have purposeful relationships. Pupils take pride in their work, their school and their appearance. They say the school meets their needs well; some pupils describe the school as life-changing.
• Pupils know about different types of bullying. They have a clear understanding of how to keep themselves safe, including when they are online and using social media. Pupils are less confident when talking about extremism and radicalisation, even though they have been taught about it. Pupils feel safe and have someone to talk to who they trust. All parents agree that the school helps to keep pupils safe.
• The wider curriculum, including ‘character education’, promotes pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development well. Displays in classrooms and in corridors help to guide and inform pupils in becoming good British citizens.
• Pupils are well supported with their emotional health and well-being. They have access to the school nurse as well as mentoring from the school’s personal coaches. Pastoral leaders have an in-depth knowledge of individual pupils’ needs and they ensure that pupils and families benefit from the support available to them from external agencies.
• Pupils are encouraged to look after their physical health, but leaders acknowledge opportunities for exercise are limited by the lack of appropriate facilities at the school. Leaders are actively looking into how pupils could use local facilities to increase their participation in sport.
• Pupils’ attitudes to all aspects of their learning are positive. Displays of pupils’ work celebrate their achievements and show that staff value their work. Pupils make a good contribution to lessons and are confident to share their ideas and opinions.
• Pupils are provided with independent advice and guidance about their future options. They take part in trips to a careers fair and to a skills show. Parents are actively involved in helping their children to make positive choices. Parents are invited to information evenings about how to support their child in their next stage of education. All pupils are offered work experience during Year 10. Leaders acknowledge further work is needed to ensure that pupils access post-16 courses that are well matched to their ability.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is good.
• Staff, parents and pupils speak positively about behaviour. There have been very few fixed-term exclusions this term and no repeat exclusions. When incidents of poor behaviour do occur, all staff feel that leaders support them well to manage them. The use of restorative solutions by staff following these incidents is helping to reduce the number of pupils who need to be placed in internal isolation.
• Although attendance is low, it shows improvement over time. Cases studies show that most pupils make a significant improvement from very low starting points. Leaders have robust procedures in place to monitor the attendance of pupils who attend alternative provision and for those in school.
• Information provided by leaders shows that incentives given to pupils, for example reward trips and vouchers, do help to improve attendance. However, leaders do not systematically evaluate the information collected about attendance, and this limits their ability to make further improvements.
• Punctuality for all pupils is improving over time. However, the improvement in Year 11 is minimal. Although persistent absence also shows some signs of improvement over time, it remains too high. Leaders’ own assessment information shows the negative impact that poor attendance has on progress and attainment.
• The high staff-to-pupil ratio in the alternative provisions used by the school helps to ensure that pupils are kept safe and have sufficient attention to meet their needs. Pupils attend regularly and behave well when they participate in learning away from the school.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• Pupils who had previously been lost to education have been successfully re-engaged in learning. Most pupils make good progress in a range of subjects. Different groups of pupils make similar progress from their starting points and the length of time pupils are in the school has a positive impact on the progress that they make.
• Over time, most Year 11 pupils have achieved good outcomes and many pupils have gained a wide range of qualifications including GCSEs. In 2018, all pupils achieved qualifications including accreditation in English and mathematics. However, the lack of challenge in mathematics and science, including an over reliance on worksheets in lessons, resulted in pupils making slower progress in these subjects compared to others.
• Progress in vocational subjects is consistently good. Attainment and progress in media studies are particularly strong.
• The whole-school focus on literacy is evident in lessons. Pupils are articulate and confident and use subject-specific terminology well in lessons such as geography. Pupils are helped to develop their communication skills. For example, Year 11 pupils use sophisticated language well to justify their ideas in English lessons. Pupils are encouraged to read widely and fluently, including during form time, and their use of grammar is improving.
• Since the school opened, the most able pupils have not consistently achieved good passes in GCSE examinations across a range of subjects. A minority of pupils are held back by poor attendance.
• Pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education. During their time in the school they are helped to develop the necessary behaviours and attitudes they need to succeed. In 2018, all pupils moved on to a college course but, over time, few have moved on to study subjects at A level.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 141739 Birmingham 10053408 This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005. Type of school Alternative provision School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Academy free school 13 to 16 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 69 Appropriate authority Board of trustees Chair Headteacher Telephone number Website Email address Mr Peter Weir Ms Lilian Cabena 0121 272 7020 http://ebnacademy2.co.uk/ enquiry@ebnfs2.org Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

Information about this school

• The EBN Academy 2 is a small school in the EBN trust. It provides alternative education for pupils who have been excluded, or are at risk of permanent exclusion, from their mainstream setting.
• The school caters for pupils in Years 9 to 11. Pupils in Years 9 and 10 are dual-registered with their mainstream school.
• The board of trustees, the local governing body, and the executive headteacher oversee this school and EBN Academy 1.
• All pupils have social, emotional and mental health needs and a small proportion have additional special educational needs. No pupils have an education, health and care plan.
• The proportions of pupils from minority ethnic groups and who speak English as an additional language are above the national averages.
• Some pupils attend five alternative providers on a full-time or part-time basis. The alternative providers are iMedia, Riverside Education, Riverside Vocational, Silver Birch and South and City College.
• The executive headteacher, who initially fulfilled this role on a temporary basis, became the substantive executive headteacher in November 2018. The interim headteacher has been in post since September 2017 and the interim deputy headteacher has been in post since September 2018. Plans are in place to appoint a substantive leadership team before the end of 2018.
• The board of trustees provides governance. Some aspects of governance, for example the review of academy policies and reviewing the quality of teaching, are delegated to the local governing board.
• This is the school’s first inspection since it opened in September 2015.

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Information about this inspection

• Meetings were held with the executive headteacher, the interim headteacher, the interim deputy headteacher, other leaders and staff. Inspectors also analysed 18 responses to the staff questionnaire.
• The lead inspector spoke to three members of the board of trustees, including the chair, and the chair of the local governing board.
• Short visits were made to a wide range of lessons with senior leaders. The team inspector also visited one of the alternative providers used by the school.
• Inspectors spoke to pupils formally and informally and observed behaviour at the start of the day, in lessons and during social time. The lead inspector also considered 32 responses to the school’s recent pupils’ questionnaire.
• The lead inspector considered 18 responses to the school’s recent parental questionnaire and written responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View. However, there were not enough responses to Parent View for the results to be analysed.
• Various school documents were scrutinised, including the school’s self-evaluation and information about pupils’ progress, behaviour and attendance. Documents relating to safeguarding were checked and the lead inspector looked at information published on the school’s website.

Inspection team

Lesley Yates, lead inspector Elizabeth Ellis-Martin Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector