John Jamieson School Ofsted Report

Full report

What does the school need to do to improve further?

• Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management by:
  • clarifying how they define and measure gains in pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills compared with the standards expected for their age
  • analysing information about pupils’ progress to inform the evaluation of the effectiveness of teaching and the priorities identified for development
  • ensuring that pupils make good progress in a wider range of relevant qualifications at key stage 4 and in the 16 to 19 study programmes.
• Increase pupils’ progress by:
  • ensuring that teaching more consistently meets different pupils’ needs
  • ensuring that activities and resources for older pupils are more consistently relevant and appropriate
  • increasing opportunities for pupils to write independently
  • developing more effective strategies for pupils to learn how to hold pens and pencils so their handwriting develops and improves.
• Improve the effectiveness of the 16 to 19 study programmes by ensuring that recent improvements in the curriculum and assessment enable students to gain a wider range of qualifications, including English and mathematics, so they are better prepared for the world of work.
• Improve the attendance of pupils, including disadvantaged pupils and those with health needs.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management Good

• Leaders have a clear vision about the role of the school and the wider services it provides for the Leeds community. Leaders provide a determined drive to ensure that pupils attending John Jamieson and the three partnership schools get the best outcomes across all aspects of their lives.
• The leaders of the Medical Needs Teaching Service (MNTS) and the Physical Difficulties and Medical Service (PDMS) make sure that provision for the wide range of pupils and the other schools they support is highly effective. Expectations of pupils’ academic progress are high.
• Leaders of the MNTS have developed strong and effective links with health service staff and they meet regularly in multi-disciplinary teams. This cooperative work supports MNTS staff well in meeting the educational needs of pupils while they are in hospital.
• Senior leaders ensure that the designation as a national teaching school supports the development of leaders, teachers and teaching assistants within the school, as well as others across the alliance of schools it serves. Staff appreciate the high-quality professional development opportunities they receive. For example, MNTS teachers are part of the mainstream subject teacher groups, so keep up to date with developments in assessment and examinations.
• Middle leaders and those new to leadership roles receive effective guidance on how to balance the challenge and support they give to teachers and teaching assistants to develop their practice. Newly qualified teachers (NQTs) are well supported. Leaders make sure teachers get opportunities to work with different classes and sites covering the wide range of pupils’ different needs.
• Pupils benefit from well-planned opportunities to learn across a wide range of subjects. Leaders and teachers ensure that most pupils’ daily timetables are well matched to their individual needs. This is done through a careful blend of activities linked to personal targets. These are based on nine strands of essential learning defined by the school, known as the ‘nine areas of SILC mastery’ and a range of national curriculum subjects.
• The broad range of subjects and enrichment activities are available to all and support pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development effectively. Sports and arts activities develop pupils’ resilience in diverse social settings, as well as their creative and physical development.
• Parents are overwhelmingly supportive of the school and appreciate the difference the holistic support they and their children receive makes to their lives. Parents of pupils receiving education through MNTS, whether at the hospital sites or at home, are equally positive about the contribution the service makes to their children’s well-being and development.
• The local authority (LA) rightly holds the school in high regard for the key role it fulfils in the provision of MNTS, PDMS and in the external support provided to other local schools. LA advisers provide effective support to the school through regular monitoring visits. Leaders have used external advice well. For example, they have improved the assessment of pupils’ work following a recent review.
• Since the last inspection, the effectiveness of teaching has led to good rather than outstanding outcomes for the majority of pupils. Leaders have defined their expectations about the progress pupils should make from a good range of sources. This includes their own historic information about the progress pupils make and national information about pupils with similar starting points in similar schools. Leaders have robust procedures to check the accuracy of teachers’ assessments. However, leaders have not made full use of the information they collect to identify groups of pupils that are not making strong progress, either over a year or over key stages. This has limited leaders’ understanding of the effectiveness of some teaching and extra support. Leaders did not respond rapidly enough to changes in national expectations across key stages, the increasing range of pupils’ needs, or to changes in qualifications for older pupils.

Governance of the school

• The governing body, led by a determined and committed chair, has ensured that the skill and knowledge at the heart of the school has benefited pupils across Leeds. Governors keep a keen and challenging eye on the MNTS, the PDMS and the TSA, so know that these services achieve good outcomes for the pupils, schools and professionals they serve.
• Through discussions with pupils during their regular visits across the different partnership sites and MNTS, governors know that pupils are safe and enjoy the wide range of experiences and opportunities they are given.
• Governors ensure that money received for specific purposes, for example the pupil and sport premiums, are spent effectively. Pay awards are linked to staff performance in relation to suitably challenging targets.
• During meetings, governors question leaders incisively about the information they are given. They probe vague answers to ensure that they get the information they need. However, the information leaders give to governors about the progress pupils make does not enable them to understand which groups of pupils are making strong progress. Equally, governors do not receive information about the attendance of disadvantaged pupils. This means governors do not challenge leaders about dips in pupils’ progress or attendance. Consequently, governors have agreed with leaders’ over-optimistic view of the progress pupils make.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. Leaders are diligent in ensuring that they recruit staff who have the skills and qualities to work with vulnerable pupils. The checks leaders make on staff are recorded appropriately. Appropriate training, including about radicalisation, ensures that all staff develop key knowledge about how to keep pupils safe and well.
• Pupils’ records indicate there is a deep-rooted culture of safeguarding across the school’s different sites. Staff know how to report concerns about a pupil. MNTS staff working alongside hospital staff and in pupils’ homes confidently and appropriately use the different reporting routes in each setting equally well.
• The wealth of information on the school’s website is a useful resource to help parents keep their children safe when they are using computers and the internet at home.
• Pupils receive appropriate relationships and sex education. The knowledge and understanding they develop helps them to resist unsafe relationships and activities. Staff do not shy away from addressing inappropriate social behaviours, for example over-familiarity and ‘hugging’, that could put pupils at risk when they are out and about in the community.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Good

• Teaching is effective and secures good outcomes for the great majority of pupils. Teachers skilfully plan interesting and engaging activities that meet the wide range of pupils’ individual needs. Teachers are flexible in lessons and respond to signs that pupils may be losing interest and quickly re-engage them by adapting or changing the task. Staff skilfully use questions to check pupils’ understanding and ensure that pupils have time to think through their answers, providing helpful hints when needed.
• Teachers across the MNTS sites have up-to-date knowledge about the new GCSE courses they teach in mathematics, English and science. They use the information well to assess pupils’ progress and give constructive feedback to pupils, which staff use to plan their next steps in learning. As a result of effective teaching that is tailored to pupils’ academic and personal needs, pupils at the Grafton Centre, pupils in Leeds Children’s Hospital and those taught at home make good progress in these subjects.
• The most able pupils based at the partnership schools are engaged and confident learners because of the effective provision made for them. They make strong progress in a range of subjects as a result of effective teaching and the social benefits they enjoy from time spent with their mainstream friends.
• Leaders’ decision to employ a speech and language therapist to work with teachers to develop pupils’ communication skills has had a positive impact. Most staff are skilled in communicating in a variety of ways, including signing and picture exchange. Pupils were keen to talk with inspectors about their time in school. One pupil with complex needs was equally keen to share information about his family using an eye gaze communication device.
• Leaders have invested heavily in reading resources and the development of staff’s knowledge and skills in teaching reading. Most pupils were keen to have a go at reading their work and some read fluently. Occasionally, symbols and pictures are used when pupils do not need that level of support. Conversely, on other resources, too many symbols clutter the information so pupils at an early stage of reading struggle to focus on interpreting one or two key symbols.
• While much teaching is highly effective, it is not consistently so. At times, time is not used well because activities do not focus on developing pupils’ knowledge, understanding or skills or do not meet their personal development, social or sensory needs.
• Some pupils have few opportunities to write independently and construct stories or descriptions of any length. For some pupils, poor pencil grip slows down the development of their handwriting skills.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding

Personal development and welfare

• The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is outstanding. Pupils benefit from a range of opportunities to develop as citizens and are keen to contribute to society. They are respectful of each other’s differences. Most learn to understand right from wrong and accept responsibility for their actions.
• Pupils with health care needs are well supported by both school staff and the nursing team. Members of the nursing team provide discreet support to pupils in class, for example by checking feeding pumps without detracting from pupils’ opportunities to learn.
• Pupils say and indicate through their play and their responses to staff and each other, that they feel safe in school. The overwhelming majority of parents are confident that their children, including the most vulnerable, are safe at school. Pupils learn how to keep safe, especially when using computers and the internet.
• Breaktimes are pleasant social occasions. Positive play is encouraged so opportunities for pupils to develop their social skills are not lost. At lunchtime, helpful prompt cards are on the tables to remind staff and pupils about things they could talk about. Of equal importance, safe feeding plans are in place for those pupils who require support to chew and swallow safely.
• All aspects of the school’s work are managed safely. A good example of this is the management of pupils’ arrivals and departures. All staff involved have a clear understanding of their responsibilities and leaders have a good oversight to ensure that the system runs smoothly. As a result, most pupils arrive in classrooms calm and ready to learn.

Behaviour

• The behaviour of pupils is outstanding. The vast majority of pupils are enthusiastic learners. They respond positively to staff because their needs are understood.
• Pupils attending the Grafton Learning Centre (part of MNTS) have positive attitudes to learning. The atmosphere is calm and pupils concentrate well in lessons. Pupils’ positive relationships with teachers supports their emotional security and enables them to make good progress.
• Staff’s work to support pupils who experience extreme difficulties in managing their behaviour is very effective. The key to this success is the focus on understanding why, for example, pupils rigidly pursue their own interests, or react to a simple direction with an extreme emotional response. The success of this approach is demonstrated by a significant reduction in the use of involuntary seclusion. The use of restrictive physical interventions has also reduced over time.
• Behaviour plans are detailed and regularly reviewed. The behaviour support workers provide direct support to pupils in lessons when needed. This ensures high-quality and effective support for pupils who have complex needs. Additionally, staff’s knowledge of strategies that are safe and effective is continually refreshed.
• Pupils who attend the Grafton Learning Centre are often admitted after prolonged periods of non-attendance at their home school. The attendance of many of these pupils improves significantly as a result of the effective support they receive.
• Pupils’ attendance is low because a small proportion of pupils have health needs, which result in significant absence that affects the overall figures. However, a proportion of pupils without health needs are also absent from school too often. Concerted actions are showing some impact on this group of pupils’ attendance.
• Attendance is low particularly at the main site. As new approaches to improve attendance take effect, leaders continue to be robust in checking that pupils who are not at school are safe and well at home. This includes weekly home visits to pupils who are absent for any length of time.

Outcomes for pupils Good

• Good teaching, based on the accurate assessment of pupils’ individual needs, ensures that most pupils make strong progress from their different starting points in reading, writing and mathematics. Leaders and teachers ensure that pupils who are disadvantaged, those who speak English as an additional language and the most able pupils make similarly good progress.
• Overall, pupils make the strongest progress in their social and emotional development and towards the personal goals set out in their education, health and care plans. This is because of the robust assessment and planning that takes place and the quality of pupils’ individual learning pathway plans. Over the school year, the plans cover the nine areas of SILC mastery, skills leaders have identified as being key to successful outcomes for all pupils.
• Pupils who receive education from MNTS across the different sites, and those who are taught at home, also make good progress because of effective teaching. In 2016, Year 11 pupils who used the service due to a range of short- and long-term medical needs achieved well across a range of GCSEs due to the effectiveness of the service.
• Progress is not consistently strong over all key stages and all subjects. For example, just over a quarter of pupils in key stage 2 at the John Jamieson main site made less than expected progress, as defined by leaders, in reading, writing and mathematics in 2016. In addition, pupils in the primary partnership classes made less strong progress in writing than in reading and mathematics in 2016.
• Progress across the secondary phase is also varied across sites. In 2016, a good proportion of the most able pupils achieved a range of entry level qualifications, which represents good but not substantial and sustained progress from the levels they achieved at the end of Year 6.
• Effective advice and guidance and strong progress, particularly in their personal development, supports pupils’ transition to the next stage in their education. The overwhelming majority of pupils choose to stay on in the school’s post-16 provision.

Early years provision Good

• A very small number of early years children are on the roll of the school and a small number receive education from MNTS when attending hospital. The provision is good across the three different sites because children’s individual needs are fully understood and learning activities are carefully planned to support their next steps in learning.
• The range of opportunities for individual children to initiate and direct their learning is varied across the different sites and classes at the main site. For some children, this is linked to their physical development and, for others, it is linked to their sensory needs and safe management. Sometimes, opportunities for staff to capitalise on a child’s positive choice to explore and play productively are missed.
• Parents are involved in ongoing assessments through the termly individual learning pathway plans. Teachers’ assessments and planned next steps are accurate.
• Early years welfare requirements are met across the different sites and safeguarding is effective. Children’s personal development is outstanding in line with other areas of the school.

16 to 19 study programmes Good

• New leaders for the post-16 provision at the main site and at Temple Moor High School have a clear vision to ensure the study programme requirements are met. They are developing the post-16 provision effectively.
• The curriculum at the partner school enables students to gain appropriate work-related qualifications. Leaders have recently increased the range of accredited courses at John Jamieson. As a result, current students are developing skills in the arts and in outdoor activities. The implementation of these additional programmes is at an early stage. The planning of accredited courses over three year programmes provides clear pathways for students to achieve at higher levels.
• Leaders have also introduced a promising approach for measuring the progress of post-16 students. This has been in place for a term, so it is too early to judge students’ progress. Links with Temple Moor are used well to assure the accuracy of assessment.
• Work experience has been extended recently to enable more students to benefit from this aspect of study programmes. Students in Year 14 participate in a sustained work experience programme. Plans to extend this programme to students in Year 12 and Year 13 are in place. Students welcome these opportunities to increase their awareness of the world of work and to develop their employability skills, including the ability to travel independently. Work placements in school give students useful work-related roles and responsibilities, and promote their employment aspirations. Students are also developing their enterprise skills in catering.
• Students are taught English and mathematics mainly as part of other subjects. Leaders recognise the need to extend opportunities for students to gain appropriate qualifications in English and mathematics.
• Teaching engages students and is well matched to their different needs. Occasionally, opportunities to develop students’ reading and writing skills are missed, consequently slowing their progress in these key skills.
• At the end of Year 14, as a result of good advice and guidance, students move on to positive destinations, including, in 2016, one student leaving to gain full-time employment.

School details

Unique reference number Local authority Inspection number 108119 Leeds 10001401 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 Special School category Age range of pupils Gender of pupils Gender of pupils in 16 to 19 study programmes Number of pupils on the school roll Of which, number on roll in 16 to 19 study programmes Community special 2 to 19 Mixed Mixed 211 51 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Executive Principal Interim Principal Telephone number Website Email address Roger Cannon Diane Reynard Bridie Dorning 0113 293 0236 www.eastsilc.org diane.reynard@eastsilc.org Date of previous inspection 29 February to 1 March 2012

Information about this school

• The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.
• The school is larger than most special schools and as East Leeds Specialist Inclusive Learning Centre includes a range of provision: John Jamieson, the main site for pupils who have a wide range of special educational needs and/or disabilities. Partnership schools: Kippax Ash Tree Primary School, Whitkirk Primary School and Temple Moor High School, where pupils on roll at John Jamieson attend full time and are mainly taught by John Jamieson staff. The Medical Needs Teaching Service (MNTS) for pupils across Leeds whose long- or short-term health needs mean they are unable to attend their home schools. The service is run by the governing body for Leeds local authority. Teaching and learning takes place at the Grafton Learning Centre, Little Woodhouse Hall, Leeds Children’s Hospital and at pupils’ own homes. At St James University Hospital, pupils are also supported through a specialist learning mentor for teenage and young adult oncology patients. The pupils accessing this service remain on the roll of their home school. The Physical Difficulties and Medical Service (PDMS) that provides advice and assessments for individual pupils who have physical disabilities in Leeds schools. A national teaching school, leading the Yorkshire Inclusive Teaching School Alliance. The executive principal is a national leader of education.
• The proportion of pupils who are disadvantaged is above average. Similarly, the proportion of pupils from different ethnic groups and those who speak English as an additional language is above that found in most other schools.
• All pupils have, or are being assessed for, education, health and care plans or have statements of special educational needs.
• The executive principal, a national leader in education, is currently providing formal support to the North West Specialist Inclusive Learning Centre. The chair of the governing body is also the chair of the interim executive board of the same school.
• The governing body have recently agreed to consult on proposals for the school to convert to an academy. Leaders and governors

Information about this inspection

• Inspectors visited a range of lessons on the main site and at the partnership schools jointly with different senior leaders. An inspector visited all the sites used by MNTS with the leader of that service. Pupils’ work was reviewed and inspectors talked with pupils about their learning.
• Inspectors observed pupils arriving at school, at playtimes and while they were eating their lunch. An inspector met with the school council and considered the 13 responses to the online pupil survey.
• A wide range of documents and records were examined, including assessment information and safeguarding records. A sample of pupils’ records were examined, including their education, health and care plans, assessment records, behaviour plans and evidence of their work.
• An inspector met with the chair and vice-chair of the governing body and one other governor. Another inspector met with a representative from the local authority. The third inspector met with a group of 11 parents at the school. Six other parents’ views were considered from their written responses to Parent View, Ofsted’s online survey.
• The views of staff were considered through discussion and through the 68 responses to the online staff survey.

Inspection team

Susan Hayter, lead inspector Bernard Campbell Tracy Millard

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