Chapeltown Academy Ofsted Report

Full report

Information about the provider

• Chapeltown Academy is situated on a business park between the town of Chapeltown and the city of Sheffield. The academy was established in 2014 to provide academic study programmes for young people aged 16 to 19. The academy enrols students from a wide geographical area with the great majority coming from Chapeltown, Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham and surrounding villages.
• At the time of the inspection, 176 students were following a range of AS- and A-level qualifications in English, mathematics, science, humanities, computing and modern foreign languages. Most of the students at the academy are aged 16 to 18 with a small number aged 19.

What does the provider need to do to improve further?

• Ensure that plans to bring about improvements to the provision have clearly defined success measures so that leaders and managers are able to ascertain accurately the progress that they are making in bringing about improvements.
• Strengthen arrangements for the performance management of teachers so that they are held accountable for the progress of their students, and so that the actions they need to take and the training that they require to improve their practice are clearly identified.
• Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment so that students of all abilities can achieve their potential by:
  • ensuring that teachers plan and use activities that challenge the most able students in lessons so that these students achieve the high grades of which they are capable
  • ensuring that teachers improve their use of assessment techniques in lessons so that they are rigorous and clearly identify any gaps in students’ knowledge, skills and understanding, and enable teachers to plan and use activities that ensure that students make good progress in all subjects
  • providing students with clear and challenging feedback on assessed work which sets clearly defined targets to help them to improve their work.
• Ensure that teachers monitor students’ progress effectively across all aspects of their study programmes and set clear personal development targets for students to ensure that they make the progress that they should.

Inspection judgements

Effectiveness of leadership and management

Requires improvement

• Governors and leaders have worked with dedication, overcoming many challenges, to implement their ambition to create a small, academically focused sixth-form provision for the north of Sheffield and the surrounding area. The strategic plan clearly articulates their ambition for the academy. However, governors and leaders are aware that the academy must provide a sustainable curriculum, and they continue to review effectively the best way to ensure its long-term future.
• Leaders have established a curriculum that meets an identified local need and have developed a strong identity, culture and ethos for the academy that students respond to well. This is reflected strongly in students’ good attitudes to work and the excellent behaviours that they demonstrate within lessons and in study areas such as the library.
• Leaders broadly understand the strengths and weaknesses of the provision but place too much emphasis on overall pass rates at A level and on students’ destinations. As a result, their own assessment that outcomes for students are good is overgenerous. Leaders do not take adequate account of the slow progress that students make in many subjects over the two years of an A-level qualification, and have not analysed sufficiently the reasons for this.
• Leaders and managers do not have sufficiently rigorous arrangements in place to assure the quality of provision. Although they work hard to implement a range of actions to improve the provision, their plans for improvement do not set sufficiently challenging targets for students’ progress. Actions aimed at improving aspects of provision lack clear success measures, which means that managers are unable to evaluate fully their impact.
• Leaders rightly identify that the small team of teachers presents a challenge to ensuring that the quality of teaching, learning and assessment is good across the academy. Most subjects are delivered by a single subject-specific teacher, many of whom work part time for the academy. Managers have begun recently to use their professional networks to provide subject-specific advice and support to help teachers to improve their practice but this is not yet having sufficient impact on improving the progress that students make.
• Arrangements for managing the performance of teachers do not provide sufficient challenge or support for teachers to improve their practice or to be held to account for students’ outcomes. Managers’ assessment of the quality of teaching, learning and assessment is not sufficiently critical. Feedback given to teachers following lesson observations, in too many cases, does not focus enough on the impact that their practice has on students’ learning and progress.
• Leaders and managers give insufficient attention to ensuring that students develop their English and mathematics skills on A-level courses. The academy’s teaching and learning handbook outlines a clear strategy and expectation for this, but managers do not evaluate effectively whether teachers are developing students’ English and mathematics skills sufficiently well.
• Despite managers implementing a revised tutorial system, intended to improve the monitoring of students’ progress across all aspects of their study programmes, this remains too informal and requires further improvement. Teachers monitor students’ progress towards achieving their target grades in individual subjects but do not monitor or review well enough the progress that students make across all aspects of study programmes.
• Leaders, managers and all staff within the academy promote equality and celebrate diversity particularly well within lessons and in the wider academy. The tutorial programme focuses well on social, global, and health and welfare issues. As a result, students improve their understanding about their rights and responsibilities in society. Staff and students are proud of the academy and have successfully created a harmonious, safe and respectful learning environment.
• Leaders place a high priority on supporting students to develop their understanding of employers’ expectations. A comprehensive range of enrichment activities, which include input from universities and employers, and work placements for those for whom they are relevant, prepare students well for their next steps.
• Managers ensure that students receive good advice and guidance about their future study and career options. Managers monitor the intended and actual destinations of students very closely and provide high levels of individual support to ensure that students are able to progress to their intended next steps, which is higher education for the large majority.
• Managers accurately analysed the final outcomes of the first full A-level cohort that completed in the summer of 2016. Although they appropriately identified where there were differences between groups of students and established plans to reduce these, gaps still remain such as the slower progress that the most able students make compared with students with the same starting points nationally.

The governance of the provider

• Governors are highly ambitious for the academy’s success. They have provided effective support to leaders through some difficult circumstances since the inception of the academy and continue to be resolute in their commitment to the delivery of their original vision.
• Governors maintain a detailed knowledge and understanding of the academy, including the challenges it faces. They provide robust challenge to leaders about all aspects of the provision within the academy and set challenging performance targets. However, they have overestimated the progress that leaders have made in bringing about improvements to teaching, learning and assessment, and in students’ outcomes.
• Governors regularly review the composition of the governing body and the skills of individual members. They have recently recruited more members from the local area to represent better the local community. Governors use their good range of skills to provide support for the academic and financial aspects of the academy’s strategy.

Safeguarding

• The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.
• Managers ensure that all staff complete required safeguarding training appropriate to their role in the organisation. All staff have completed mandatory ‘Prevent’ duty training and, where appropriate, staff have completed a more detailed course with the local police to enable them to provide further training and awareness-raising activities for other staff and for students. This enables staff and students to have a good understanding of how to identify and protect themselves and others from the risks of radicalisation and extremism.
• Students feel safe in the academy and know what they should do if they have concerns. Staff know how to raise any concerns that they have about students’ safety and well-being. Safeguarding logs are comprehensive and record all actions taken including appropriate liaison with external agencies.

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Requires improvement

• Too often, teachers do not plan learning activities to ensure that students make the progress of which they are capable given their starting points. In lessons, teachers place too much emphasis on factual recall and short-answer questions. This limits the progress that students make in developing higher-order thinking skills.
• Too many teachers do not challenge the most able students to reach the highest academic standards of which they are capable. In lessons, teachers do not routinely encourage deeper thinking or develop critical evaluation skills, accepting answers from students that lack detail and depth.
• Teachers’ assessments of students’ progress in developing their subject knowledge and skills are not sufficiently good in all subjects. Too often, the questions that teachers ask students are insufficiently rigorous to identify accurately gaps in students’ knowledge or to extend their understanding. Although written assessments are systematic and regular, a lack of planned opportunities to reinforce and summarise learning in lessons results in teachers not being able to identify or address students’ misconceptions promptly.
• Too much of teachers’ written feedback to students on their work lacks the precision to give students a clear understanding of their next steps in learning. As a result, students do not have a clear insight into how they can improve their work quickly enough and achieve higher grades. Too many targets set for students lack challenge and do not identify how they could develop their understanding of the subject further to make more rapid progress.
• Students do not have enough opportunities in lessons to develop their collaborative working skills. Progress is limited for some students because they have to wait for the teacher to give guidance and feedback, rather than seeking the support of their peers from whom they could learn a great deal.
• Teachers place insufficient emphasis on the development of students’ English and mathematical skills in lessons. They do not check routinely that students have understood subject terminology, they do not highlight students’ inaccurate use of grammar and spelling well enough, and they do not emphasise sufficiently the importance of mathematics as an essential skill for employment.
• Teachers are aspirational for their students and want them to do well. They are highly dedicated, very well qualified and passionate about their subjects. As a result, students are well motivated, enjoy lessons and are keen to succeed. The rapport between teachers and students is positive and respectful. Students therefore have the confidence in lessons to learn from any mistakes that they make.
• Teachers plan lessons that have a strong focus on improving students’ examination techniques. They prepare learning materials that are of a high quality and are well designed to provide students with a clear focus for revision. As a result, students have a good understanding of the ways in which they will be assessed in external examinations and how they should approach the papers.
• Students have access to, and greatly value, a good range of support activities that teachers provide to help them with their studies. Teachers dedicate a lot of time to providing additional revision and catch-up sessions, which are well attended by students. Additional sessions which focus on topics that students struggled with in mock examinations are beginning to have a positive impact in improving their understanding of these.
• Staff quickly and accurately identify any specific additional learning needs of students through comprehensive assessment of students’ starting points. Staff provide appropriate support promptly and this is effective in removing any barriers to learning that students have.
• Teachers use classroom displays of subject materials and students’ work to create engaging and purposeful study environments. They encourage students to take a high level of pride in their work and to organise their notes and assessments effectively so that they have a comprehensive set of revision materials.

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Good

• Staff have created successfully a safe and respectful learning environment where differences are celebrated. As a result, students are proud of Chapeltown Academy and are highly respectful of their peers and staff.
• Staff set high expectations for standards of behaviour and attitudes to learning. Students respond to this well. They behave well in lessons and the communal areas. Students have good attitudes to learning, take pride in their work, and enjoy studying at the academy.
• Students’ attendance is good and they are punctual to the large majority of lessons.
• Students receive excellent support through a range of well-planned activities to improve their understanding about life in modern Britain. Through an extensive range of enrichment and extra-curricular activities, students develop their personal, social, and work-related skills and their study skills very effectively.
• Through the enrichment and whole-class tutorial programmes, students improve their understanding of a wide range of topics. These include how to stay safe while using the internet and social media, physical and mental health and well-being, sexual health and relationships, and recognising and avoiding the dangers of radicalisation.
• Students receive very good advice and guidance that help them to plan and prepare well for their next steps either to higher education or to a higher apprenticeship. Staff provide good support for students to prepare applications and statements for higher education and to prepare for university interviews. As a result, a high proportion of students progress to their planned next steps of higher education when they complete their study programme.
• Staff do not monitor or review the progress that students make across all aspects of study programmes effectively. Consequently, they do not set sufficiently clear personal development targets for students relating to their overall progress.
• In too many subjects, teachers provide insufficient activities and challenge to enable students to improve further their existing skills in English and mathematics.

Outcomes for learners Requires improvement

• The majority of the first cohort of students who enrolled at Chapeltown Academy in September 2014 made insufficient progress compared with their starting points by the time they took their final A-level examinations in the summer of 2016. Although a high proportion achieved qualifications, too few achieved the grades of which they were capable.
• Although current students on study programmes make good progress in a minority of subjects, in too many other subjects, students are not making sufficiently good progress compared with their starting points.
• Students’ academic work meets the standards required to achieve their qualification. However, in too many cases, their work is not of a sufficiently high standard to enable them to achieve at the highest level.
• Teachers do not challenge students sufficiently in too many lessons. The most able students in particular do not achieve the highest grades of which they are capable.
• Managers correctly identified that, in 2016, female students did not achieve as well as males, and students who had achieved the highest grades at GCSE before joining the academy did not make as much progress as those who had achieved lower grades. Closing these gaps has been a focus of staff training this academic year but gaps still remain, such as the slower progress that the most able students make.
• As a result of good support and guidance, students choose appropriate subjects based on their future plans. They receive good support from staff to prepare university applications and statements. A very high proportion of the first cohort of students to leave the academy in 2016 progressed into higher education. A third of these gained places at prestigious universities.

Provider details

Unique reference number 140940 Type of provider 16 19 academy Age range of learners Approximate number of all learners over the previous full contract year 16+ 136 Principal/CEO Ali Jaffer (interim headteacher) Telephone number 0114 245 4803 Website www.chapeltownacademy.com

Provider information at the time of the inspection

Main course or learning programme level Level 1 or below Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 or above Total number of learners (excluding apprenticeships) Number of apprentices by apprenticeship level and age 16–18 19+ 16–18 19+ 16–18 19+ 16–18 19+ - - - - 170 6 - - Intermediate Advanced Higher 16–18 19+ 16–18 19+ 16–18 19+ - - - - - - 16–19 - 19+ - Total - Number of traineeships Number of learners aged 14 to 16 Number of learners for which the provider receives high-needs funding - - Funding received from: Education Funding Agency At the time of inspection, the provider contracts with the following main subcontractors:

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Information about this inspection

The inspection team was assisted by the interim headteacher, as nominee. Inspectors took account of the provider’s most recent self-assessment report and development plans. Inspectors used group and individual interviews and online questionnaires to gather the views of learners, parents and carers; these views are reflected within the report. They observed learning sessions and assessments. The inspection took into account all relevant provision at the provider.

Inspection team

Malcolm Fraser, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Rachel Angus Kathy Passant Tony Day

Her Majesty’s Inspector Ofsted Inspector Ofsted Inspector