Churchmead Church of England (VA) School

Churchmead Church of England (VA) School Priory Way, Datchet, Slough, SL3 9JQ

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Satisfactory 3 This inspection: Inadequate 4 Achievement of pupils Inadequate 4 Quality of teaching Inadequate 4 Behaviour and safety of pupils Requires improvement 3 Leadership and management Inadequate 4

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a school that requires special measures.  Standards are too low because students are not making enough progress. Weak reading and writing skills limit students’ achievement. The school is not giving enough attention to improving these skills.  Teaching and learning are weak in almost all subjects. Lessons are not stimulating enough to keep students interested and too much work is too hard or too easy for them.  Teachers’ marking lacks precision. Too many students are not given detailed feedback and guidance on how to improve their work or learning.  Teachers’ planning is weak. Teaching assistants are not deployed well enough. Homework is not being used effectively to improve students’ learning.  The headteacher and senior leaders have not given enough attention to students’ academic achievement.  Leaders do not have an accurate picture of what needs improvement because they do not analyse data about students’ progress well

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

enough.  Leaders have not acted rapidly enough on the recommendations from the previous inspection in 2010. They have not done enough to improve teaching.  Responsibilities are not shared well enough between senior and middle leaders.  Governors lack the expertise and knowledge to challenge leaders about the school’s performance.

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The school has the following strengths

 Pastoral support and care for students are well developed.  There is a good range of work-related subjects for students.  The mixed-age tutor groups work well.  Parents are very supportive of the school and feel that their children are kept safe.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspection team observed parts of 26 lessons, some of which were jointly observed with the headteacher and other leaders. Inspectors also observed an assembly.  Inspectors held meetings with groups of students of all ages and abilities, interviewed a small group of parents and carers in person and, on the telephone met with members of the governing body, including the Chair. They also met with the head of school improvement for the local authority and the school improvement partner.  Inspectors discussed lessons they had seen with teaching staff, examined a range of documents, including the school’s self-evaluation, and met with senior staff, including those responsible for managing students’ behaviour, attendance and provision for special educational needs.  Inspectors looked at a range of students’ work and sampled books and coursework in English and mathematics.  Inspectors took account of the small sample of 14 responses to Ofsted’s online Parent View

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Information about this inspection

questionnaire and the few questionnaires completed by staff.

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Inspection team

Kevin Morris, Lead inspector Additional inspector Gill Walley Additional inspector Babrul Matin Additional inspector

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Full report

In accordance with 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.

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Information about this school

 Churchmead Church of England (VA) School is much smaller than the average secondary school. It admits students from the local area and further afield. The school is in the borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, but draws its students mainly from the neighbouring borough of Slough.  A comparatively high proportion of students enters or leaves the school after the start of Year 7.  Just under half of the students speak English as an additional language.  Students are from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds. The largest group, about 30%, are of White British heritage.  An above-average proportion of students is known to be eligible for the pupil premium, which provides additional funding for some students, including children in local authority care and students known to be eligible for free school meals.  The proportion of disabled students and those who have special educational needs supported through ‘school action’ is well above average. The proportion of students supported through

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Information about this school

‘school action plus’ or with a statement of special educational needs is above average.  Churchmead is designated as an 11–18 school. However, it has no students in the sixth form. Sixth-form students recruited by the school are registered on the roll of Slough Grammar School and are not included in this report.  None of the students are taught in alternative provision (other schools, units or colleges).  The school has specialisms in arts, media and English.  The school meets the government’s floor standard, which sets the minimum expectation for students’ attainment and progress.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Rapidly eliminate inadequate teaching and improve the quality of teaching so that learning in more lessons is good and outstanding by:  ensuring that expectations of what students can achieve are higher and that work is hard enough for all students across the very wide range of ability  establishing a consistent whole-school approach to marking and giving students regular feedback that helps them to make progress more quickly  making learning more exciting and involving students more actively in lessons  improving lesson planning and the use of homework  giving teachers effective training to support them in improving the quality of their lessons.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Raise students’ attainment and particularly that of boys, so that standards are at least in line with national averages in the vast majority of subjects, including English and mathematics, by:  evaluating the impact of the use of pupil premium funding and taking rapid action to improve its use where necessary  making sure every teacher and subject department takes responsibility for the development of students’ literacy skills, including reading, vocabulary, handwriting, punctuation and spelling  improving the quality of support provided for students in lessons and ensuring that work for those who have special educational needs matches their needs.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve leadership and management at all levels by:  deepening senior leaders’ understanding of the school’s strengths and weaknesses so that their assessment of what is actually happening is sharper and more accurate  ensuring leaders and managers analyse students’ performance data more effectively to identify key academic priorities  enabling subject leaders to take more effective responsibility for promoting good teaching  ensuring that managers hold a realistic balance of responsibilities.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve governors’ understanding of performance data and the quality of teaching, and ensure they hold the headteacher to account for the impact of spending decisions and students’ progress.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Given their starting points, most students make inadequate progress. Consistently, over the last three years, they have left school with below-average examination results in Year 11.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 The gap between boys’ and girls’ performance is stark: in 2012 33% of boys achieved five A*–C grades, including English and mathematics, compared with 59% of girls. White British boys in particular continue to underperform significantly.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Students continue to underachieve in a significant number of subjects. Mathematics results remained at the same level in 2010 and 2011 and declined in 2012. Students’ reading and writing skills and are not strong for enough for them to do well.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Disabled students and those who have special educational needs make similarly slow progress to others. Their progress is inadequate because work is not sufficiently adapted in lessons to meet their needs. The current arrangements for grouping students mean that each teaching group has a wide range of ability and too often students with special educational needs cannot take part without support.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Students supported by the pupil premium funding are also not making enough progress. For example, in 2011 the gap between the standards achieved by Year 11 students known to be eligible for free school meals and those of other Year 11 students was bigger than the gap nationally. The school was not able to show that its use of this additional funding had significantly reduced the gap in 2012. This illustrates that the school is not promoting equal opportunities sufficiently well.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The quality of teaching is inadequate in almost all subjects. This was reflected not only in lessons seen during the inspection but in the examples of students’ work reviewed by inspectors. These showed poor presentation, errors in basic writing and a noticeable lack of challenge for higher-attaining students.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teaching lacks inspiration, focus and purpose, and fails to motivate students to discover the joys of learning and take pleasure in it. Too much teaching is undemanding and what students are asked to do is not matched to the needs of groups and individual learners. Too little emphasis is placed on the skills of investigation, working independently and doing research. Many lessons do not have enough pace to engage and fascinate students so that they are curious and interested in what happens next.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 In the few lessons where teaching was good, teachers demonstrated good subject knowledge and were better skilled in asking questions that were more open and allowed opportunities for discussion.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The support given to students by teaching assistants is too variable. In the very best lessons teaching assistants encourage students to be independent and offer appropriate guidance and support, but in the vast majority of classes they do not understand how their role complements that of the classroom teacher and should be planned for by the teacher. Too many opportunities are missed to move individual students’ progress forward because not enough emphasis is placed on students reaching higher standards or securing their understanding of key concepts and skills.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 In a minority of subjects, students’ work is marked regularly, with examples of how to improve. In the majority, teachers’ marking is more simplistic and limited to short comments with no guidance or targets, for example, ‘use more commas’ or ‘please finish off’. Too much unfinished work is left unchallenged and homework is not always set regularly. Teaching reflects a lack of thoroughness and consistency across the school.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 In many subjects, literacy is not given enough attention and is reflected in students’ poor reading and writing skills. Students do not have enough opportunities to write at length in order to improve their ability to structure arguments and write essays that get the higher grades in core GCSE subjects. Not all teachers draw to the attention of students the need to understand subject vocabulary and the importance of expressing themselves clearly in writing.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 In some classes students struggle with reading. Leaders are not ensuring that developing good literacy skills is given a high enough priority.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils require improvement

 The behaviour of most students is generally good. Students are polite and courteous, showing respect for each other and other adults. However, behaviour requires improvement because on occasions it is not good enough, and in a few lessons, usually with temporary teachers, it is disruptive.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils require improvement

 Low-level disruption sometimes limits the pace of learning in lessons. For example, in a Year 7 English lesson, many students lacked basic equipment and this prevented the lesson from starting promptly because they were requesting pens, books and paper.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils require improvement

 Students’ attitudes to learning are generally passive. Students do not misbehave, but do not readily volunteer to respond to questions or challenge their teachers’ or other students’ opinions. They are accepting of what is presented to them in a very uncritical way and are not aware of how to contribute in lessons because teachers do not always encourage this sort of involvement.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils require improvement

 Students are looked after well. New arrivals are given support to help them settle. The vertical tutoring system (mixed-age groups) works well and is liked by students.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils require improvement

 Although attendance rates have remained static over the last few years the school responds well to the absence of the most vulnerable groups of students. For example, home visits take place to support students who do not attend regularly.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils require improvement

 Students generally feel safe at school and they said that where occasional bullying took place the school dealt with the issues well. Parents interviewed also felt that that the school is a safe environment and the small numbers of questionnaires returned through Parent View were also positive in this respect.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils require improvement

 In assembly students concentrated well. There were good opportunities for contemplation followed by a prayer.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Leaders and managers at all levels are not taking sufficiently decisive action to improve the school. Improvement plans have been written and statutory policies are available, but in practice these things are not having a positive impact on students’ progress and attainment. The school’s view of its effectiveness is over-generous.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Senior leaders are not using performance data well enough to identify key priorities for improvement. They do not sufficiently unpick the information about students’ achievement or from monitoring activities, therefore underlying and systemic weaknesses are not being dealt with effectively. Although the school has some key strengths in its quality of care and its concern for vulnerable students, it does not focus enough on improving students’ academic progress.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Some pupil premium funding is constructively used. Examples include Saturday and Easter revision sessions for students in Year 11, extra staff in English and mathematics (creating smaller groups for intensive support) and some enrichment activities, including a ‘Chef School’. However, there is no detailed analysis of the impact these interventions are having to inform decisions about whether the school should or should not repeat these activities next academic year.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Subject leaders are also not consistently using information about students’ performance well enough and are not taking enough responsibility for improving teaching. Subject leaders and teachers do not develop shared insights into the characteristics of good and effective teaching and how it can be promoted.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The school was able to give clear examples of the reasons why some teachers move up on the pay scale and others do not.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The local authority has supported the school through providing a school improvement partner and other advice. However, the support has not had enough rapid impact on improving students’ achievement.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The curriculum is broad and balanced with an appropriate range of GCSE subjects, including some BTEC work-related choices to meet students’ needs and aspirations. Students are entered early for GCSE mathematics, and they retake the examination at the usual time to see if they can raise their grades. This does not disadvantage them but is more costly than single entry.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The small size of the school presents challenges because there are fewer leadership posts and as a result some senior leaders have too many responsibilities to do justice to their work. For example, the school has no separate special educational needs coordinator; this work is carried out by an assistant headteacher who has many other responsibilities. Governors have not intervened effectively enough to devise appropriate staffing structures, roles and responsibilities that meet the needs of students across the school.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The governance of the school:  Governors have a growing awareness of the issues the school faces but have not done enough to support implementation of the recommendations from the previous inspection. Governors do not sufficiently challenge and hold the headteacher to account for the school’s effectiveness. They do not sufficiently interrogate the school’s performance data and accept too readily what is presented to them. Therefore governors do not look beyond the headlines in order to really grasp what is happening with the achievement and progress of all groups of students over time. They look at data and examination results compared with local schools but do not take enough account of national standards in order to make valid comparisons. They know how the budget is being spent but have not ensured that the impact of spending is fully evaluated. Governors do not know enough about the quality of teaching. There are no

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The leadership and management are inadequate

governors formally linked to particular subjects or departments and the governing body has an insufficient understanding of how the performance of staff is managed. As a result, governors do not do enough with senior leaders to tackle poor teaching or understand how to reward teachers who consistently teach well. New governors have attended local authority training but longer-serving governors are not all up to speed with changes to education policy.

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding An outstanding school is highly effective in delivering outcomes that provide exceptionally well for all its pupils’ needs. This ensures that pupils are very well equipped for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Grade 2 Good A good school is effective in delivering outcomes that provide well for all its pupils’ needs. Pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education, training or employment. Grade 3 Requires improvement A school that requires improvement is not yet a good school, but it is not inadequate. This school will receive a full inspection within 24 months from the date of this inspection. Grade 4 Inadequate A school that has serious weaknesses is inadequate overall and requires significant improvement but leadership and management are judged to be Grade 3 or better. This school will receive regular monitoring by Ofsted inspectors. A school that requires special measures is one where the school is

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Grade Judgement Description

failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the school’s leaders, managers or governors have not demonstrated that they have the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school. This school will receive regular monitoring by Ofsted inspectors.

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School details

Unique reference number 133580 Local authority Windsor and Maidenhead Inspection number 406532

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School details

This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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School details

Type of school Secondary School category Voluntary aided Age range of pupils 11–18 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 566 Of which, number on roll in sixth form 0 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Mrs M Lenton Headteacher Mrs Gaynor Goodman Date of previous school inspection 13–14 October 2010 Telephone number 08444 722446 Fax number 01753 580046 Email address churchmead@rbwm.org guidance ‘raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234 , or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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School details

You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when and as part of the inspection.

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School details

You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk, or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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School details

achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work- based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection. Further copies of this report are obtainable from the school. Under the Education Act 2005, the school must provide a copy of this report free of charge to certain categories of people. A charge not exceeding the full cost of reproduction may be made for any other copies supplied. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please

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School details

telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way. To receive regular email alerts about new publications, including survey reports and school inspection reports, please visit our website and go to ‘Subscribe’.

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School details

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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