Sir John Gleed School

Sir John Gleed School Neville Avenue, Spalding, PE11 2EJ

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Not previously inspected This inspection: Inadequate 4 Achievement of pupils Inadequate 4 Quality of teaching Inadequate 4 Behaviour and safety of pupils Inadequate 4 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.  Behaviour at the school is very poor. Many lessons are disrupted and intimidatory behaviour is commonplace at break times. Most students say they do not feel safe.  Frequent disturbances by students who do not want to get on with their work, mean students who do wish to learn are unable to do so. The school’s behaviour management policy is not working.  Even where lessons can proceed without interruption, teaching is often inadequate. Teachers set the same work for students regardless of their different needs. Much of the work is boring and too easy.  Students get too little homework. The work they do is not checked often enough. When it is marked, teachers do not explain to students how they can improve.  Attendance is low and shows little sign of improving.  Achievement is inadequate because too many lessons are disrupted and some subjects are poorly taught. The high proportion of English

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

lessons taught by temporary staff hampers students’ achievement.  Achievement in the sixth form requires improvement. There are not enough opportunities for students to develop their literacy and numeracy skills.  The headteacher, senior leaders and the governing body have not done enough to tackle the poor behaviour and inadequate teaching. They believe the school to be better than it is.  Procedures for ensuring students are safe do not meet requirements.  The governing body is ineffective. It has failed in its duty to look into valid concerns raised by the community. It has not ensured school procedures are adequate or challenged the school sufficiently to do better.

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The school has the following strengths

 Around half of lessons visited were of good quality and a few were outstanding. These tended to be in practical and vocational subjects. Performing arts subjects are taught well.  Students arriving with little or no spoken English are made welcome by the school.  Teaching in the sixth form is generally good. Lessons capture students’ interests

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Information about this inspection

 This section 8 inspection was undertaken following a number of complaints to Ofsted about behaviour and safety at the school. Exceptionally, the inspection was extended into a third day to enable a full section 5 inspection to take place.  Inspectors observed 41 lessons as well as making many brief visits to assess behaviour and attitudes to learning in other lessons. The school site was checked at break times.  Meetings were held with the headteacher, senior leaders and staff, groups of students and with representatives of the governing body and the CfBT Schools Trust. Some parents attending a Year 7 parents’ evening were spoken to.  The work of the school was observed and a range of documentation scrutinised, including the school’s planning, student performance data and its evaluation of the quality of teaching. Records relating to behaviour, attendance and staff recruitment procedures were checked.

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Information about this inspection

 The views of 109 parents responding to an online questionnaire (Parent View) were taken into account, as were 130 questionnaires completed by staff. Inspectors read reports about the school in the local press and on social media websites at the request of the headteacher.

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Inspection team

David Anstead, Lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Nigel Boyd Seconded Inspector Zarina Connolly Her Majesty’s Inspector Sean Harford Her Majesty’s Inspector John Peckham Her Majesty’s 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

 Sir John Gleed School converted to become an academy on 1 January 2013 and is part of the CfBT Schools Trust. Its predecessor school, which was formed from the amalgamation in November 2011 of Gleed Boys School and Gleed Girls Technology College, was not inspected. When these two single-sex schools were last inspected by Ofsted, they were both judged to be good.  The school is much larger than the average-sized secondary school.  The proportion of students who need additional help to learn through school action is above average but the proportions who are at school action plus, or who have a statement of special educational need, are below average.  A broadly average proportion of students is eligible for support through additional government funding (the pupil premium). This is provided to support the learning of pupils who are known to be entitled to free school meals, in the care of the local authority or are children of members of

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Information about this school

the armed forces.  Most students are White British. Around one third of students are of East European heritage and do not speak English as their first language.  The Hayden Centre provides for a small number of students who might otherwise be permanently excluded.  The sixth form is based in its own post 16 centre, a short walk from the main school.  The school has not been established long enough to have a full set of examination results. It is predicting that it will meet the government’s floor standard, which sets out the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress, in 2013.  No pupils are taught off-site. All vocational education is provided on site by the school.  Inspectors were aware during this inspection that serious allegations of a child protection nature were being investigated by the appropriate authorities. While Ofsted does not have the power to investigate incidents of this kind, actions taken by the setting in response to this incident were

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Information about this school

considered alongside other evidence available at the time of the inspection to inform inspectors’ judgements.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Raise achievement and improve the quality of teaching by ensuring teachers:  have higher expectations of what their students can achieve in lessons  track the progress of different groups of students in comparison to the progress of all students and take effective action to narrow any gaps this identifies  make effective use of information about what students know and can do when planning lessons and ensure these are appropriate for the needs of all students in the class  consistently provide work which is accessible to students of different abilities and particularly for those with special educational needs and those who speak English as an additional language  plan lessons that capture students’ interest and help them learn at a brisk pace  regularly set and assess homework  mark students’ work frequently and provide them with regular and specific feedback about how well they are doing and what they need to do to improve.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Take immediate action to improve students’ behaviour and safety by:  ensuring safeguarding procedures meet requirements as a matter of urgency  ensuring bullying and homophobic behaviour are quickly eliminated  establishing an agreed view of what constitutes good behaviour and how it will be managed in and out of lessons, ensuring this is shared and supported by all staff and students  ensuring all staff contribute to managing students’ behaviour so that it that the school is a calm, purposeful place in which students feel safe in and out of lessons  improving students’ attendance and reducing persistent absence by working closely with parents, and also with the CfBT Schools Trust to identify techniques used successfully in other schools.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 The headteacher, senior leaders and the governing body must gain the trust and confidence of the staff and the community by:  establishing monitoring procedures which accurately evaluate the quality of the school’s work  ensuring the outcomes of these checks are used to plan effective actions which quickly secure improvements in behaviour, teaching and achievement  improving the curriculum so that it better meets the needs of all students  strengthening the leadership and management of provision for students with special educational needs by providing these staff with more training and resources  ensuring the governing body is better informed about parents’ concerns, how well students behave, the quality of teaching and how the school is performing, so that it can hold the school properly to account and play a full part in driving its improvement.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 An external review of governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Inspectors strongly recommend that the school should not seek to appoint newly qualified teachers.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 During the inspection, students were seen to be making inadequate or insufficient progress in about half of the lessons visited. Older students complained that they are given little work to do in some lessons, particularly in English and science, and that they are set little homework in most of their subjects. Some feel badly let down by the school.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 There is insufficient specialist teaching of English and the proportions of students who make and exceed the progress expected of them by the government are well below the comparable national figures. Students make better progress in mathematics but it still requires substantial improvement.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 The school’s early entry policy has enabled the school to secure GCSE pass grades for higher attaining Year 11 students in English because these exams were passed when the quality of teaching was better than it is now. Other early entry results recently received in school indicate that the policy enables more-able students to secure a pass grade before taking additional and more challenging qualifications.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Disabled students and those with special educational needs, those for whom the school receives the pupil premium and students who speak English as an additional language all make inadequate progress. The school predicts the GCSE results for these students in 2013 will be markedly below those of all students. There is no data available in the school to show the proportions of these groups who are making and exceeding the expected progress.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 The school has not yet calculated the likely attainment of all students so is unable, at this stage, to compare this with the attainment of students eligible for the pupil premium and determine whether the gap is narrowing. In the past this money has been used to provide additional literacy support for Year 7 students, a mathematics residential visit for older students and the purchase of passports to allow individual students to take part in educational visits abroad. However, no data are available to show how those students, for whom the previous school also received Year 7 catch-up funding, benefited from this additional support.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 While there are individual examples of students who have successfully been helped to re-join the main school from the Hayden Centre, the achievement of students at the Centre has not been evaluated since the school became an academy.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Sixth form success rates are predicted to be high, most students are up-to-date with their work and very few have dropped out of their studies. Most students thoroughly enjoy being part of the sixth form, are enthusiastic about their courses and have clear ideas about their next steps for work or further education. However, achievement in the sixth form requires improvement because it is not always possible for students who have not achieved the equivalent of a C grade at GCSE prior to joining to improve their results in English and mathematics because retake classes may clash with their existing programmes.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 The sixth form welcomes students from many backgrounds, including some whose previous education has been disrupted or unsuccessful. Many aspects of the provision have been individually and very effectively adapted to help disabled students, those with special educational needs or those who have significant social and emotional barriers to learning. Because of this, these individuals make good and sometimes exceptional progress.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The quality of teaching is inadequate because it does not ensure that students make the progress they should, either in individual lessons or over time. Over a third of lessons observed during the inspection were inadequate.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Management of students’ behaviour in class is weak. In too many lessons, students chatter about things that have nothing to do with the tasks they have been set. As this is not effectively prevented by teachers, students who want to work hard are unable to do so.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Work is often not planned to meet the needs of students. Sometimes work is planned merely to occupy students rather than to help them make progress. Students quickly lose interest in such lessons and start misbehaving. There is an over-reliance on worksheets and unchallenging, mundane activities. There are not enough opportunities for students to write at length which means the development of students’ literacy in subjects other than in English is poor.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Students arriving in the country with little or no spoken English are welcomed by the school and helped to integrate into mainstream lessons. However, the good start they make is not sustained.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Disabled students and those with special educational needs and those who speak English as an additional language are frequently unable to undertake the work they are given because the the level of reading they require is too demanding.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Marking and assessment have little impact on improving students’ work. Much work is marked by students themselves. Teachers tend to tick pages and do not provide students with enough comments to let them know how to improve their work. Some inaccuracies in students’ work go unchecked. In one case, incorrect line graphs in science books had not been checked or corrected by the teacher and so students were unaware that they were continuing to make the same mistakes. Expectations are often low and students’ presentation of written work is poor.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 In lessons that are good or better, teachers plan activities to build on what students have already learned and help them learn more. These classrooms are well organised and managed, relationships are positive and, consequently, students get involved in learning and behaviour is good.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Most teaching in the sixth form is good and some is outstanding, particularly in performing arts subjects. Teachers have excellent subject knowledge, they know their students well and teaching is relaxed, well-paced and entertaining. Most work is marked regularly and helpfully so that students know how to improve.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are inadequate

 Almost all students spoken with said they feel unsafe in the school. They regularly see and experience other students smoking on the site, pushing in the corridors and fighting. Name calling and bullying are rife and students say the school’s attempts to stop it are ineffectual. Inspectors saw, for example, students being pushed into bushes or lifted up to shoulder height and dropped to the floor. Students shouted abuse, including homophobic terms of abuse, at inspectors.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are inadequate

 Many lessons are disrupted by students shouting out, being rude to teachers, refusing to follow instructions or, most commonly, just chatting to others and not engaging in the lesson. It was clear during the inspection that some students misbehave for some teachers but not others, depending on the expectations placed upon them. In lessons where learning is well planned and the activities interesting, behaviour is usually better.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are inadequate

 Behaviour on corridors is often boisterous and sometimes unsafe. Systems to manage the flow of the large numbers of students around the site are not followed by students or reinforced by staff.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are inadequate

 Some of the students who spoke to the inspectors are adamant that cannabis is smoked on the school site. Inspectors did not see any drug misuse and the school says, in the past, it has followed up such reports and found no evidence of drugs being on the site.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are inadequate

 A large proportion of staff are concerned about poor behaviour. Of those responding to a questionnaire, 81% disagreed with the statement that behaviour is good. One teacher wrote: ‘The staff are at their wits’ end; something has to change to improve the situation at this school.’ Many staff complained about others, including some senior leaders, not implementing the school’s behaviour management policy consistently.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are inadequate

 Parents expressed similar serious concerns about poor behaviour. By the end of the inspection, 75% of parents completing Parent View did not agree that students are well behaved.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are inadequate

 Attendance is low and shows little sign of improving. The proportion of students that do not attend regularly, and are classed as persistent absentees, is high.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The headteacher and senior leaders do not have the confidence of their staff and parents. The great majority of staff and parents responding to questionnaires either disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement that the school is well led and managed.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Senior leaders have been over-generous in their evaluation of teaching and learning. They know which teaching is good but have been ineffective in improving behaviour. Senior leaders have not ensured that teachers take a consistent approach to managing behaviour, which is the root cause of much of the weaker teaching. They have failed to grasp how bad things are at the school.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Safeguarding procedures do not meet requirements and are inadequate. The school’s policies and procedures are not followed, as they should be..

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The leadership and management of provision for disabled students and those with special educational needs are inadequate. The manager responsible is committed but totally overwhelmed by the scale of the task in the limited time he has to carry it out. Consequently, the quality of extra help is poorly matched to these students’ needs and it is not monitored.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The range of subjects and courses is inadequate because it does not meet the needs of the students, particularly in Years 10 and 11. The work some temporary teachers have been given to teach to students is inadequate.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Spiritual, moral and social development are inadequate because of the poor behaviour of students. However, the school has developed a strong international programme which promotes students’ cultural development well.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Leadership and management of the sixth form have significant strengths. The progress of students on their courses is carefully monitored and staff are quick to put in support if students fall behind. The head of sixth form has a very accurate understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of sixth form provision.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The Academy Trust has recently begun to provide strong support to the school. It is too soon for any impact to be evident.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The governance of the school:  Members of the governing body are aware of the serious concerns in the community about behaviour yet have failed to seek in a systematic way the views of students, teachers and parents to ascertain the true picture. They are largely unaware of just how desperately poor students’ experiences are. This is because they have accepted the explanations of senior leaders at face value.  On other matters, the governing body has expressed concern or asked pertinent questions. For example, it asked senior leaders to explain why the school’s evaluations of the quality teaching were positive while performance data were disappointing. It has questioned the lack of homework. However, it has largely been ineffectual in bringing about improvement because it has not relentlessly pursued matters until they are remedied or adequately explained.  The budget from the predecessor school was carried forward when the school converted to an

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The leadership and management are inadequate

academy. The first budget will not be set until September 2013 and so it is too soon for governors to play an active role in determining how the pupil premium and Year 7 catch-up funding is spent. Governors are currently aware of how this funding is distributed through the budget they inherited and can explain how it has been used but not what impact it has had.  Procedures for holding teachers to account for the progress that their students make are in their infancy. No decisions have been made yet about the extent to which teachers meet national standards or about which individuals deserve a pay increase.

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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 139168 Local authority Lincolnshire Inspection number 422296

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School details

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.

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School details

Type of school Academy converter School category Non-maintained Age range of pupils 11–18 Gender of pupils Mixed Gender of pupils in the sixth form Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 1570 Of which, number on roll in sixth form 270 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Paul Harrison Headteacher Janet Daniels Date of previous school inspection Not previously inspected Telephone number 01775 722484 Fax number None Email address enquiries@gleed.lincs.sch.uk 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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