Park View School

Park View School Temple Park Road, South Shields, Tyne and Wear, NE34 0QA

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Inadequate 4 This inspection: Good 2 Achievement of pupils Good 2 Quality of teaching Good 2 Behaviour and safety of pupils Good 2 Leadership and management Good 2

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a good school.  This school has improved markedly since the arrival of the new headteacher. Her drive and ambition are tangible. Staff have risen well to the challenge of improving the school.  Students’ rates of progress have accelerated and more are now making outstanding progress. Students’ reading abilities have come on in leaps and bounds.  The quality of teaching has improved and is consistently good; a small minority is outstanding. Teachers use assessments of students learning well when planning lessons. Marking is good and is increasingly being checked to make sure students take on board the guidance given.  The best lessons are vibrant and purposeful and the activities given to students are meaningful and relevant.  Students are well behaved, especially once they have settled at the school. In lessons, the vast majority remain focused on learning. Around the school students conduct themselves well and have good relationships

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

with staff and one another. Pupils say they feel safe.  Attendance has improved considerably since the last inspection and is now around the average for special schools nationally.  Monitoring of lessons by senior staff and well- targeted training have brought about good improvements in the quality of teaching.  The governing body and the local authority, provide a good level of challenge to senior leaders.  Parents are pleased with the improvements they have seen at the school.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 Not enough of the teaching is of outstanding quality.  Although teachers use questioning to check on students’ understanding it is not always used effectively enough to challenge them to think harder.  Personal targets in lesson plans are not always conveyed to students in ways they can understand.  While teachers are increasingly planning lessons to capture students’ interest, in some lessons this is not always the case.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspector observed parts of eight lessons, taught by seven teachers and a higher-level teaching assistant; two of these were joint observations with senior staff. Additionally, the inspector observed students being taught by staff from the local college of further education. He also visited one of the alternative providers of vocational education commissioned by the school.  Meetings were held with students, a parent, the full governing body, members of staff and two representatives of the local authority.  There were 12 responses to the online questionnaire, Parent View. In addition, the inspector took account of the 14 staff questionnaires from a recent survey conducted by the school.  The work of the school was observed and a number of documents were looked at including: records of monitoring the work of the school; the school’s own assessment of how well it is doing; data about students’ progress; information relating to behaviour, attendance and

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Information about this inspection

safeguarding; the school improvement plan and external reports from the local authority.  Evidence from previous monitoring inspections when the school was in special measures was also taken into account.

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Inspection team

Eric Craven, Lead inspector Additional Inspector

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Full report

In accordance with section 13 (4) of the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that the school no longer requires special measures.

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Information about this school

 This is a small school providing for boys and girls with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties. Almost all students are transported to and from school by school staff using the school’s minibus.  All of the students have a statement of special educational needs. All are of White British heritage. A small number are looked-after by the local authority. There are six girls on roll.  The proportion of students for whom the school receives the pupil premium is well above average at 76%. (The pupil premium is additional funding for those students who are known to be eligible for free school meals, who have a parent serving in the armed forces and those who are looked after by the local authority.)  The headteacher was appointed in September 2012 following the early retirement of the former headteacher. The deputy headteacher has very recently been appointed from within the school.  In January 2013, the school moved to new, purpose-built premises. At the same time it changed

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Information about this school

its name from The Galsworthy Centre to Park View School.  The school uses a small number of alternative, off-site providers of vocational education. These are: The Wheels Project, B Skill, Learning Curve, New Leaf Training, Rathbone, TCV, ALD Hairdressing and South Tyneside College.  The school faced a substantial reduction of around a third of its budget from April 2013 because of changes to the formula for funding special schools. A staffing re-structure has been implemented and a balanced budget for 2013/14 has been achieved.  The governing body has taken the decision to move toward academy status. If approved, the school will be sponsored by South Tyneside College of Further Education and will have the Epinay Business and Enterprise School as its partner school within the Trust School arrangements. The governing body is to consult with parents and staff on these proposals during the autumn term 2013.

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Information about this school

 The school was placed in special measures at its last inspection in February 2012. It received three monitoring inspection visits with the last two judging the school to be making good progress.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 In order to raise the students’ achievement further, improve the quality of teaching so that much more is outstanding by:  sharing the personalised learning targets that are now consistently written in lesson plans with students in ways they can understand, and revisit them during the lessons to help them appreciate how they are doing  making even more lessons vibrant and exciting so all the students are consistently perky and buoyant in lessons  taking more opportunities in lessons to further challenge students to think and work harder so they can learn faster, for example, by allowing them more time to think when they are answering questions and by posing supplementary and harder questions  helping teachers understand what outstanding teaching looks like through visits to schools where outstanding teaching is common and by sharing the outstanding practice in the school.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Since the beginning of this school year, students’ progress has been increasing at a pace. Teachers’ assessments show substantially more students are now making outstanding progress in mathematics and science. In English, around half of the students are making outstanding progress using the national measure of one National Curriculum level a year. All the parents responding to the Parent View questionnaire agree that their children make good progress at this school.  In reading, some students are making splendid progress. Around half of the students assessed in September 2012 and re-assessed in June 2013 have added more than two years to their reading ages. All but one of the students reassessed have added 12 months or more to their reading ages in that nine-month period.  This rapid progress is because teaching is much better and the curriculum more interesting to the students and as a consequence, many more are attending regularly. The school’s focus is

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The achievement of pupils is good

now predominantly about learning rather than managing behaviour. Students are geared-up to learn.  The progress being made by different groups of students is analysed well. Comparisons with the whole-school population show that the few students in the care of the local authority progress marginally better than others. This is helped by good support from the local authority. Students entitled to free school meals, and supported through pupil premium funding, which is the large majority of students, fare as well as the rest of the students; there is no discernible difference in their average rates of progress.  Staff check to see if students are falling behind and make changes if they are. A good example is the school’s analysis of progress data that showed girls were not doing quite as well as boys. Changes were made to make sure the curriculum is fully relevant to the girls. The achievement of the girls has since picked up. The school makes sure there is no discrimination and every

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The achievement of pupils is good

student has the same opportunities to learn well.  The school’s analyses of students’ attainment when they arrive at the school show their attainment is invariably low. This is due to their histories of attendance and behaviour problems. Because of better teaching and swifter progress, students’ attainment is improving although it remains below what is expected nationally. The qualifications already gained by students and teachers’ well-founded predictions show attainment is expected to rise in all key GCSE indicators this year. For example, 30% more students are expected to achieve 5A*-G grades than did so last year. Around 95% are expected to leave school with a Level 1 qualification in English and mathematics whereas only 60% did so in 2012.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers have acted purposefully on the feedback they have received and training they have undertaken. As a result, there is consistently good teaching at the school. Nonetheless, not enough is outstanding.  They have improved the way they plan their lessons by taking into account their assessments of students. The plans contain individual targets for students. However, these are not always conveyed to students in ways they can understand nor are they revisited during the lesson to help them see how they are getting on.  Teachers’ marking is guiding students well.  Teachers are becoming more skilled at questioning to check students’ understanding. Nevertheless, some students are not challenged enough to think and work harder by the use of questioning that demands more from them.  Teachers are taking good opportunities to get students to practise and use their literacy and numeracy skills in various subjects. This is making a good contribution to the students’

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The quality of teaching is good

confidence in applying their mathematics and reading skills.  Very positive relationships between students and staff in lessons are commonplace. These are depicted well by the appropriate use of humour and staff’s good use of praise.  The best lessons are vibrant and appropriately paced. Well-planned activities are meaningful and relevant to the students and they capture and maintain their attention. This was the case in an outstanding English lesson where students were learning to use persuasive written language. They chose from leisure activities around the North East they know about to prepare written pieces to persuade other people to use these facilities. After stimulating their thinking the teacher gave students choices and enabled them to work independently while she rightly took a back seat. They remained focused and were eager to use their knowledge to write persuasively. They enjoyed the lesson and all produced excellent written work.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Although teachers are increasingly preparing their lessons with ways to engage the students at the forefront of their thinking, not enough lessons fully achieve this yet. This is a key reason why more teaching is not outstanding.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 Students’ behaviour and attendance have improved considerably since the previous inspection.  Over the last year, the attendance of students has risen 20%. The proportion of students who are persistently absent has dropped by 36%.  The key reasons for these big improvements are fourfold:  the climate of the school is much more positive and focused on learning  the curriculum is much more appealing to students’ interests and they have more opportunities to gain externally recognised awards  almost all students are now transported to school by school staff on the minibus which has enabled staff to build relationships with parents and where necessary challenge student absence  the small number of students who have been most difficult to engage have been brought on board through the excellent work of a higher level teaching assistant who has built trusting relationships with those students and their parents.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 In lessons, students are most often focused on their learning. However, in a small number of lessons their interest wanes when the lesson is not as interesting as it could be. Around the school, students conduct themselves well. They are polite and respectful. They get on well together. Those who spoke with the inspector say behaviour is typically good. Those at the school the longest say behaviour has greatly improved since the arrival of the new headteacher and more recently since the move to the new buildings. Typifying the views of others one said, ‘When I came here I expected it to be wild but it wasn’t. We get on well with the teachers.’ Another added, ‘No one holds grudges. Next day it’s forgotten.’  When behaviour does need to be checked it is done so effectively. More often this is needed when students are new to the school. There are clear and simple rules that are consistently applied. The rewards they can achieve mean a lot to the students. The work of ‘stroller’ staff

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

who quickly help re-engage a student when needed is very effective in getting them back on task.  The data the school has about behaviour supports this positive view. Fixed-term exclusions have reduced dramatically as have incidents of a serious nature.  Pupils say they feel safe and their parents agree. All the Parent View responses say that the school makes sure students are well behaved and that it effectively deals with bullying.

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The leadership and management are good

 When she took up her post, the headteacher swiftly put systems in place to enable the school to run smoothly and safely. These systems have been very effective.  Senior staff are working in harmony with the headteacher and they are leading their areas of responsibility well. Staff are on board with the direction the school is heading and are playing their parts.  Checking on how well the school is doing is a common feature of the work of leaders and managers at all levels.  The school’s self-evaluation is accurate and well constructed so that it determines the priorities for the school improvement plan. In turn, these priorities guide subject leaders’ plans and teachers’ appraisal targets. The school improvement plan is a good roadmap for the school, which includes measureable targets so it knows how well it is doing.  The leadership and management of teaching are good. Guidance from the school’s ‘teaching and

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The leadership and management are good

learning’ group has played its part in moving teaching forward. Senior staff have high expectations that the majority of teaching can be outstanding. To this end there have been some very early steps taken in helping teachers understand what outstanding teaching looks like.  The use of data to help check on how the school is doing is good. Nevertheless, the tracking of students’ progress is not always in a format that would more easily allow it to be compared to national data.  The curriculum is managed well to make sure it meets students’ needs. Links developed with South Tyneside College and other providers of vocational education are good examples of this.  The school provides effectively for students’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Students have good opportunities to consider thought provoking issues. There have been visits to places of worship and the students raise funds for charities. The school has a link with a

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The leadership and management are good

school in New York and a small number of students and staff are visiting New York later this term.  The school takes safeguarding seriously and its systems are strong. Student absence is followed up with immediate home visits if contact from parents is not made. Records that show how staff are vetted on appointment are meticulously maintained.  The local authority was very instrumental in helping the school get back on its feet following the last inspection. It provided good support, not least through the appointment of an associate headteacher to work alongside the headteacher for a while and the appointment of two additional governors. It has appropriately reduced its support as the school has improved.  The governance of the school:  The Chair of the Governing Body is experienced and deeply committed to the school. Governors are well-informed by the information they receive from the headteacher and other

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The leadership and management are good

senior leaders. They have developed a good understanding of how to hold staff to account and they probe and seek clarity if at all unsure about the information. They have clarity about the progress the school has made and about its current priorities. They know how good teachers are rewarded and what is done to tackle underperformance. The data they receive shows them how different groups of students are performing. They are fully aware of how the school is using pupil premium funding and the difference it is making to those students.

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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 134813 Local authority South Tyneside Inspection number 420672

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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 Special School category Community special Age range of pupils 11–16 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 45 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Noreen Fraser Headteacher Angela Noble Date of previous school inspection 22 February 2012 Telephone number 0191 454 1568 Fax number 0191 519 0600 Email address anoble@parkview-school.co.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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