Tibshelf Community School

Tibshelf School Doe Hill Lane, Tibshelf, Alfreton, DE55 5LZ

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Good 2 This inspection: Requires improvement 3 Achievement of pupils Requires improvement 3 Quality of teaching Requires improvement 3 Behaviour and safety of pupils Requires improvement 3 Leadership and management Requires improvement 3

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This is a school that requires improvement. It is not good because

 Achievement requires improvement. Some disadvantaged students and some more-able students are not making rapid enough progress.  Results in English have fallen this year and the percentages gaining an A* to C grade are now well below average.  There is not enough consistently good teaching to ensure that all students make good progress.  In some lessons, teachers do not use the information they have about students to make sure that the work given to them is matched to their interests and ability.  Teachers do not create enough opportunities for students to learn independently.  Exclusion has been used too often during the last two years for a small minority of students with challenging behaviour. Despite recent improvement, the level of exclusions is not reducing quickly enough.  Subject leaders do not routinely share best practice within their subjects or across the school in order to improve the quality of

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This is a school that requires improvement. It is not good because

teaching.  Senior leaders and governors do not know exactly what impact additional government funding is having on the progress of disadvantaged students.

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The school has the following strengths

 Good relationships are evident across the school. Students say they feel safe in school.  Students are well-mannered and polite in their dealings with each other and adults.  Parents are very supportive of the school and are generally pleased with the work that it is doing.  The achievement of disabled students and those with special educational needs is good because the extra support they are given helps them to make good and rapid progress.  The school has offered good support to students joining the school in Key Stage 4.  The school provides a broad and balanced curriculum with a full range of GCSE courses and some additional vocational courses.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed 36 lessons or part lessons. There were three joint observations with members of the senior leadership team, and 35 teachers and one cover supervisor were observed in total.  Meetings were held with senior leaders, subject leaders and teaching assistants. Inspectors also met with the inclusion manager, the special educational needs coordinator, the data manager, the senior members of staff responsible for attendance, exclusions, safeguarding and child protection, and a group of school governors including the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Governing Body.  Inspectors listened to the views of groups of students in Years 7, 8, 9 and 11 and talked to students in lessons.  The views of 29 parents who completed the online survey (Parent View) were considered, as was a telephone conversation with a parent and the views of a small group of parents invited to meet an inspector.  Inspectors observed the work of the school and looked at information about students’ progress

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Information about this inspection

and attainment, the school’s improvement plan and its evaluation of how well it is doing. They also looked at the provision for staff training and the system used to manage staff performance. Records of governing body meetings, the headteacher’s report to governors and a range of policy documents were also considered.

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Inspection team

Liz Talmadge, Lead inspector Additional Inspector Susan Jowett Additional Inspector William Cassell Additional Inspector Gillian Martin Additional Inspector

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Information about this school

 Tibshelf Community School is a smaller than average-sized secondary school.  For the last three years, senior leaders and school governors have had to manage significant changes. The school took responsibility for a failing school in a village six miles away, forming a federation to support staff and students and then overseeing the closure of the partner school between 2010 and 2012. This has involved managing reductions in staffing and the relocation of 230 students into Years 9, 10 and 11 of Tibshelf School.  Students who joined Years 10 and 11 in 2010 continued to be educated on the site of the closing school until the end of Key Stage 4. Year 8 and 9 students, however, moved to the Tibshelf site. Staff from Tibshelf taught students on both sites.  In 2011, Derbyshire County Council provided the funding for a new school for Tibshelf. Senior leaders and governors have been engaged in the design and construction of the new school

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Information about this school

since then. The move to the new school took place two weeks before the start of the inspection.  The vast majority of students at the school are White British.  The proportion of students supported by pupil premium has increased during the last three years and is now above average. This is additional government funding for particular groups of students, including those known to be eligible for free school meals and those in local authority care.  The proportion of disabled students and those who have special educational needs supported at school action is below average. The proportion supported by school action plus or with a statement of special educational needs is higher than average.  Some students in Year 11 attend Chesterfield College to study work-related subjects.  The school meets the government’s current floor standards, which set minimum expectations for students’ attainment and progress.

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What does the school need to do to improve further

 Make the quality of teaching consistently good or better, and thereby raise achievement by ensuring that all teachers:  identify and support more quickly any disadvantaged or more-able students who are making slow progress, especially in English  use the information that they have about students to plan and teach lessons that are well matched to their abilities and interests.

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What does the school need to do to improve further

 Improve students’ behaviour by:  providing regular opportunities for students to take responsibility for their own learning, individually, in pairs or in small groups, so that they can learn independently  taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the new school for a ‘fresh start’ to develop a new policy for exclusions that is designed to reduce their frequency and the reasons underlying them.

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What does the school need to do to improve further

 Strengthen the impact of leadership and management by ensuring that:  leaders, including governors, take immediate steps to resolve the outstanding weaknesses identified in teaching, achievement and students’ attitudes to learning  the impact of the support provided by pupil premium funding is carefully checked so that the progress of eligible students accelerates rapidly  subject leaders identify and share the best examples of good and outstanding teaching in their subjects with other teachers, both within their departments and across the school.

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What does the school need to do to improve further

An external review of governance, to include a specific focus on the school’s use of the pupil premium, should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Achievement has been inconsistent across the school for some time. The proportion of students who made the progress expected of them in English in 2013 was well below average and some more-able students are not making the progress expected of them. Progress in mathematics fell this year. Too few students have made rapid progress in either subject this year.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 GCSE results in English fell this year and the percentage of students gaining an A* to C grade is now well below the 2012 national average. Few of the most-able students achieved the highest grades, except in chemistry, physics, biology and history. Students who joined the school during Key Stage 4 have done less well than those who started at the school in Year 7, although these students largely had lower staring points.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The school has used pupil premium funding with only varying success to provide a wide range of additional support to help students to improve their progress. For students eligible for the pupil premium, the gap with the rest of their year group narrowed a little this year but it is still too wide. In mathematics, there is a difference of one GCSE grade between pupil premium students and the rest of the year group. For English, in 2013, the gap was narrower at one third of a GCSE grade. However, the position is complicated by the amalgamation of the two schools. Eligible students who only joined the school during Key Stage 4 generally made better progress than the rest.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 In several subjects, achievement is good. Results for students gaining an A* to C grade are a little lower in mathematics than last year but are still well above average. In the past, the school has used entered students early for examinations in mathematics to prepare them for the Year 11 examinations. This has meant that students of all abilities have achieved the grades of which they were capable.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 Good results in biology, chemistry and physics, geography, history, English literature and drama have been maintained or improved. Better results were also achieved in core science in 2013. Students did less well in GCSE textiles and music.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The school’s tracking system provides evidence that GCSE results and the rate of student progress in both English and mathematics is set to improve in 2014.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The achievement of disabled students and those who have special needs is good and better than that of comparable students nationally. Observations of teaching show that teaching assistants are working effectively to support individuals and groups of students by ensuring that they develop good attitudes to learning and persevere when in difficulty. Consequently, they make good progress.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 The school has made good use of the Year 7 ‘catch-up’ funding to support students who need extra help with reading in Years 7 and 8.

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The achievement of pupils requires improvement

 A few students in Year 11 follow Level 1 courses at Chesterfield College of Further Education and they complete these courses successfully. The school has created its own in-house ‘alternative’ curriculum offering students a wide range of vocational courses. It is too soon to evaluate the impact of these new courses.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Teaching requires improvement because students’ achievement is not consistently good. This is particularly so in the case of some of the more-able students and some of those for whom the pupil premium provides funding. There was good and outstanding teaching observed during the inspection but not enough of it to ensure that all students make rapid progress in all subjects across the school.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Where teaching requires improvement, activities are not sufficiently matched to the ability or interests of students and so do not engage them. This is particularly the case for some more- able students and individual students who are eligible for the pupil premium. Information about students’ prior attainment is not always used sufficiently to plan lessons. There are too few opportunities provided for students to take responsibility for their own learning or to work independently.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Where teaching is strongest, teachers have high expectations of what students can achieve and good subject knowledge. Their lively delivery, good use of pace and carefully designed activities interest students and engage them in their learning. Information about students’ prior progress is used thoughtfully to plan teaching that is well suited to their learning needs. Where teaching is best, teachers use their assessments well to plan challenging lessons for all students and encourage them to take some responsibility for their learning. These qualities are not, however, consistently evident across the school.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 The teaching of disabled students and those who have special educational needs is good. Teachers work closely with well-briefed teaching assistants to ensure that these students make above-average progress.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 Marking is generally good. At its best, teachers consistently tell students clearly what it is they need to do to improve the quality of their work and how to reach their targets.

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The quality of teaching requires improvement

 The school has focused strongly on improving literacy because of the numbers of lower attaining students who have joined the school. This is reflected in a range of strategies seen across different subjects. The use in English of a ‘literacy mat’, which provides students with a wealth of tips and advice, and the explanation of subject-specific technical terms in different subjects have equally helped pupils to make progress in their learning.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 In some lessons, students are given insufficient opportunities to actively engage in their learning and work independently. Consequently, they do not always make as much progress as they should or fully develop the capacity to do so.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The school’s own records show that that there has been no reduction in exclusions over the past two years and these are above average. Exclusions have been used on a number of occasions in the past to manage some incidents of serious misbehaviour that have mostly arisen since the two schools were amalgamated. Leaders are aware of the limitations of this approach and that exclusions rates are still too high. Having moved into the new school, they acknowledge the importance of reducing exclusions and are working steadily to achieve this.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Relationships between most staff and students and between students themselves are generally good. Particularly where teaching is good or better and expectations of good behaviour are high, students show positive attitudes towards their learning.  Students are well mannered and polite, and exhibit sensible behaviour around their new school. They are responding very positively to the opportunities provided by the new buildings.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Students and parents report that the school is a safe place to be and all agree that instances of bullying are rare and are dealt with quickly if they do happen. Students know how to stay safe when using the internet, and understand how to keep themselves safe in situations they might encounter.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Attendance has improved recently and has been good for the last half term. Previous high rates of absence and high numbers of students being persistently absent have reduced in recent months. It is too early to know whether this can be sustained but the school is now taking a more robust approach to promoting good attendance.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Leadership and management require improvement because achievement and the quality of teaching are not good enough and aspects of behaviour require improvement.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Although leaders have developed new systems for managing the data the school collects centrally on students’ achievement, they have not ensured that this information is used consistently by all teachers and subjects to match teaching to students’ needs and abilities.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Subject leaders have led training days in their areas of responsibility but have not used them sufficiently to identify and share the best examples of outstanding teaching within and between their subjects.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The school has a system in place to manage teachers’ performance and evidence was seen of links between performance and pay progression. Senior leaders have brought about some marked improvements in teaching in recent years. They monitor the quality of teaching regularly through faculty reviews. Generally, their judgements on teaching quality are accurate, and the clear and sometimes challenging feedback teachers receive is leading to improvements in teaching.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 Senior leaders and governors have worked hard to manage the issues they have been faced with over recent years arising from the reorganisation and have now opened the new school. They have accurately identified the issues that remain and have developed clear plans for dealing with them urgently.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The school provides a broad and balanced curriculum with a full range of GCSE courses and some additional vocational courses. Older students praised the way in which they were helped to make appropriate course choices for Key Stage 4 and were grateful for the advice they received, both from the school and from other agencies. Year 11 students agree that the school ensures they are well prepared when choosing options Post-16. The learning of disabled students and those who have special educational needs is well supported by specialist teaching assistants.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The school now offers a number of ‘in-school’ alternative curriculum courses for those in Year 10 who want to follow a more practical course, and provides additional support for younger students through courses such as the Forest School programme.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The promotion of students’ social, moral, cultural and spiritual education is generally good. A Year 9 drama lesson, for example, enabled students to empathise with those who fought on the battlefields during the First World War. This was a powerful and moving experience for all the students involved.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The arrangements for safeguarding meet all statutory requirements.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The local authority has, since the 2013 GCSE results, increased its support for the school and now regards it as high priority. A school improvement officer and a range of specialist consultants are working with the school to support improvements in English, attendance and students’ progress.

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The leadership and management requires improvement

 The governance of the school:  Governors are well led and have worked with senior leaders to manage the changes that Tibshelf has undergone in recent years. They have recently reorganised their committee structures to ensure that they have the information that they need to hold the school properly to account for its teaching and standards, but they have not done enough. They have high aspirations for students and are proud of them. However, despite working to bring the two schools together, they have not ensured that all the issues that have arisen regarding dips in standards and teaching quality have all been successfully resolved. Neither have they assessed the impact of the pupil premium spending on students’ progress sufficiently.  Governors have a clear role in performance management, are involved in decisions about teacher pay awards and ensure that teachers’ promotion and pay are dependent on the

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The leadership and management requires improvement

impact they have on students’ achievement.

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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 112949 Local authority Derbyshire Inspection number 425121

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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 Community Age range of pupils 11–16 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 782 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Shaun Byrne Headteacher Peter Crowe Date of previous school inspection 3 November 2010 Telephone number 01773 872391 Fax number 01773 590386 Email address information@tibshelf.derbyshire.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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