Cloughside College

Cloughside College Bury New Road, Prestwich, Manchester, M25 3BL

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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.  The college is transformed. It now provides a good education for students and makes an effective contribution to their recovery.  Educational and personal outcomes for students are good. They make good progress despite their health issues. With good teaching and personalised support, many achieve outcomes they did not realise they were capable of.  When well enough to attend, students enjoy college, particularly those in the Gardener Unit. Relationships between staff and students are excellent. Students’ attendance in lessons is good; incidents that require their return to the wards are increasingly rare.  Students feel safe in college. Risks are very tightly controlled because of the nature of students’ illnesses. The college’s partnership with health care staff is now good and continues to improve.  The new headteacher has made an exceptionally good start. She provides outstanding leadership and management. She

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

is well supported by the governing body and her senior team. The college has the full backing of the Trust.  Safeguarding is excellent.

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It is not yet an outstanding school because

 Teaching is not yet outstanding. There are examples of outstanding teaching but some teaching requires improvement.  Although great strides have been made in the integration of education and health, further improvement toward full integration and wrap- around education and care is necessary to fully meet the needs of the students.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspection began as the fourth monitoring inspection since the college was placed in special measures in March 2013. It was converted to a full section 5 inspection when it became clear the college no longer required special measures.  The work of the college was observed in a series of visits to lessons and activities in Junction 17 and the Gardener Unit. Students’ workbooks were examined. Documentation provided by the school was scrutinised, including that relating to safeguarding and students’ progress.  Interviews were held with the headteacher and members of the college staff, the Chair of the Governing Body, a representative of the local authority, health care staff and representatives of the Greater Manchester West Mental Health Foundation Trust, including a senior manager, a ward manager and a clinical psychologist. Two telephone calls were made to the home schools of students from Junction 17.

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Information about this inspection

 Parents’ views were obtained from parents’ letters and questionnaire returns to the college. There were insufficient responses from Parent View, Ofsted’s on-line parent questionnaire, to take them into account.  The views of students were obtained from discussions with representatives of the School Council from both units and through informal discussions with students during lessons and activities.

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Inspection team

Brian Padgett, Lead inspector Her Majesty’s 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

 The college provides education for students with mental health conditions who are being treated within the Greater Manchester West Mental Health Foundation Trust’s hospital at Prestwich.  The college is maintained by Bury local authority although students are admitted from all parts of Greater Manchester and beyond. The college has its own governing body, which includes two representatives of the Trust.  Two adjacent but separate units make up the college. Junction 17 provides for young people who have been admitted to hospital on mental health grounds but who remain registered with their home school. Most students in Junction 17 are in-patients but a few are day patients. The Gardener Unit is a medium secure, forensic psychiatric unit for up to 10 young men.  The majority of students are post-16. Their length of stay with the college varies greatly. The turnover of students at Junction 17 is high. The average length of a student’s stay at Junction 17

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Information about this school

is about three months. Students at the Gardener Unit stay longer, with an average stay of about nine months.  Students come from a broad range of social, economic and ethnic backgrounds. The college receives no part of the pupil premium, the government grant aimed at supporting students who are known to be eligible for free school meals or who are looked after by the local authority. For the students who are eligible, the home school retains this grant.  A new headteacher took up post in April 2013, shortly after the college was placed in special measures.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Eradicate the small amount of teaching that still requires improvement.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Working with the Trust, improve further the flexibility within the staffing structure to best meet the varying learning and developmental needs of the students.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 The majority of students in both units make good progress in their lessons and good progress in their personal development, including improved confidence, self-esteem and life skills.  Students enter college from very different starting points. Some, particularly in the Gardener Unit, have had a poor experience of education before entry, including non-attendance for lengthy periods of time. Core skills of literacy and numeracy can be very low. Some, particularly those at Junction 17, have been high achievers academically, before mental illness changed their lives. The effects of medication and the onset of the mental health issues create barriers to learning in college from time to time.  Students from Junction 17 often study for GCSEs and A-Levels. Work is discussed between college and the home school. Students may take their exams in college or at the home school. All students achieve at least at entry level in all the subjects that they study.

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The achievement of pupils is good

 Students at the Gardener Unit are more focused on improving their core literacy skills. They aim to achieve at Functional Skills levels and the college enters them with no fewer than four award and accreditation boards to provide them with qualifications to take on to further education and training. For some students, these may be the first qualifications they have achieved.  Social skills and life skills are acquired in both units. Specific lessons in the social and emotional aspects of learning lead to specific awards. Lessons in food technology and, more recently, in horticulture, lead to further awards, for example, in food hygiene, and to the acquisition of skills that will be important to students as they enter adulthood.  The achievement of students is often high in subjects where the school has specialist teachers. Students achieve notably in art, English, design and technology and in physical well-being.

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The achievement of pupils is good

Students’ creativity is often awakened at college. Their art work in particular is regularly of extraordinarily high quality.  Over the past year, the college has introduced systems to track the progress of students. These show that the majority of students, including those who are most able and those who have special educational needs, make better than or expected progress towards their personalised targets.  Learning continues out of normal college times, in the evening and over the weekends. Homework is completed on wards or in a special room, the Learning Zone. After-school clubs in art, music and keeping fit, for example, are popular.

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The quality of teaching is good

 Teachers and the higher-level teaching assistants have excellent relationships with students in both units. They know the students very well as individuals. Staff are very positive with students, praising them often, so lessons are good natured and the college as a whole has a positive ethos.  Teachers are rigorous in their planning. They prepare individualised programmes for each student, with separate learning objectives for each one. They insist on good presentation and students’ work is well marked, with evaluations of what went well and pointers for development. Each student is set challenging targets and teachers are held to account for students reaching them.  There is some outstanding teaching that enables students to achieve exceptional results, well beyond those they believed they were capable of achieving. Examples were seen in art, English and physical well-being lessons. These were characterised by the highest expectations of

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The quality of teaching is good

students, encouraging and challenging them to articulate what they knew and felt and to perform to their best. Such teaching led to impressive gains in students’ self-esteem and confidence.  Occasionally, too much is done for students; they are not sufficiently challenged, or they are not questioned in sufficient depth to explain what they have learned or understood. Where this happens, teaching requires improvement.  Health care staff remain responsible for the care of students when they attend college. When the college was placed in special measures, there was little collaboration between education and care staff. Care staff might only be called into college when a student’s behaviour became unmanageable, to take students back onto their wards. This unsatisfactory lack of integration is now a thing of the past. A clinician described this as a ‘dramatic change’.  The collaboration between health and education staff is now good. Each day, regular two-way

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The quality of teaching is good

briefings ensure that all staff are well informed about students. Health care staff are far more visible in college, supporting students in class and becoming involved in their education. There is a will from college leaders and the Trust that such cooperation should continue and extend further to best meet students’ frequently varying needs. This will require even greater flexibility from college and health care staff.  Increasingly, the college is calling on external help to provide inputs for students. A good example of this successful strategy is in horticulture, where an expert employed by the Trust supports lessons in both units. In the Gardener Unit, this has led to the creation of an allotment garden. Working outdoors on the allotment is popular with the students in the unit and links meaningfully with the lessons on food preparation in food technology lessons. Interest in more practical and vocational subjects is high at the Gardener Unit.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

 The behaviour of students is good. It is much improved. Recorded incidents of poor behaviour are reducing. This is particularly noticeable in the Gardener Unit where more than a month can go by without a significant incident within college. This is because students in Gardener enjoy college. As the curriculum in this unit is being adapted to better meet their needs, the students’ motivation and enjoyment have increased. This is particularly noteworthy as the majority of these students attend college by choice.  Students in Junction 17 also enjoy their lessons. Attendance in lessons has improved significantly. However, students in Junction 17 are more likely to be unwell and not be in a position to gain from their lessons.  Students’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is good. There are many opportunities for social interaction and to develop life skills. The college has a multi-faith room and the Trust’s

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

chaplaincy service provides leaders of different faiths to lead prayers for the students of different religious faiths represented at the college.  The behaviour management of education staff is good. They are effective in de-escalation techniques and have developed a good knowledge of the aspects of mental illness that affect their students, such as self-harming.  The college’s work to keep students safe and secure is outstanding. It needs to be. All students are at risk. Procedures to ensure safety and security are exceptionally rigorous, including those more familiar to mainstream schools, such as the vetting of staff and safer recruitment procedures and procedures for e-safety. Record keeping is tightly monitored. Each student has a support plan that is regularly reviewed. There are frequent meetings between college and Trust staff to discuss students’ progress in all aspects. The college contributions are highly valued by

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The behaviour and safety of pupils are good

Trust staff.  The Trust and college leaders are keen to strike the correct balance on risk. Keeping the students safe from harm is a paramount concern. It is, for example, routine for college and health care staff to ensure sharp implements cannot be accessed by students. On the other hand, if the Trust and college are to achieve their aim of students eventually living a normal and full life and contribute fully to society, then students, in the long term, must learn to manage risk. An excellent example of balancing risk under close supervision was observed in the allotment garden, when a student used a garden fork to turn over the soil in preparation for planting potatoes.  Students have a voice that is heard in college. There is respect between students and teachers. The position of unit representative is a prestigious one. Students take part in the appointments of senior staff, giving their views on the suitability of the candidates.

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The leadership and management are good

 The new headteacher provides outstanding leadership for the college. Her drive, enthusiasm and highly effective management skills have brought the college back on track. There is good capacity for further improvement. The headteacher receives good support from senior staff.  The Trust is very supportive and committed to the place of education in the treatment and rehabilitation of the students while at the hospital. It provides financial support and has, for example, reviewed the timing of all its clinical and therapy sessions to reduce their impact on the college timetable to a minimum.  The headteacher and senior staff have a clear and accurate view of the college’s work and performance. Leaders are investing in management information systems and assessment tools in order to sharpen their evaluations of students’ performance. An innovative approach can be seen in many aspects of the college’s work: from the introduction of a ‘safe’ climbing wall, to looking

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The leadership and management are good

at group performance in different ways, such as by length of stay at the college.  All aspects of leadership seen in modern, effective schools are in place. These include the regular tracking and evaluation of students’ progress, the monitoring of teaching quality and the links between these and the performance management of staff. All are implemented rigorously.  Perhaps the biggest single achievement of the headteacher is her success in rebuilding the links between the college and the Trust, the health care staff, the home schools and parents. The consequence has been an improved and far more cohesive service for the students.  The college is outward-looking and keen to learn from other school networks, including from outstanding hospital schools and secure units in the region and elsewhere. Already, other schools, some mainstream, are showing an interest in what is happening at Cloughside, to learn

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The leadership and management are good

from its staff about the education of students with mental health conditions.  The headteacher is supported by a highly effective administrative team of personal assistant, attendance and school liaison officer and business manager. The college has a balanced budget for the first time in several years.  The curriculum is broad and balanced. It is relevant to students and enables them to achieve highly, such as in art. However, the college is seeking to improve the relevance of the curriculum further, particularly for students in the Gardener Unit, by developing it along more vocational lines that better fit its aim of preparing its students for life beyond college.  All safeguarding requirements are met. Record keeping on vulnerable students is exemplary.  The local authority has provided good support for the school. It has provided effective support for the headteacher and brokered support for the governing body. The college makes good use

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The leadership and management are good

of its personnel and finance support services.  The governance of the school:  Governance is good. The governing body has developed a clear strategic view for the college through its self-evaluation tool. It is well organised into committees and the minutes of its meetings show it is providing challenge and support to college leaders. Governors have first- hand knowledge of the college through their regular visits to the two units. There is joint training involving governors, college and Trust staff. The members of the governing body bring many skills to its work. Unusually, an ex-student is a member of the governing body but it is relatively unrepresented by parent or community members.

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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 105376 Local authority Bury Inspection number 441695

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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 11–19 Gender of pupils Mixed Gender of pupils in post-16 Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 40 Of which, number on roll in post-16 25 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Sally Claydon Headteacher Farzana Shah Date of previous school inspection 19 March 2013 Telephone number 0161 772 4625 Fax number 0161 772 3478 Email address cloughside@bury.gov.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 and 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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