Setting

Ms Liz Cook Headteacher Easthampstead Park Community School Ringmead Bracknell RG12 8FS

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Community School

Following my visit to your school on 1 October 2014, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the findings. Thank you for the help you gave me and for the time you made available to discuss the actions you are taking to improve the school since the most recent section 5 inspection.

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Community School

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in June 2014. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

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Community School

Senior leaders and governors are taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the recent section 5 inspection. The school should take further action to:

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Community School

 make sure all middle leaders monitor how consistently class teachers follow procedures for managing students’ behaviour  ensure greater consistency in the way teachers train sixth form students to write in an academic manner and employ subject-specific vocabulary with confidence.

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Evidence

During the inspection I met with you, your middle leaders, your senior leader responsible for behaviour, representatives from the local authority and the Chair of Governors to discuss the actions taken since the last inspection. I evaluated your Tribal Kings Orchard, One Queen Street, Bristol, BS2 0HQ T 0300 123 1231 Text Phone: 0161 6188524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Direct T 0117 311 5323 Direct email :suzy.smith@tribalgroup.com raising attainment plan. You accompanied me as I visited classes, including sixth form groups, and I made brief visits alone to different classes to observe behaviour.

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Context

A new head of Year 10 joined the school in September 2014.

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Main findings

You are determined to move the school to good as quickly as possible. You have a clear view of what actions are needed and their order of priority.

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Main findings

You have recently put in place an online system that allows you to monitor students’ behaviour and attitudes to learning on a lesson-by-lesson basis. You are usefully training senior leaders how to use it to gain an overview of the lessons in which students perform best and worst. Heads of year groups are using the information to track students who misbehave. This is beginning to help them to manage students’ behaviour more tactically.

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Main findings

In classes visited in the afternoon there was too much inconsistency in students’ behaviour. In a small number of classes, students were talking while the teacher was speaking and some were using their mobile telephones. The senior leader responsible for behaviour is not yet fully using information from the system to target support to prevent students from misbehaving. However, middle leaders are beginning to use this information to deploy support and guidance to the teachers they manage. The system is being used to ensure students take greater responsibility for adopting the positive attitudes needed to meet their targets.

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Main findings

The Chair of Governors has relevant professional experience. She has used this to ensure the governing body takes a strategic overview of how effectively the school is meeting its improvement targets. The Chair of Governors has a sharp understanding of how governors can use information about students’ achievement to hold the school to account. Governors have all the information they need to ask challenging questions because senior leaders now provide updates at governors’ meetings. These updates rightly focus on the progress of different groups of students.

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Main findings

You have wisely raised the bar for students entering the sixth form. At the same time you have widened the choice of subjects on offer. This year, a higher proportion of Year 11 students have decided to remain at the school in the sixth form than has previously been the case. In some sixth form classes visited, teachers were not confident enough in their subject knowledge. As a result some students were not receiving sufficient tuition on how to improve their writing so that it reflects the depth of their subject knowledge. However in the film studies class, the teacher had made very detailed comments on work to help students to write about film in a less descriptive and more academic way. Your improvement plan is tightly focused on how planned actions will improve students’ achievement. The planned actions are closely linked to the areas for improvement in the previous inspection report. However it is not always clear how

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Main findings

improvements will be measured, when and by whom.

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Main findings

Ofsted may carry out further visits and, where necessary, provide further support and challenge to the school until its next section 5 inspection.

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External support

The local authority has set up opportunities for leaders of the secondary schools within the area to meet and share ideas. The school has been well-served by these opportunities. The school regularly attends the local authority’s Standards’ Monitoring Board. At these meetings students’ progress and achievements is scrutinised by local authority representatives. Following these meetings the local authority has rightly prioritised training the middle leaders to be more rigorous in their monitoring. I have asked the authority to partner the school with a high achieving school sixth form with a similar intake. This link should enable teachers to develop further expertise in the A level examination requirements.

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External support

I am copying this letter to the Chair of the Governing Body and the Director of Children’s Services for Bracknell Forest.

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