The Baverstock Academy

The Baverstock Academy 501 Bells Lane, Druids Heath, Birmingham, B14 5TL

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Not previously inspected This inspection: Inadequate 4 Leadership and management Inadequate 4 Behaviour and safety of pupils Requires improvement 3 Quality of teaching Inadequate 4 Achievement of pupils Inadequate 4 Sixth form provision Requires improvement 3

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

This is a school that requires special measures.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Too few students make the progress they should, particularly in mathematics and science. The gap between the achievement of disadvantaged students and their peers is widening. Students with special educational needs do not make the progress they should.  Academy leaders do not set students sufficiently- challenging targets for each year and for what they should achieve by the end of Year 11. Leaders do not know enough about how well students are doing in each subject and year group.  Teaching is inadequate. Information about what students can and cannot do in different subjects is not used well enough to plan and teach lessons. Some books are not marked. There is not enough good teaching in the academy.  Some teachers do not challenge low level disruption quickly or effectively enough. This slows the pace of lessons and interrupts learning.  Leaders do not know enough about the quality of teaching because they rely too much on lesson

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

observations to make their judgements. They do not analyse well enough the information they have about teaching or behaviour to help them to make improvements.  Governors have not challenged leaders about the academy’s performance sufficiently. They have not been aware of the worsening outcomes for some groups of students or of the quality of teaching.  There is too much use of part-time timetables and at times students are sent home without proper procedures being followed.

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The school has the following strengths

 Leaders have successfully improved behaviour in the academy. The academy is an orderly community. Attendance has risen.  Students are smartly dressed and the vast majority make good efforts in lessons.  Many staff work hard to uphold the academy’s expectations.  Students’ progress in English has improved. The English team have good strategies to prepare students for examinations.  Most sixth form students achieved success in their A Level examinations in 2014 and progressed to university or college.

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Information about this inspection

 This inspection was carried out under Section 8 of the Education Act 2005 with an initial focus on safeguarding and behaviour and safety. It was subsequently deemed a Section 5 inspection. The academy received 10 minutes’ notice of the inspection.  Inspectors scrutinised the school’s procedures for safeguarding and child protection and discussed these areas with senior leaders and other staff.  Inspectors observed behaviour in lessons, corridors, the dining room and the playground.  Inspectors observed learning in 33 different lessons and parts of 43 other lessons, including in LEAP and BiC. Five of these observations were carried out jointly with senior leaders.  Meetings were held with the headteacher, senior leaders, middle leaders, new staff, other teaching staff, governors, and the sixth form council. Inspectors spoke informally to students about their experiences of the academy, including their views of behaviour, safety and lessons.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors scrutinised a range of documents including the academy’s assessment information, case studies about students, attendance and behaviour information, governors’ minutes and documents relating to safeguarding.  There were no responses to Parent View. The academy’s own information about parents’ views was scrutinised.

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Inspection team

Sue Morris-King, Lead inspector 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

 Baverstock is smaller than the average size secondary school.  The Baverstock Academy converted to become an academy school in June 2013. When its predecessor school, Baverstock Foundation School and Specialist Sports College, was last inspected by Ofsted, it was judged to be satisfactory.  An above average proportion of students, almost half, are eligible for the pupil premium (additional government funding for students eligible for free school meals and those who are looked after).  Around a third of students are from minority ethnic backgrounds.  The proportion of disabled students and those with special educational needs is higher than average.  The academy runs an on-site centre called ‘LEAP’ for students who need intensive support with their behaviour or sometimes their attendance. This caters for around 40 students at any one time, some of whom join during Year 10 or Year 11. These students are on Baverstock’s roll and attend some of their

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Information about this school

lessons in the centre and others in the main academy.  The academy also runs a centre about five miles from the main site, called ‘Birmingham in the City’ (BiC). This caters for new arrivals to the country who speak little or no English. The vast majority of the students who attend BiC are Gypsy Roma Travellers. All BiC students are on the roll of the academy.  The academy does not use any off-site alternative provision.  Based on their unvalidated 2014 results, the academy does not meet the government’s 2013 floor standards. These are the minimum standards expected for pupils’ learning and progress in reading, writing and mathematics.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the quality of teaching, particularly in mathematics and science, so that the progress and attainment of all groups of students, especially disadvantaged students and those with special educational needs, improves rapidly by:  ensuring that teachers receive good training and support to set appropriately challenging targets for students and to assess accurately their progress in lessons and over time  ensuring that the long-term assessment information and the ongoing assessments from lessons are used continually to plan and teach lessons at the right level for different groups of students  making sure that teachers mark books frequently enough and in a way that informs students about their successes and the next steps they need to take  consistently and effectively challenging low level disruption so that the focus is on learning in all lessons  ensuring that the curriculum in the LEAP provision closely mirrors that in the mainstream part of the

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

academy so that students do not fall behind with their preparation for examinations at the end of Year 11.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve leadership and management so that all actions drive improvement in students’ achievement by:  establishing a clear basis on which to set challenging targets for all students to enable them to make good progress  ensuring that leaders and managers at all levels frequently and rigorously analyse the progress that all groups of students are making in all subjects, including in Years 7 and 8, identify where and why there is underachievement and take carefully planned actions to put this right  implementing a rigorous system to evaluate the quality of teaching throughout the academy, using information about students’ progress as well as observations and scrutinies of students’ work, and putting in place appropriate strategies to improve teaching where this is needed  analysing more thoroughly other information gathered in the academy, such as attendance and behaviour data, and using this to target actions in a more focused way

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 minimising the use of part-time timetables for LEAP students in line with government guidance and ensuring that correct exclusion procedures are followed if it is necessary for a student to be removed from the school site for disciplinary reasons  reviewing the frequency with which BiC students integrate into the main academy  ensuring that governors receive clear, analytical reports on students’ progress and behaviour and the quality of teaching so they can be more effective in challenging and supporting the academy.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

An external review of governance and an external review of the academy’ use of the pupil premium should be undertaken in order to assess how these aspects of leadership and management may be improved.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The headteacher and senior leaders do not have an accurate understanding of how well students are making progress. Their systems for setting targets and collecting and analysing assessment information focus too much on students’ attainment and not on whether they are making rapid enough progress. Leaders’ predictions of students’ examination grades for summer 2014 were highly inaccurate.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Leaders keep a close eye on the wellbeing of Years 7 and 8 students but pay insufficient attention to their academic achievement.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The academy’s system for monitoring the quality of teaching and learning is not effective in driving improvement. Too much weight is placed on the outcomes of lesson observations of individual teachers, rather than bringing lesson observation information together with the progress being made by students and a close scrutiny of students’ work. Departmental reviews are time consuming but infrequent. Action to improve the quality of teaching is not focused closely enough on the strengths and weaknesses of individual teachers.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Leadership at other levels is too variable. While some of these less senior leaders know the strengths and weaknesses of their teams and what needs to improve, others do not.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Pupil premium funding is not spent effectively to improve the outcomes for students.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The academy has introduced courses intended to help students achieve good examination results but this has not been successful in all instances. Stopping entering any students early for examinations appears to have adversely affected the 2014 outcomes. The academy is not well prepared for the new curriculum and assessment processes.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Students take a keen interest in extra-curricular sporting activities. There is a range of other activities after school but these are less well attended.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The academy’s leaders are working too much in isolation and have not sought enough support to help them to improve.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The headteacher and senior leaders have created a calm and inclusive school community. Behaviour and attendance have improved and exclusion is used sparingly. Most students want to learn. The academy has made great efforts to include students who may otherwise be excluded from mainstream education or who do not have a school place.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The LEAP provision has been successful in keeping some disaffected students in mainstream education. The BiC provision is developing well. The BiC curriculum is highly focused on teaching students English and preparing them for a larger school setting. Ten students have integrated into the main academy; however the readiness of students to integrate is not reviewed frequently enough.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Safeguarding procedures are sound. Staff are well informed about child protection procedures. Leaders have a good awareness of the links between low attendance and potential safeguarding issues and take strong action to challenge non-attendance.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The sixth form has improved over the last year. More students are now gaining success in their A Levels and are well-focused on the next steps they want to take. Students make a positive contribution to the academy.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

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

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The governance of the school:  Governors have not been effective in challenging the performance of the academy. They do not know enough about how students are achieving and do not receive useful information from the academy to allow them to ask well-focused questions. Governors are well informed about the overall finances of the school but do not know how pupil premium funding is spent and have not discussed how it should be allocated to improve achievement. Governors do not have a clear understanding of the quality of teaching. They are not involved in deciding whether teachers should or should not receive pay rises based on the quality of their teaching. Several governors spend time in school, including the chair, who meets weekly with the headteacher. This has enabled them to observe the improvements in behaviour and attitudes to learning over the last year. Governors are well informed about safeguarding and all

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The leadership and management are inadequate

receive regular safeguarding training. Governors have recently realised that they need support and have embarked on a series of training sessions.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The behaviour of students requires improvement. In some lessons, particularly in lower sets in Years 10 and 11, a few students do not listen quickly enough to the teacher, or interrupt each other. In these lessons, there are students who need too much reminding to begin their work.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 There is a small amount of silly behaviour, sometimes involving pushing and shoving, when students are moving between lessons. Sometimes students take too long to move from one lesson to another.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The majority of students have good attitudes to learning. They arrive promptly at the academy, go to their lessons willingly and settle quickly to their work. They listen to staff and try their best to succeed. They co-operate with each other and support each other with learning.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 At break and lunchtimes students behave sensibly. Students from different ethnic groups and faiths socialise well with each other. There is little litter around the academy site.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Students who attend LEAP make good progress in improving their behaviour and attendance. Students who join BiC have positive attitudes to learning. A few have very poor attendance but the majority attend well.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The academy’s work to keep students safe and secure requires improvement.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The academy records and acts upon any incidents of bullying; however leaders do not analyse the incidents to see if there are any patterns or trends that need further action, or whether any particular group of students is more at risk than others.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 There is too much use of part-time timetables for the LEAP students. In addition, if a LEAP student needs to be removed from the academy site staff take care to communicate this with parents but do not always follow the required formal procedures for exclusion.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The school uses the curriculum to teach students about how to keep themselves safe. Important topics include cyber-bullying, knife crime, safe relationships, sexual health and drugs and alcohol awareness. However, the curriculum does not include a focus on radicalisation and extremism, or raise awareness of forced marriage or female genital mutilation.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 The academy has good procedures for child protection. The staff who lead this area are well trained and knowledgeable. Child protection and safeguarding form a key part of induction for new staff. Any incidents are followed up thoroughly.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Year 7 students, who had only been at the academy for three weeks at time of the inspection, said that they feel safe and settled.

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The behaviour and safety of pupils requires improvement

 Attendance has improved over the last year to become closer to the national average.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The lack of clarity in the academy about what constitutes underachievement or good progress does not help teachers to plan effective lessons on a day-to-day basis or over time. Too much teaching fails to focus on the needs of different groups because teachers’ planning does not take sufficient account of students’ prior learning. As a result, too many students, including disadvantaged students and those with special educational needs, are not making enough progress.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teaching in mathematics is weak. Not enough attention is paid to analysing students’ misconceptions. Planning and teaching are insufficiently effective in taking students’ learning further. This is evident both in lessons and in students’ books. Books are not marked frequently enough and when they are, the marking consists only of ticks or crosses.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teaching in science is not enabling all students to make progress quickly enough.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 In a range of subjects, inspectors found that books had not been marked at all this term.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Form and registration time is not used well enough to develop students’ personal and social skills or their learning skills. This means that in some forms two hours of learning time every week can be wasted. Where time is used well, teachers take the opportunity to ensure that students are well organised for the day ahead, or review their learning from the day, or discuss a relevant topic such as one from the news.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Some students, particularly older, less-able students, do not focus easily on their learning. Where this behaviour is not managed well it slows learning. Staff who manage low-level disruption well have a pleasant but assertive manner and nip any distractions in the bud at once.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 In the lessons visited during the inspection, students were generally learning reasonably well. Some were very motivated.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The teaching that results in the best learning is well focused on what the students need to learn in that lesson and how this links to their progress over time. Teachers in these lessons set high expectations for students and most students respond well. They give students clear instructions and make sure that the learning logically builds up step by step. Where necessary these teachers adapt the lesson as they go along, for example, speeding up the pace where students have quickly grasped a concept, or simplifying the task where it is too complicated.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 The English department has developed an effective system for building up students’ skills and knowledge between Years 9 and 11 so they are well prepared for their GCSE examinations. Students’ work in most English classes is carefully assessed and marked, with helpful comments that students take notice of. These approaches are having a positive impact on students’ progress over time.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 In the LEAP centre social and behavioural development is well taught and some of the academic teaching helps students to achieve. However, there is not a close enough match between what is taught in core subjects in LEAP and what the same year group is learning in the mainstream.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 At the BiC provision, teaching is well focused on teaching students how to speak, read and write English. There is a positive ethos and an important emphasis on developing good learning skills.

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is inadequate

 Attainment in the academy is low. Not enough students in Years 9 to 11 make the progress expected of them nationally, particularly in mathematics and science. As a result, standards are not rising quickly enough.

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is inadequate

 The proportion of students gaining five A*-C grades and five A*-C grades including English and mathematics in 2014 was much lower than the 2013 national average. These results were much worse than the academy’s predictions. The academy has requested a re-mark of the examinations for a number of students.

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is inadequate

 Students who were supported by the pupil premium were approximately half a GCSE grade behind their peers in both English and mathematics. The gap in their rates of progress narrowed in English, but widened considerably in mathematics. National data for 2014 are not yet available. The school does not evaluate the impact of Year 7 catch-up funding rigorously enough to know if it has an impact on students’ achievement.

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is inadequate

 Students’ rates of progress in the current Years 10 and 11 remain below those expected nationally. However students’ progress in English is accelerating, with more students than last year on track to make expected progress. Progress is starting to improve in mathematics, but at a much slower rate. Progress in science is weak.

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is inadequate

 Too few students in Year 9 made expected progress last year in English and mathematics. The academy did not provide inspectors with any information about the progress made by Year 9 students in science or any progress information about students who are now in Year 8. Where teachers provided progress information about last year’s Year 8 students, it indicated that too many students did not make enough progress during the year.

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is inadequate

 Too many more-able students across the academy do not make the progress they should. In 2014 not all of the more able students attained five A*-C grades at GCSE.

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is inadequate

 Disabled students and those with special educational needs also do not progress well enough. The academy’s information indicates that fewer than half of the Year 11 students with special educational needs made expected progress in English and mathematics last year.

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is inadequate

 All Year 11 students who attended LEAP last year, including those who did not join Baverstock until Year 11, gained at least one qualification at GCSE or equivalent. The majority gained five. Attainment in English, in line with the rest of the school, was better than in mathematics.

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is inadequate

 Students who attend BiC make steady progress in improving their spoken and written English and in developing their understanding of life in modern Britain.

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is inadequate

 Students’ achievement in lessons is often helped by their positive attitudes, but occasionally hindered by a lack of engagement or low level disruption. During the inspection the weakest attitudes to learning were observed in Years 10 and 11 in lower sets.

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The sixth form provision requires improvement

 In common with the rest of the academy, assessment information for the sixth form is not analysed thoroughly enough to show how well students have progressed from their starting points. It is not clear whether gaps between disadvantaged students and their peers are narrowing. However, both A Level and AS Level results in 2014 were much better than in the predecessor school. Almost 70% of Year 13 students attained three or more A levels and almost all Year 12 students passed the AS levels for which they were entered.

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The sixth form provision requires improvement

 Students have appropriate opportunities to re-take English and mathematics at GCSE if they do not already have a C grade or above.

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The sixth form provision requires improvement

 The positive, supportive atmosphere in the sixth form helps students to settle in quickly. Students take an active part in academy life, acting as prefects linked to their areas of interest such as sport. This gives them a good opportunity to develop coaching and mentoring skills. Students are pleased with their sixth form experience and have the opportunity to contribute to improving sixth form provision through the sixth form council.

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The sixth form provision requires improvement

 Thorough careers advice helps students to make informed choices about the next step. All but one of last year’s students is in education, employment or training. All students who applied to university gained their first choice and a number of others went on to apprenticeships.

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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 failing

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Grade Judgement Description

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 139738 Local authority Birmingham Inspection number 452520

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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 Secondary School category Academy converter 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 679 Of which, number on roll in sixth form 79 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Sandra Howes Headteacher Thomas Marshall Date of previous school inspection Not previously inspected Telephone number 0121 4307924 Fax number N/A Email address marshalltc@baverstock.bham.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 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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