The Telford Park School

Lakeside Academy District Centre, Stirchley, Telford, TF3 1FA

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Overall effectiveness

Previous inspection: Not previously inspected as an academy This inspection: Inadequate 4 Leadership and management Inadequate 4 Behaviour and safety of pupils Inadequate 4 Quality of teaching Inadequate 4 Achievement of pupils Inadequate 4

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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

 Academy leaders have not set sufficiently high expectations of students’ behaviour, attendance or achievement.  Students’ underachievement, teachers’ underperformance and weak subject leadership are not identified, checked or acted upon rigorously enough. The recording, monitoring and evaluation of attendance, lateness and behavioural incidents are insufficiently thorough.  In 2014 teachers’ predictions of the standards students would attain were over generous. Systems to check the accuracy of assessment were inadequate in the recent past.  Governors do not hold leaders to account for the poor quality of education provided.  Leaders do not ensure that the behaviour management policy is implemented consistently. As a result, learning is disrupted because too many students misbehave in lessons.  Some students do not feel safe in all areas of the academy because of the behaviour of a few students. This concern is not tackled urgently by

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

academy leaders. Provision for students who are removed from lessons or who attend learning off- site is not monitored sufficiently to ensure they make the progress they should.  Teaching does not enable students to make sufficient progress. Students’ literacy is not supported well enough. In planning learning, teachers do not take sufficient account of students’ prior achievement. Teaching often fails to engage and challenge students to do the very best they can and to take a pride in their work. The quality of marking is inconsistent and not sufficiently informative to help students improve. Students’ literacy is not supported well enough.  The achievement of all groups of students, including disadvantaged and disabled students and those who have special educational needs, has fallen consistently in recent years.  In 2014, only 25% of students gained five GCSEs, including English and mathematics, at grades C or

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

above. This was well below what they were capable of achieving and well below the national average. In 2014, approximately two thirds of Year 11 students failed to make the progress they should in English and in mathematics by the time they left the academy.  The academy is not preparing students well for the next stage of their education or training. The structure of the curriculum and students’ working day are not holding their interest or sufficiently developing their work-related skills.

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The school has the following strengths

 Good relations exist between students and teachers; students feel teachers are supportive and they can always approach them for help.  New initiatives to improve students’ literacy have been introduced and are beginning to have a positive impact.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors observed the work of the academy and the behaviour of students both in lessons and around the premises during non-lesson times.  Inspectors observed parts of 23 lessons, including two that were observed jointly with a member of the senior leadership team. In addition, inspectors observed tutor group meetings and an assembly. A member of the senior leadership team spent time with an inspector reviewing students’ work and teachers’ marking in a range of subjects.  Inspectors held meetings with the Principal, senior leaders, subject leaders, the Chair of the Governing Body, other governor representatives and students. Inspectors had informal discussions with students and staff at lunch and break times. In addition, the lead inspector met with a representative of a high performing school who is planning external support for the academy, and also with a representative of an academy trust who is in discussion with the academy about its future.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors reviewed a range of documentation, including the academy’s self evaluation, improvement plan, minutes of governing body meetings, data on students’ progress, attendance and behaviour and information on how teachers’ performance links to their progression along the salary scales.  Twenty four responses to the staff questionnaire were received and considered. No responses were available to the online questionnaire, Parent View.

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Inspection team

Gwendoline Coates, 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

 Lakeside Academy converted to become an academy on 1 April 2013. When its predecessor school, The Lord Silkin School, was last inspected by Ofsted, it was judged to be good (Grade 2) overall. Lakeside Academy subsequently became a member of the Telford Cooperative Multi-Academy Trust, which consists of four local academy converters.  Lakeside Academy is much smaller than the average secondary school and the number of students on roll has declined continuously over recent years.  Approximately one third of students is disabled or has special educational needs, which is about double the national average.  Over half of the students in the academy are disadvantaged and supported by the pupil premium (extra funding provided by the government for students who are eligible for free school meals), which is almost double the national average.  Most students are White British.  A number of students attend education off-site. This includes: 14 Year 11 students and two Year 10

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Information about this school

students attending courses via the local 14-16 ‘Travel to Learn’ provision, either at Telford College of Arts and Technology or Walford College. In addition, six Key Stage 4 students attend alternative provision at one of the following: Kemberton Stables, Strawberry Hill Day Nursery, Seeds and Sunshine Café.  The academy does not meet current government floor standards, which set minimum expectations for students’ attainment and progress at Key Stage 4.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the quality of teaching so that every student is given the opportunity to make the progress they should and attain the standards they are capable of, by:  ensuring teachers use data about students’ prior ability to plan learning that takes into account what students already know and can do  encouraging teaching that engages students’ interest, challenges them to think hard and be less dependent upon adult support  ensuring that teacher assessment of students’ work is accurate so that predictions can be relied upon  improving the quality of marking so that it helps students improve and take pride in their work extending the focus on developing and promoting good literacy skills so that literacy becomes an integral part of teaching and learning in all subjects  developing the quality of teachers’ questioning skills so that they are able to probe and stretch students’ thinking and oral skills.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the quality of leadership and management at all levels including governance. In particular:  ensure that processes for monitoring the quality of education (in terms of achievement, teaching and behaviour) are systematic, rigorous and effective, result in prompt identification of underperformance and urgent and effective actions to bring about improvement  ensure leaders model the high standards required of all staff, for example in terms of marking and dealing with behavioural issues  improve the curriculum, including the structure of the day, so that it engages students, makes them want to attend and do well and ensures that they develop work-related skills to prepare them for their adult lives  ensure that the quality of education provided for students who are removed from normal classes because their behaviour is a concern and those students who are educated off-site for part of the week

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

is of a quality that enables them to make at least the progress they are capable of  ensure that governors have the skills to hold academy leaders to account and to take firm action when performance falls below that expected.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Senior leaders must develop a culture of high expectations about all aspects of the education students receive so that they are well prepared for the next stage in their education, training or employment.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve behaviour and safety so that all students are given the opportunity to learn well and feel safe by:  introducing a clear and transparent behaviour policy that is consistently applied by all staff, including all leaders, and is linked clearly to improving learning  improving systems to record, monitor and evaluate attendance, lateness and behavioural incidents so that leaders and staff can identify quickly when and where problems arise and take urgent and effective action to bring about improvement  ensuring that all students feel safe in all areas of the academy  raising students’ expectations of what is acceptable behaviour towards other students or staff.  Improve students’ achievement by ensuring that, from their starting points, all students, including the most able students, disadvantaged students, and disabled students and those who have special educational needs, make at least the progress they should. In addition:

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 ensure that students whose behaviour means they are removed from normal lessons and placed in small group or one-to-one provision, and students who are educated off-site for some of the week, learn well  improve the literacy skills of all students whose reading ages are below their chronological ages in order to ensure they can participate confidently in lessons in all subjects.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 An external review of governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.  An external review of the academy’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 leadership and management are inadequate

 Leaders have not created a culture of high expectations for what students can achieve, the quality of teaching or how students should behave. As a result, most students do not make the progress they should because teaching is good enough. The behaviour of too many students is unacceptable.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Leaders have not monitored, identified or acted upon underachievement by students, underperformance by teachers and weak subject leadership with sufficient rigour or urgency. As a result, too many students underachieve, too much teaching is inadequate or requires improvement and too many subjects are poorly led.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The monitoring and evaluation of data on behavioural incidents is inadequate and means that appropriate actions are not being taken to improve behaviour and safety. Leaders do not ensure that the behaviour management policy is implemented consistently throughout the academy so that students understand what is expected of them. Staff say that leaders themselves do not implement the policy consistently, which makes their job harder and sends mixed messages to students.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Pupil premium funding is not used effectively to help disadvantaged students achieve. Their achievement in English and mathematics is much lower than that of other students in the academy and nationally, and gaps are not narrowing.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The academy does not promote equality of opportunity well. Only a minority of students make the progress they should and there are wide gaps in the achievement of different groups, including disadvantaged and disabled students and those who have special educational needs.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Overall, subject leaders have not been effective because they have not ensured that teachers in their subject areas enable students to make the progress they should. Subject leaders work hard but they do not check the teaching and achievement in their subjects with sufficient challenge. Inaccuracies in assessment in 2014 led to over generous predictions about the standards students would attain. Systems to check the accuracy of assessment at all levels of leadership have been inadequate. New systems have been introduced to improve the accuracy of assessment and target setting but it is too early to evaluate their impact.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The curriculum does not sufficiently meet the needs of all students to allow them to achieve well and make the progress they should. For example, there is little provision for vocational education. Many students are positive about what they learn in assemblies and lessons that helps their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. In this context, teachers work hard and effectively to prepare students for life in modern Britain and in terms of promoting values such as tolerance, respect and understanding of democracy. However, other aspects of the curriculum and the structure of the day are not well matched to students’ needs, including the extended length of some subject sessions and the late start to the day’s lessons.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The Telford Cooperative Multi-Academy Trust has not provided sufficiently strong support for the academy and has not prevented the decline in the quality of education provided by the academy. Lakeside Academy is in the process of discussing future arrangements with an alternative academy trust.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The quality of education provided has been seriously impaired because of the impact of staff redundancies in each of the last few years and by large numbers of staff absences. As a result, there has been extensive need to cover classes of absent colleagues, merge classes together or provide temporary or supply teachers.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Until recently, the management of teachers’ performance has been poor. Systems to tackle underperformance by teachers and leaders have improved and recent performance management records support this. However, these systems are still not rigorous enough to bring about improvements in the quality of teaching or of students’ achievement.  The support for disabled students and those who have special educational needs is not monitored sufficiently. As a result, there is little evidence of evaluating what works well and what needs improving.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Systems to monitor the progress, attendance and behaviour of students attending courses away from the academy are inadequate and do not ensure that these students have the opportunity to learn well.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 Advice and careers guidance help students to make informed choices about their next steps in education, training or employment. However, the quality of education students receive does not prepare them well, in terms of academic, personal and work-related skills, for these next steps.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 A majority of students joining the academy have poor literacy skills. A number of initiatives have been introduced to improve these skills among some students and there are early signs that these are proving effective. However they do not apply to all students whose reading ages are below their chronological age and the promotion of good literacy skills is not something that all teachers in all subjects expect to influence.

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The leadership and management are inadequate

 The academy’s arrangements for safeguarding students meet statutory requirements. However, while safeguarding policies and systems are in place, they are not monitored with sufficient rigour and some students say that they don’t feel safe in all areas of 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: Governance is not effective. Governors know the academy well, including about the quality of teaching and how well students are doing. They know about the management of teachers’ performance and about what is done to reward good teaching and tackle underperformance. However, they have not used their knowledge of the academy and its performance to hold leaders to account for the poor quality of education provided in the academy. Nor have they done enough to require leaders to take more urgent actions to bring about improvement.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of students is inadequate. Too many students misbehave so that the learning of others is disrupted. This misbehaviour is not tackled effectively by all class teachers or addressed rigorously and consistently by academy leaders.

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Behaviour

 Too many students behave in a way that is overly boisterous, rough and disrespectful of both other students and some staff. Staff do not always respond appropriately to this behaviour and academy leaders do not enforce rigorous discipline codes.

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Behaviour

 Too many students arrive at the academy late or are late for lessons and this is not tackled effectively by academy leaders.

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Behaviour

 Despite the poor behaviour of some students, many have good attitudes to learning in lessons, behave well around the academy and are courteous and respectful of other students and of staff.

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Behaviour

 Records of behavioural incidents over time are inadequate. As a result, it is difficult to evaluate the extent to which behaviour in lessons and around the academy has been deteriorating over time.

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Safety

 The academy’s work to keep students safe and secure is inadequate.

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Safety

 Some students, especially younger students, say they do not feel safe in all areas of the academy because of the behaviour of a few students and this is not being tackled urgently by leaders.  Students know where to go for support and, for most of them, this helps them to feel safe. Students know who to talk to if they are bullied and the academy has a number of initiatives to help those who are bullied, including student anti-bullying teams and conflict resolution processes.

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Safety

 Students report racist incidents when they occur and they are confident that the academy will tackle these effectively but low expectations about behaviour mean that these incidents have been too common.

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Safety

 Students’ attendance is not good enough to contribute to effective learning and the link between attendance and learning is not sufficiently emphasised in the academy. Permanent and fixed term exclusions have been increasing. New initiatives have been introduced to support students and improve their attendance and behaviour but they have not yet had an impact.

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Safety

 Academy records and evidence from inspectors’ meetings with students show that the academy provides effective support to many students who experience challenging circumstances in their lives.

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Safety

 Students whose behaviour causes them to be removed from lessons to attend small group or one-to-one provision are not being appropriately supported so that they can improve their behaviour and return swiftly to normal lessons.

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Safety

 The behaviour and safety of students attending off-site provision are not monitored sufficiently to ensure that this provision contributes effectively to their education.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 As a result of weak teaching over time, students and particular groups of students, including the most able students, disabled students and those who have special educational needs and disadvantaged students are not making the progress they should.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Many students enter the academy with weak literacy and numeracy skills and teaching does not improve these skills sufficiently during their time in the academy.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teachers’ assessment of students’ work and their predictions about what they are likely to achieve are inaccurate. The quality of marking and its impact on helping students to improve and take pride in their work are too variable. In some subjects it is having a positive effect but in others it is inadequate and subject leaders do not always model good practice in their own marking.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teachers do not use data about students’ prior attainment to plan lessons that ensure students are doing work that matches their abilities and takes into account what they already know and can do. As a result, the most able students are not challenged sufficiently with work that will stretch them to attain the highest grades and the least able are not always supported with work that allows them to make the progress they should. For example, in a Year 10 mathematics lesson on simultaneous equations, some students were still struggling with basic addition, subtraction and multiplication work so that errors in these basic skills continued.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teaching often fails to engage and challenge students sufficiently to do the very best they can. As a result, some students lose interest and engage in low level disruption, which slows the learning of all students in the class.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Teachers questioning is not sufficiently skilful to encourage students to think hard, practise their oral skills or to probe the extent of students’ understanding of a topic.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Students, even the most able students, are too dependent on teachers to extend and develop their own learning, and are not encouraged to have confidence to work independently.

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The quality of teaching is inadequate

 Despite these weaknesses, many teachers in the academy have good subject knowledge and plan learning well to enable students to make the progress they should. For example, in a Year 10 French lesson, the teacher used well-planned strategies, including questioning, to tackle misconceptions, ensure all students participated in the lesson and made good progress. Most staff have good relations with the majority of their students. The large majority of students have good attitudes to learning and are diligent in seeking to improve their work with the help of their teachers.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Students’ achievement is consistently below minimum expectations and shows no improvement. Students join the academy with levels of skills that are well below the national average. By the time they leave, they have made inadequate progress in English and mathematics and many other subjects. Only 25% of Year 11 students gained five or more GCSEs, including English and mathematics, at grades C or above.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Disadvantaged students made inadequate progress in English and mathematics in 2014. In GCSE English, disadvantaged students attained almost one grade below other students in the academy and over one and a half grades below other students nationally. In GCSE mathematics, disadvantaged students attained almost one and a half grades below other students in the academy and over two and a half grades below other students nationally. The gaps in achievement between disadvantaged students and other students are not narrowing.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Disabled students and those who have special educational needs are not making the progress they should or reaching the standards they are capable of. The academy’s support for most of these students is not good enough.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 A majority of students enter the academy with literacy and numeracy skills that are well below the national average. Recent strategies to improve literacy are having a positive impact on the reading and spelling ages of those students who have been targeted for support. However, in general, students’ communication and mathematics skills are not sufficiently strong to assist them to succeed in the next stage of their education, training or employment.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 The most able students achieve better than middle and lower ability students in the academy. Overall, the standards they reach are in line with the national average. However, not all of the most able students make the progress they should in English and mathematics and too few make more than expected progress in these subjects. Previous use of early entry GCSE has not limited the attainment of the most able students.

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The achievement of pupils is inadequate

 Provision for students who attend classes away from the academy site is not good enough to enable most of these students to successfully develop appropriate skills for the next steps in their adult lives.

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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 139536 Local authority Telford and Wrekin Inspection number 461415

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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 11–16 Gender of pupils Mixed Number of pupils on the school roll 407 Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Barbara Williams Principal Trevor Goddard Date of previous school inspection not previously inspected as an academy Telephone number 01952 387400 Fax number 01952 387444 Email address trevor.goddard@taw.org.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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