Setting

Mrs Carolyn Barker Acting Headteacher Glendene Arts Academy Crawlaw Road Easington Colliery Peterlee County Durham SR8 3LP

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Glendene Arts Academy

Following my visit with Susan Hayter Her Majesty’s Inspector to your academy on 2 and 3 June 2015, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to confirm the inspection findings. Thank you for the help you gave during the inspection and for the time you made available to discuss the actions which have been taken since the academy’s previous monitoring inspection.

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Glendene Arts Academy

The inspection was the third monitoring inspection since the academy became subject to special measures, following the inspection which took place in June 2014. The full list of the areas for improvement which were identified during that inspection is set out in the annex to this letter. The monitoring inspection report is attached.

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Glendene Arts Academy

Having considered all the evidence I am of the opinion that at this time:

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Glendene Arts Academy

The academy is not making enough progress towards the removal of special measures.

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Glendene Arts Academy

The proprietor’s statement of action is fit for purpose.

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Glendene Arts Academy

Having considered all the evidence I am of the opinion that the academy does not seek to appoint newly qualified teachers.

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Glendene Arts Academy

This letter and monitoring inspection report will be published on the Ofsted website. I am copying this letter and the monitoring inspection report to the Secretary of State, the Chair of the Governing Body, the Corporate Director: Children's and CfBT Inspection Services Suite 22 West Lancs Investment Centre Maple View Skelmersdale WN8 9TG T 0300 123 1231 Text Phone: 0161 6188524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk Direct T 01695 566937 Direct F 01695 729320 Direct email :jsimmons@cfbt.com Adults' Services for Durham and the Department for Education Academies Advisers Unit.

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  Urgently improve the safeguarding of students by: - ensuring that all members of staff and governors are regularly trained in safeguarding and child protection - making sure that all required safe recruitment checks are carried out and recorded on the single central record - completing detailed records about all serious incidents, including where restraint is used, as quickly as possible afterwards - routinely reviewing information about serious incidents by senior leaders and governors to ensure areas for improvement in the academy‘s provision are identified and put in place as quickly as possible - ensuring that the academy’s safeguarding policy is consistently implemented and rigorously monitored.

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 Improve the quality of teaching, including for post-16 students, so that it is at least consistently good and enables all pupils in all subjects to be challenged in their learning and reach their full potential by: - eradicating inadequate teaching - ensuring accurate assessment of pupils’ attainments and progress, including rigorous moderation of teachers’ assessments with other academies is carried out regularly - raising expectations and ensuring that teachers take full account of what each pupil already knows and can do so that activities challenge them - improving the use of assessment and knowledge of how to challenge and increase the progress of the most able pupils and those with the most profound learning difficulties - providing high-quality professional development and training for staff focused on eliminating gaps in subject knowledge, particularly in the teaching of reading, writing and numeracy

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- ensuring that staff understand and implement the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage - improving the academy’s approach to the teaching of phonics (the links between letters and sounds) so that pupils learn new sounds quickly and are given books that allow them to put into practice what they have learned - ensuring there is a rigorous and effective approach to teaching literacy and numeracy in all areas of the curriculum.

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 Improve pupils’ behaviour including their attendance by: - ensuring an up-to-date behaviour policy, with clear sanctions and rewards, is understood by pupils, parents and staff, and is consistently implemented - ensuring that behaviour incidents are rigorously logged and efforts to bring about improvements are evaluated - reporting attendance patterns and information about sanctions, rewards and incidents routinely to governors - increasing attendance through setting ambitious targets, and working closely with the pupils, their parents, and other agencies, to achieve these.

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 Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management by: - rigorously monitoring important aspects of the academy’s work, in particular pupils’ progress and their behaviour, and the quality of teaching so that leaders and managers have a thorough understanding of how well each pupil is learning - ensuring this information is drawn together to provide an accurate self- evaluation of how well the academy is performing and a well-matched improvement plan - making sure all of the pupil premium and primary academy sports funding are used effectively - improving communication of academy leaders and managers, including governors, with other staff so that the policies and developments are implemented consistently and so that morale is improved - ensuring performance management is rigorous and that targets set for teachers are specific and effective to help improve pupils’ progress - ensuring that expectations and responsibilities for leaders at all levels are clear

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and detailed within their job role information.

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 Improve governance by improving communication with parents so that they understand who the governors are and their roles and responsibilities, and are fully involved in and kept up-to-date with academy developments.

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An external review of governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and governance may be improved.

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An external review of the academy’s use of pupil premium should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and governance may be improved.

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Evidence

During this inspection, separate meetings were held with you, those staff responsible for safeguarding and two members from the governing body/trust. The inspectors read and evaluated a range of documents, including information from the academy’s website, the single central record, the safeguarding policy, attendance data and registers, and logs pertaining to behaviour, restraint and bullying. The minutes from the most recent governing body/trust and senior leadership team meetings, the academy’s post-Ofsted action plan, the proprietor’s statement of action and the most up-to-date self-evaluation were also read and evaluated. Inspectors observed the academy in action, including 16 part lessons, in addition to scrutinising a large number of pupils’ and students’ workbooks over the two days.

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Context

The staffing issues prevalent during the first two monitoring inspection visits have now been resolved. A new leadership structure has been completed, with a new director of teaching and learning, working jointly in Glendene and a partner academy, starting in September. There is currently one supply teacher covering a long-term staff absence. The academy business manager is also currently absent due to ill health.

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Achievement of pupils at the academy

While there is some progress in pupils’ and students’ achievement, since the previous inspection, primarily in key literacy and numeracy skills, it is not yet fast enough to ensure that all achieve in line with their known ability. Senior leaders recognise that this underachievement is due to some teaching that is still not good enough and because the collection, analysis and use of ongoing pupil and student assessment information is not yet secure across the whole academy. Inspectors’ scrutiny of pupils’ and students’ workbooks confirms this underachievement, especially where work is over reliant on worksheets that emphasise practice and repetition rather than encouraging deeper understanding of more challenging ideas and concepts.

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The quality of teaching

The academy is making some progress in this area. The acting headteacher continues to identify accurately the strengths and weaknesses in teaching across the whole academy. Other senior leaders, and some governors with educational experience, are also making a positive contribution to evaluating and monitoring the quality of teaching. While there is some good or better teaching, there remains a significant amount which needs to improve more rapidly to aid the better and faster progress of all pupils and students. Teaching of a lower quality is characterised by lesson content which is both unchallenging and not focused sufficiently on improving pupils’ and students’ greater understanding. For example, some work in mathematics requires the students to write out each question fully as a prelude to them answering it. As a result, the pupils and students are making insufficient progress in their learning because they are engaged in unnecessary tasks, which fail

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The quality of teaching

to develop their learning in line with their ability.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

The academy has not made reasonable progress in relation to improving the safeguarding of all its pupils and students.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

There have been improvements in the method for monitoring and responding to attendance issues in the academy. However, other aspects of safeguarding are not progressing at the same rate and these are sufficiently urgent that both senior leaders and governors need to address the identified concerns immediately.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

There are inconsistencies in implementing all aspects of the safeguarding and behaviour policy. For example, during this inspection, some areas of the school lacked adequate supervision at lunchtime despite the policy making it clear how staff should consistently cover all parts of the school, both inside and out. Some staff are not responding to inappropriate behaviour and this means that there is under- recording of incidents, particularly at primary level. Also during this monitoring inspection, inspectors noted the inappropriate use of physical interventions, when more suitable alternatives could and should have been used. Inspectors also saw a student’s movement in a wheelchair was inappropriately restricted by staff in order to control behaviour. This was done with no reference to an approved plan or sanction, which had input from appropriately trained and recognised specialist staff. This restriction limited the student’s ability to be independent and their opportunities

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

There were some safeguarding issues when the pupils and students were leaving the academy at the end of the day. Despite safety issues being raised with the transport providers, and a recent review of safety procedures by an experienced site manager from the Ascent Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) which resulted in an updating of the written guidance, some pupils and students were being guided to buses and taxis on the road immediately outside of the academy, thus having to move in and around parked and moving vehicles.

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Behaviour and safety of pupils

These incidents occurred, in part, because of a failure of senior leaders and managers to consistently monitor all aspects of the safeguarding and behaviour policy consistently.

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The quality of leadership in and management of the academy

Leadership and management continue to improve overall, but some important aspects of monitoring and evaluating the academy’s work in behaviour and safety are not yet fully secure. The changing nature of the senior leadership team since the previous inspection has been helped by redefined roles and responsibilities, which are almost but not yet fully complete. The final adjustments to the senior leadership team will be completed when a director for teaching and learning takes up this post in September.

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The quality of leadership in and management of the academy

The academy’s action plan provides a suitable focus on the key areas for improvement. The acting headteacher continues to lead with authority and a sense of urgency to bring about the necessary changes. The delegation of monitoring and evaluation roles for senior leaders is appropriate. The majority of staff have recognised that decisive action and change are required and they report that morale and confidence in senior leaders and governors have improved significantly from the time when the academy was placed in special measures.

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The quality of leadership in and management of the academy

There have been some significant improvements in governance since the pervious monitoring inspection visit. There is now a proprietor’s statement of action, which is fit for purpose and is being used appropriately to identify key governors to visit the academy to check on specific aspects of provision. Governors write a note of visit (NOV), which helps in holding senior leaders and staff to account for the quality of provision seen. These visits and direct observations of provision are making a positive contribution to the robustness of performance management arrangements. While all NOVs are written to a standard format, some are more evaluative than others and, therefore, give a more precise and accurate overview of the quality of provision seen. Those governors who met with inspectors are aware of the need to continue to improve the rigour and robustness of these visits and NOVs.

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The quality of leadership in and management of the academy

The required external reviews of governance and the academy’s use of pupil premium funding (additional government money) have now been completed. Both reviews have pinpointed important areas for further improvement but, as yet, these have not been included in a revised proprietor’s statement of action.

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The quality of leadership in and management of the academy

The academy has specialist status for the arts and it continues to give a focus to these areas in its curriculum. As in previous monitoring inspections, there is no evidence yet that this specialism is helping to raise standards or improve the overall quality of teaching across the academy.

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External support

The external support from Ascent MAT continues to be proportionate and timely. Impediments to change, evident during the previous two monitoring inspection visits, are disappearing as Glendene Academy moves towards a formal link with the Ascent MAT.

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