Nightingale Community Academy

Nightingale School Beechcroft Road, Tooting, London SW17 7DF

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Overall effectiveness Inadequate

Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

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Overall effectiveness Inadequate

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

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Overall effectiveness Inadequate

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

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Overall effectiveness Inadequate

Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Good

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This is an inadequate school

 Leaders and governors have not ensured that pupils attend regularly or are able to learn and make progress. Recent improvements to how leaders monitor teaching and track pupils’ progress have yet to improve standards.  Leaders and governors have an inaccurate view of the school’s effectiveness. When serious concerns have been identified, they have not addressed them with sufficient urgency.  Teaching, learning and assessment are inadequate because teaching does not engage pupils’ interest. Not all teachers use assessment information to help them plan appropriate learning activities. Literacy and numeracy are not reinforced in all lessons. This leads to high levels of disruption to pupils’ learning and their significant underachievement.  Many pupils make slow progress from their different starting points in most curriculum subjects. The standards they achieve by the end of Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 are not as high as

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This is an inadequate school

they should be.  Behaviour is inadequate. Many pupils have very poor attitudes towards their learning, attend very infrequently and are often late. Some spend little time in lessons because they are able to leave without any consequences being applied. The resulting high levels of disruption prevent staff from focusing on learning.  The number of exclusions and serious behaviour incidents remains high. When improvements have been made, they have not been sustained.  Personal development and welfare are inadequate because pupils are not benefiting from the care and support that is available to them. Pupils either fail to engage with this support or are unable to apply what they have learned. Few accept responsibility for their own actions and attitudes.  The sixth form is inadequate because many learners fail to attend and are not prepared well for their next steps or future employment.

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The school has the following strengths

 The school’s procedures for safeguarding, including child protection arrangements, are effective.  Staff work closely and effectively with other professionals and agencies to support pupils and their families.

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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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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve teaching so that pupils can make good or better progress in all subjects, including in the sixth form, by: ensuring that all teachers use accurate assessment information to plan activities that take account of pupils’ different starting points, interests and skills, and that promote more positive attitudes towards learning providing opportunities to develop pupils’ skills in literacy and numeracy in many subjects and activities ensuring that pupils improve their attitudes and behaviours so that teaching assistants can be used more effectively to promote learning.  Improve pupils’ outcomes throughout the school by ensuring that more of them make accelerated progress towards aspirational targets and achieve more highly at the end of key stages.  Improve the personal development, behaviour and welfare of pupils by: ensuring that all persistent absence and lateness is challenged and supported so that attendance in all

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

year groups improves, especially for learners in the sixth form ensuring that all staff apply and model the school’s agreed behaviour policies and procedures in a consistent manner putting systems in place to address poor behaviour and reduce the number of temporary and permanent exclusions ensuring that pupils spend more time in lessons and understand what the consequences will be if they choose to leave encouraging pupils to accept more responsibility for their own attitudes and behaviours.  Improve leadership and management by: raising aspirations throughout the school so that pupils attend and behave appropriately, make good or better progress and achieve well ensuring that leaders use accurate assessment information to check the progress of all groups of pupils, including pupils who are disadvantaged, the most-able or those who receive additional funding monitoring the quality of teaching, learning and assessment more closely so that any necessary

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

improvements are made quickly taking account of all the available evidence when evaluating the effectiveness of the school and ensuring that the information shared with governors allows them to test the accuracy of leaders’ evaluations more robustly ensuring that the breadth and balance of subjects, together with the individual pathways offered in Key Stages 4 and 5, are closely tailored to meet pupils’ needs and lead to outcomes that will help them be successful when they leave the school. An external review of governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and governance may be improved. An external review of the school’s use of the pupil premium should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and governance may be improved.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

 Leadership is inadequate because leaders, including governors, have not tackled the decline in the school’s effectiveness quickly enough. Leaders are overly generous in their evaluations of progress, attendance and behaviour. They do not demonstrate the capacity to drive improvement because, even when alerted to serious concerns, they consider the school to be securely good.  Although senior leaders are able to judge the quality of teaching accurately, this is not being monitored closely enough. Consequently, their evaluation of teaching and learning over time is inaccurate and not supported by the evidence in pupils’ books or the amount of progress pupils are making.  When improvements have been made, any impact has not been accurately evaluated or built on. For example, leaders have carried out considerable work with staff to promote restorative approaches when managing behaviour. However, the behaviour policy is not clear on what actions to take and how. This

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

has resulted in staff dealing with challenging behaviours in an inconsistent manner throughout the school.  Leaders do not have high enough expectations regarding pupils’ outcomes. A new system for tracking the progress pupils make in all curriculum subjects was introduced this year. This provides leaders with helpful information but demonstrates that pupils are currently making very poor progress compared with their peers in other schools. Leaders have failed to recognise this or take appropriate action.  There are no systems in place to help leaders evaluate how well pupils are developing personally, socially or emotionally. Leaders do not check how well different groups of pupils are doing, including disadvantaged pupils, those who are looked after or those from minority ethnic groups. This means that leaders and governors do not know if additional interventions are making a difference or if there are any

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

issues relating to the equality of provision that they need to address.  The monitoring of attendance and behaviour incidents is haphazard and unreliable. Leaders have shared an unrealistic view of these areas of concern with governors. Governors have therefore not challenged them to make improvements quickly enough.  The current curriculum does not promote high levels of engagement or attendance. Many pupils leave the school with poor outcomes. This limits what they can go on to study and restricts employment opportunities.  Senior leaders can articulate a clear vision for the school. Recent appointments to the senior team are well placed to create more capacity to make the necessary improvements. However, not all stakeholders either share their vision or understand how to implement it successfully. Leaders themselves have recognised that more needs to be done to engage parents and raise their aspirations.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

 Leaders ensure that appropriate social, moral, spiritual and cultural values are reinforced whenever possible. Their efforts to prepare pupils for life in modern Britain are being undermined by the poor attitudes and behaviours that persist.  Leaders are developing more effective systems for monitoring the use of alternative education providers. Pupils’ attendance and progress are reported to the school by the providers on a regular basis. When concerns about attendance and engagement are raised, they are followed up.  There are appropriate systems for managing staff performance. Teachers are asked to evaluate pupils’ progress at meetings following half-termly assessments. However, these systems have not had a sustained impact on raising standards. The accuracy of assessments made by teachers has still to be externally checked, and arrangements for this are at an early stage.  Local authority officers have undertaken a thorough review of the school’s effectiveness and carried out a

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

full safeguarding audit since September 2015. School leaders are currently being provided with weekly support from a consultant employed by the local authority. However, leaders and governors have been slow to act on the review’s findings and the concerns raised about the school’s effectiveness. They have preferred to rely on their own judgements and those of earlier reviews to inform their evaluations. In contrast, the recommendations made in the rigorous safeguarding audit have been acted on.  The governance of the school Governors provide a wide variety of professional experience and leadership skills which they use to support the school. They visit regularly and provide strong support to leaders to help them improve the quality of teaching and learning across the school. They have also helped to strengthen business and administration arrangements. Governors have correctly identified that the available tracking information does not help them assess

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

the quality of progress being made by all pupils. They are aware that leaders need to provide better evidence of academic progress to support their judgements. However, they were unaware that attendance and behaviour incidents had not improved to the extent that they had been told. The governing body knows how all additional funding is being spent. Governors monitor closely how the pupil premium, primary sports funding and the Year 7 catch-up funds are being used to benefit particular pupils. However, they are not tracking the performance of these pupils closely enough to ensure that any gaps in their performance are identified and closed. Therefore they do not know if the additional funds are making a difference. Governors have been too accepting of what they have been told by senior leaders and have formed an over-optimistic view of the school as a whole.  The arrangements for safeguarding are effective. Leaders and governors have ensured that staff undergo

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Effectiveness of leadership and management is inadequate

the required checks before taking up employment at the school. Safeguarding and child protection policies reflect the latest statutory guidance and staff have received regular training in keeping children safe. Comprehensive records demonstrate that leaders work closely with other agencies and the local authority to support more vulnerable pupils and their families. The school site is generally well maintained and safe. Leaders have correctly identified where improvements are needed and are taking action to address these.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is inadequate

 Not enough teaching is consistently good and few pupils make the expected rate of progress in any subject. In many cases, this is due to pupils choosing to leave classes whenever they feel like it. Other pupils fail to attend school at all or join lessons on an infrequent basis.  Teachers benefit from good resources and specialist learning spaces. However, pupils remain largely disengaged from their learning because teaching does not build on their interests or enthusiasms. Learning activities fail to promote positive attitudes. Many pupils and staff consider that there are frequent interruptions to learning. Inspectors agree with this view.  Not all teachers assess the progress being made by pupils accurately or consistently. They are not always aware when progress is less than good because their expectations are too low. Some teachers do not use progress information to plan learning activities that will close gaps in pupils’ understanding. Consequently,

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is inadequate

many pupils, including those who are disadvantaged and those who are most able, underachieve across all key stages.  Teaching assistants are primarily used to manage poor behaviour. They often have to follow pupils when they leave the classroom to keep them safe. This limits how much support pupils get with their learning and further slows the progress they make.  The teaching of literacy and numeracy is not carefully planned or implemented. Opportunities to reinforce skills in reading, writing and communication are frequently missed. Phonics (the sounds that letters make) are not taught regularly in the primary school and pupils are not provided with chances to apply their number skills in other subjects or activities. Literacy and numeracy skills are not constantly reinforced from the start, and this limits how well pupils can achieve when they are older.  Pupils’ books contain very little work. Sometimes teachers write more in books than pupils do.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is inadequate

 New or less experienced staff are supported by their colleagues. For example, subject leaders in the secondary school are helping teachers in the primary school to start to plan more challenging lessons for their pupils.  Some teaching over time is good and helps pupils to make quicker progress.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate. The school has developed a team of therapists and health professionals to help identify pupils’ needs and offer valuable support to families. However, not all pupils engage with this support successfully. For example, some older pupils have been reluctant to attend their sessions on a regular basis.  Pupils build positive relationships with staff because they appreciate the care and consideration they receive from them. However, they often fail to recognise that staff have any authority, and many pupils are reluctant to do as they are requested.  Information, advice and guidance sessions help pupils think about their next steps and raise their aspirations. However, not all pupils benefit from these sessions because they are absent.  Pupils know how to stay safe from bullying, including online bullying and exploitation. They consider that

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Personal development and welfare

any bullying is managed well by staff and expressed few concerns to inspectors.  Pupils enjoy using the primary playroom, the farm and the well-equipped sports areas because they can learn more informally. However, many consider that they can use these areas at will and are therefore reluctant to stay in more formal lessons.  There are currently no systems in place to evaluate how well all pupils benefit from additional interventions to help them become successful learners.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is inadequate. Pupils are not challenged to behave in an acceptable manner by all staff in a consistent manner. Expectations regarding behaviour are too low.  Many pupils attend poorly and are often late, including those attending alternative provision.  Pupils struggle to work with their peers or accept any responsibility for managing their own behaviours.  In the secondary school, there are too many pupils wandering around without direct supervision by adults. Pupils know that they can leave lessons for ‘time out’ with very little consequence or follow up. This leads to wider disruptions to learning because pupils distract their peers in other lessons. For example, the fire alarm is repeatedly set off which requires everyone to evacuate the building, sometimes several times a day.  The number of serious incidents and exclusions remains high. When improvements have been made and

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Behaviour

exclusions have dropped, this has not been maintained.  The number of incidents when staff have to physically intervene or restrain pupils is too high. Although these events are recorded, they are not effectively monitored to establish any flash points and minimise the need for further physical interventions.

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Outcomes for pupils are inadequate

 Many pupils arrive at the school with low attainment and with lots of gaps in their learning. For most, this is the same situation when they leave.  Accurate starting points and targets that take account of age-related expectations are established as soon as pupils join the school. However, the school’s assessment and tracking information shows that very few pupils in any key stage have made the expected amount of progress in any subject so far this year.  Large gaps in literacy and numeracy skills remain and pupils do not make enough progress in these subjects to help them to catch up. In 2015, very few pupils made the expected progress in English from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 4. No pupils made the expected progress in mathematics for the same period.  The school’s leaders do not have secure evidence to demonstrate whether disadvantaged pupils, those from minority groups or those who are most able are performing better than or less well than their peers.

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Outcomes for pupils are inadequate

Inspection evidence shows that many of these pupils make inadequate progress and achieve poorly.  Pupils do not attain highly enough at the end of Key Stages 2, 4 and 5 because teaching and learning has not been effective over time. No pupils in Year 11 achieved five good GCSE examination passes, including English and mathematics, at the end of last year, and only a few achieved five GCSE passes at any grade. Attainment at the end of Key Stage 5 is equally low.  Some pupils in Key Stages 4 and 5 are entered for vocational courses at colleges or alternative education providers that better meet their needs or career aspirations. Outcomes resulting from these programmes of study are positive for those pupils who complete their courses. However, leaders do not evaluate whether all pupils are making good enough progress from their starting points in these courses.  Some pupils may be making better progress in meeting their personal development targets, as

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Outcomes for pupils are inadequate

demonstrated in individual case files. However, leaders do not know how much progress all pupils make over time towards these targets.

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16 to 19 study programmes are inadequate

 The effectiveness of the sixth form is inadequate. Most learners do not attend regularly because teaching has failed to engage them with their learning. Aspirations remain low and limit the amount of progress learners make in the courses they are entered for.  Leaders are unable to present convincing evidence to show that learners are prepared well for their next steps. Some learners do not maintain their placements on other courses or successfully find and maintain employment when they leave the school.  Some learners are enrolled in the sixth form by the local authority, having attended other schools, although most transfer from the school’s Year 11. In many cases, this is because they have refused to attend courses elsewhere or require higher levels of support than other providers can offer. Learners are offered a combination of on-site learning and mentoring, together with work experience and vocational

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16 to 19 study programmes are inadequate

college courses. Some learners have never engaged with anything they have been offered and are effectively not in education, employment or training.  All sixth-form learners are provided with access to English and mathematics tuition. However, this is sometimes at a lower level than they have studied at Key Stage 4 and does not build on the skills and understanding they have already demonstrated.  The leadership of the sixth form has undergone recent changes to take account of unplanned staff absence. Systems for following up pupils’ absence are managed well and include regular home visits and liaison with other agencies. Despite this, actions have still to have an impact on improving levels of engagement for many learners.  The tracking of individual learners’ progress and attainment is monitored using regular information provided by colleges and alternative education providers. However, this is variable in quality and there

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16 to 19 study programmes are inadequate

are no systems in place to monitor progress over time for all learners.

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School details

Unique reference number 131594 Local authority Wandsworth Inspection number 10005547

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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 5–19 Gender of pupils Boys

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programmes

Appropriate authority The governing body Chair Jim Rice Headteacher Julie O’ Sullivan Telephone number 020 8874 9096 Website www.nightingaleschoolwandsworth.co.uk Email address josullivan@nightingale.wandsworth.sch.uk Date of previous inspection 19 – 20 June 2013

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Information about this school

 Nightingale School is a special school for boys with social, emotional and mental health needs. Some also have additional learning difficulties.  All pupils have a statement of special educational needs or an education, health and care plan when they join the school.  The proportion of pupils who are entitled to additional funding, such as the pupil premium or the Year 7 catch-up funding, is high compared with other schools.  The proportion of pupils who are from minority ethnic heritages is larger than most other schools. Nearly all pupils speak English as their first language.  Since the last inspection, the school has appointed a new headteacher and there have been further leadership and staffing changes.  The primary part of the school has now moved to purpose-built facilities on the same site.  Some older pupils and those in the sixth form attend alternative educational provision. This is offered at

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Information about this school

Carlshalton College, South Thames College and Lambeth College. Some also attend the Road 2 Success facilities, which are on the school site.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors visited the teaching and learning activities taking place in primary, secondary and sixth-form classes during the inspection. Nearly all observations were conducted jointly with senior leaders and covered a range of subjects, taught by different teachers.  Meetings were held with senior leaders, the Chair of the Governing Body and two other governors, and with four representatives of the local authority. A telephone conversation took place with the local authority lead officer for special educational needs.  Inspectors spoke to a group of teachers and middle leaders and a group of support staff. They also took account of the views of 35 staff, expressed in the online questionnaire conducted during the inspection.  There were very few responses to Ofsted’s online questionnaire, Parent View, so inspectors took account of the school’s own parental survey and spoke to some parents during the inspection.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors spoke to pupils informally throughout the inspection.  Documentation detailing the school’s work was evaluated by inspectors. This included the school’s self- evaluation and action plans, current pupils’ progress tracking information, behaviour and attendance records and a scrutiny of safeguarding records.

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Inspection team

Lesley Cox, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector Jan Keating Ofsted Inspector guidance 'Raising concerns and making a complaint about Ofsted', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.gov.uk/government/publications/complaints-about-ofsted . 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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Inspection team

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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Inspection team

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.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted

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Inspection team

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, further education and skills, 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. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team,

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Inspection team

The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

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Inspection team

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

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Inspection team

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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