Setting

Mrs Elaine Tasker Headteacher Prince Bishop School Saltersgill Avenue Middlesbrough TS4 3JS

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Prince Bishop School

Following my visit to your school on 17–18 November 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 your staff gave me during the inspection and for the time that was made available to discuss the actions, which have been taken since the school’s previous monitoring inspection.

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Prince Bishop School

The inspection was the fourth monitoring inspection since the school became subject to special measures following the inspection which took place in September 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 Prince Bishop School

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

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The school is taking effective action towards the removal of special

The school may not appoint newly qualified teachers before the next monitoring inspection. Ofsted

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The school is taking effective action towards the removal of special

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.ofsted.gov.uk 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 and the Director of Children’s Services for Middlesbrough.

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place in September 2014

 Improve the quality of teaching and learning so that it is consistently good and enables all students, in all subjects, to be challenged in their learning and reach their full potential by ensuring that: – teachers take full account of what each student already knows and can do when planning lessons so that tasks and activities progressively build and extend students’ knowledge and skills – marking and feedback to students is consistently good and students respond to corrections and use the advice to inform future work – the approach to the teaching of literacy and numeracy in all areas of the curriculum is rigorous and effective to enable students to apply and develop their reading, writing and mathematical skills – regular moderation of teachers’ assessments takes place to improve the rigour and accuracy of assessment throughout the school.  Improve students’ behaviour and safety by: – ensuring regular and effective training of staff to improve the way students’

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place in September 2014

behaviour is managed and responded to – ensuring behavioural incidents are dealt with in a measured and reasonable way, particularly when the use of physical restraint may be required and that incidents are logged swiftly and evaluated thoroughly in order to bring about improvements to benefit students and staff – increasing attendance by setting ambitious targets and working closely with students, their parents, and other agencies, to achieve them.  Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management, including the governing body, by: – rigorously monitoring the school’s work relating to students’ safety, behaviour and attendance – rigorously monitoring the quality of teaching and students’ achievement−ensuring the information gathered is used to provide an accurate self-evaluation of how well the school is performing and taking prompt action to tackle concerns that arise – producing an improvement plan that is clearly understood by all staff and that

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place in September 2014

effects rapid and sustainable change in those areas where improvement is urgently required – making sure all the additional funding the school receives for disadvantaged students is used effectively and that the requirement to publish a report of the impact of this funding for parents is met – ensuring that performance management is rigorous and linked to a coherent approach to the training and development of staff in order to improve students’ progress – ensuring the curriculum has breadth and balance and is kept under regular review to ensure that it is well matched to students’ needs and prepares them well for life and work in modern Britain.

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place in September 2014

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

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place in September 2014

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

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Evidence

Regular meetings were held between the lead inspector and the deputy headteacher throughout the two-day inspection to discuss aspects of leadership and management, and any issues emerging from the inspection. Separate discussions were held with the Chair of the Governing Body, two senior officers from the local authority, the school’s link local authority officer and an external mentor who has been supporting the deputy headteacher during the headteacher’s extended absence from school. A range of documents relating to the work of the school were read and evaluated. During the inspection, the deputy headteacher joined the lead inspector in visiting almost every class in the school. Nine part-lessons were observed, four separately by the lead inspector. Each observation included a detailed review of pupils’ workbooks, particularly in English and mathematics, along with a review of teachers’ notes for the individual lessons observed.

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Context

The former interim acting deputy headteacher has been appointed as the full-time deputy headteacher, and has been acting as the senior lead member of staff. Two permanent assistant headteachers have been appointed, with one already in post and the other starting in January 2016. Two teaching and learning responsibility posts, one in English and one in mathematics, are now in place.

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Context

One teacher left at the end of the summer term and another left the school at the end of October. One long-term supply teacher also left the school at the end of the week prior to this inspection visit. One other member of staff has been absent for the past three weeks. Currently, there is a long-term supply teacher for physical education, one supply teacher for science and one supply teacher for mathematics. There are also six supply teaching assistants working in the school on a long-term basis.

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Outcomes for pupils

The achievement of pupils at the school remains patchy. For example, no pupils completing Key Stage 4 last year achieved five or more A* to C grades in GCSE, with English and mathematics. Two pupils did achieve a good grade in art, but elsewhere the pupils generally achieved the lowest GCSE grades available. The school is rightly more optimistic for the cohort in 2016. For the first time in the school’s recent history, leaders predict there will be a very small number of pupils gaining five or more good grades in GCSE examinations, which will include English and mathematics. Elsewhere across the school, the pace of learning is beginning to increase, particularly in English and, to a lesser extent, in mathematics. School- generated data indicate that many more pupils than in previous years, across all year groups, are now making the expected rate of progress in English and mathematics. However, those pupils who started the school with above-average

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Outcomes for pupils

attainment in Key Stages 2 and 3 are still underachieving.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment

The school is making slow but steady improvement in this area because senior staff are continuing to challenge all teachers to improve their practice. Additionally, the quality of external specialist support, commissioned by the local authority, is also contributing to a more consistent and improving quality of teaching. The success of this external support is most noticeable in English where, alongside the new subject leader's guidance, staff are showing a far greater understanding of what makes for challenging and interesting lessons. However, teaching of this quality is not yet being replicated consistently across the whole school curriculum. Although teachers’ marking of pupils’ work is also improving, it remains too variable in quality and usefulness across the school. There are some very good examples of effective feedback and marking in English, where teachers not only mark the pupils’ work on

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment

a regular basis, but also provide focused and regular opportunities for the pupils to respond to their comments. This is helping to improve the overall quality and presentation of the pupils’ work, and is contributing significantly to an improved rate of progress for these pupils, at both Key Stages 3 and 4.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment

The role and effectiveness of the teaching assistants remains an issue for the school. Although teaching assistants make a positive contribution to managing the challenging behaviour of some pupils, too many still have an insufficiently focused role in relation to the support of pupils’ learning in lessons.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment

The school is beginning to develop a more robust process for regularly collecting information about the pupils’ progress in all subjects. A recently developed assessment process for writing, based on a series of school-generated statements and criteria, is helping teachers to gather accurate information about the pupils’ progress in all aspects of writing. Although the staff who lead on this school-based initiative recognise that more developmental work is needed, it is beginning to provide a very useful structure for teachers in all curricular areas to develop assessment techniques and strategies, following the withdrawal of National Curriculum subject levels.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

The school continues to make overall progress in improving the behaviour and safety of its pupils. However, as in previous inspection visits to the school, there remains a small but significant group of pupils, almost exclusively in the current Year 11, who occasionally exhibit extreme and very challenging behaviour. This takes up far too much valuable teaching time dealing with this deliberate anti-social behaviour. During this visit, for example, pupils in a Year 11 science lesson displayed a very disrespectful and occasionally aggressive manner towards the adults in the class. Their constant use of expletives, directed at the class teacher and deliberately meant for the ears of the inspector, showed a high level of disrespect for the rules, values and ethos of the school. Furthermore, it had a significantly adverse effect on their progress in the lesson and their ability to be more positive in their attitudes to the

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

school and the staff who work with them. The lead inspector also observed a group of Year 11 pupils returning from a visit to the local community, where one pupil was openly smoking as he walked towards the main reception entrance, standing immediately outside and continuing to smoke. This occurred because of a failure by the accompanying staff to supervise the pupils adequately during their return to the school.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

In other areas of the school, there is now much better supervision of the pupils, both in lessons and in the transition from one lesson to another. Although the vast majority of staff are more confident and competent in dealing with challenging behavioural outbursts, there are still a few who have yet to master the art of de- escalation, so that such disruptions have a minimal influence on other pupils and their learning.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management

The overall effectiveness of leadership and management continues to improve. The recent restructuring of senior leadership within the school has been affected by the long-term absence of the headteacher. The recent full-time appointments of key leadership posts at deputy and assistant headteacher levels, together with the new senior subject leaders in English and mathematics, have added greater experience and expertise to the senior leadership team.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management

The deputy headteacher has retained a tight focus on all improvement areas during the absence of the headteacher. These actions have been more at an operational rather than an overarching strategic level. This has brought about added work pressure on this member of staff.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management

The school’s post-Ofsted action plan continues to build upon the actions taken immediately after the previous inspection. The range of priorities and actions within the plan remain relevant, although the strategy for gathering updated progress information for all these improvement areas is not always made sufficiently clear in either governing body or senior leadership team meetings and minutes.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management

Governance continues to improve. There have been further changes to the composition of the governing body and, with the exception of one local authority representative, all members are new to post since the previous inspection. Overall, the governing body has a good range of experience and expertise. Governors’ developing roles and range of individual responsibilities effectively complement the restructuring of senior leadership within the school. Safeguarding procedures remain secure.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management

The most recent self-evaluation of the school’s current provision is broadly accurate, with the exception of the overgenerous grade for pupils’ outcomes. The current underperformance of Key Stage 4 pupils means that this is still an area that has yet to improve significantly.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management

The quality of the curricular provision continues to improve, but senior leaders recognise that further improvements are needed, not least in some key areas such as careers education.

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External support

The external support provided by local authority officers and external consultants is helping the school to make progress in key areas. The quality of this work now ensures that senior leaders, including governors and senior local authority officers, have a clear overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the school, and the urgent actions that need to be taken in order to help it make the necessary progress.

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