Setting

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 4234 www.gov.uk/ofsted

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Mr L Bell The Rubicon Centre Raincliffe Street Selby North Yorkshire YO8 4AN

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Requires improvement: monitoring inspection visit to The Rubicon Centre

Following my visit to your school on 26 September 2016, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. Thank you for the help you gave me and for the time you made available to discuss the actions you are taking to improve the school since the most recent section 5 inspection.

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Requires improvement: monitoring inspection visit to The Rubicon Centre

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in December 2015. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

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Requires improvement: monitoring inspection visit to The Rubicon Centre

Senior leaders and the management committee are not taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the last section 5 inspection in order to become a good school.

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Requires improvement: monitoring inspection visit to The Rubicon Centre

The school should take action to improve the quality and urgency of the school’s work by:

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Requires improvement: monitoring inspection visit to The Rubicon Centre

 making explicit in school plans the difference that actions are intended to make to pupils  ensuring that leaders’ checks on the quality of the school’s work are finely focused on identifying the difference they are making to pupils’ learning  keeping governors fully informed so that they have an accurate view of the impact of the school’s work to raise standards and quicken pupils’ progress, and are better able to hold staff to account.

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Evidence

During the inspection, meetings were held with you and the deputy headteacher, teachers, a representative of the local authority and a governor representing the management committee to discuss the actions taken since the last inspection. I also met with pupils. I evaluated the school’s planning for improvement and a range of documents were scrutinised including the school’s records relating to staff recruitment.

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Main findings

After a positive initial start to tighten procedures relating to the recruitment of teachers, and implementing a common format for teachers to plan their lessons, progress towards tackling the areas requiring improvement has stalled. School plans do not present a convincing picture of how the school intends to improve pupils’ academic outcomes, or what difference they will make to pupils, despite this being a priority following the inspection over two terms ago.

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Main findings

Your weekly checks of lesson plans have led to more consistency in teachers following the school’s procedures. Consequently, lessons are structured around clear objectives for learning in each lesson. Pupils now know what they are to do and what they will be learning in lessons. However, the targets that pupils are provided with are largely concerned with improving their behaviour and rarely have anything to do with academic achievement.

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Main findings

Checks on the quality of teaching are not analysed or evaluated well to provide insights into the strengths and weaknesses in pupils’ performance or information about the effect that additional support has in helping them to catch up. Consequently, leaders are not able to identify the next steps to improve the impact of teaching, learning and assessment on outcomes for pupils. High expectations, in the form of clear learning targets and systems to track pupils’ progress towards achieving them, are underdeveloped. Throughout the last two terms considerable additional support has continued to be provided to pupils to help them catch up in their reading, writing and mathematics. While there are signs that middle leaders are starting to discuss the impact that support has on individual pupils, this information is not drawn together well enough.

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Main findings

Governors have not been kept sufficiently informed about the school’s work. Weaknesses in the school plan and in leaders’ monitoring and analysis of progress information have contributed to this. For example, samples of the headteacher’s report to governors, evaluated during this inspection, found no references to the progress of pupils. Members of the management committee are not fully aware of the performance of pupils, or the rate at which they are to improve.

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Main findings

Her Majesty’s Inspector has serious concerns about the sufficiency of the actions being taken by the school and was unable to meet with the full management committee. Ofsted will return to the school as soon as possible under section 8 of the Education Act 2005 to do so and, where necessary, provide further support and challenge to the school until its next section 5 inspection.

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External support

The local authority’s review of safeguarding arrangements helped the school to strengthen procedures to keep pupils safe. Links with a good or better school have yet to be arranged. It is recommended that this is done swiftly in order to support leaders and the management committee in developing sharper systems for evaluating the impact of teaching and learning on pupils’ progress.

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External support

I am copying this letter to the chair of the management committee, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children’s services for North Yorkshire. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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