Setting

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

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Mrs Sherree Watkins-McGirl Queensbury School Wood End Road Erdington Birmingham West Midlands B24 8BL

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Requires improvement: monitoring inspection visit to Queensbury School

Following my visit to your school on 19 July 2017, 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 Queensbury School

The visit was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to require improvement following the section 5 inspection in January 2016. It was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005.

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Requires improvement: monitoring inspection visit to Queensbury School

Senior leaders and governors are taking effective action to tackle the areas requiring improvement identified at the recent section 5 inspection in order to become a good school.

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Requires improvement: monitoring inspection visit to Queensbury School

The school should take further action to:

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Requires improvement: monitoring inspection visit to Queensbury School

 maintain the recently improved pace of improvement by making sure that further improvement priorities have a clear focus aligned to your self- evaluation, so that the impact of these actions can be evidenced and evaluated clearly

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Requires improvement: monitoring inspection visit to Queensbury School

 embed further the systems for monitoring the quality of teaching and learning so that the impact on the progress and attainment of groups of pupils can be increased and any differences in the amount of progress they are making are diminished  consolidate the leadership staffing structure so that middle leaders have a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities

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Requires improvement: monitoring inspection visit to Queensbury School

 ensure that the interim executive board (IEB) checks the content of the school’s website regularly to ensure that it includes specific information required by the Department for Education.

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Evidence

During the inspection, I held meetings with you and other senior leaders, members of the IEB and the district lead for the Birmingham Education Partnership (BEP) to discuss the actions taken, and their impact, since the last inspection. The quality of school improvement plans and self-evaluations was evaluated. The single central record was checked to ensure that all newly appointed staff had been suitably recruited and vetted since the last inspection. I made short visits to lessons, accompanied by the acting deputy headteacher. I looked at a range of school documentation including IEB minutes, school advisers’ reports, monitoring records and progress information.

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Context

Significant changes have taken place since the last Ofsted inspection in January 2016. Before an external review of governance could take place, the local authority made the decision to remove the governing body and put to place an IEB. You continue to be acting headteacher due to the substantive headteacher’s continued absence. You have been supported well by the IEB, which has enabled you to make additional temporary appointments to the leadership team. Several staff left the school last year but staffing this year is now more stable. You have not yet recruited an English leader.

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Main findings

You, other leaders and members of the IEB, with effective external support, are making sure that actions are now leading to whole-school improvements. These improvements have gathered momentum since the appointment of the new chair of the IEB. There is now a shared focus and drive for further improvement in all areas of the school’s work. The skilled and committed members of the IEB make sure that leaders are held to account for the school’s outcomes. They visit the school regularly and have led additional working parties to focus on specific priorities for development. Expectations of leaders are high. Leaders and board members share the strategic vision for the school and a drive for ‘getting to good’. A new website for the school has been developed, but the IEB has not yet made sure that all the information, as required by the Department for Education, is published on it.

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Main findings

You and other leaders have now created an open, shared school culture where everyone is working towards a common purpose to ensure the best outcomes for pupils. Your focus on the ‘three Cs’ – communication, collaboration and community  is now the driving force for your next steps of improvement. Your model of distributed leadership means that other senior and middle leaders are more accountable for their areas of responsibility, and have a better understanding of the focus for improvement. You and members of the IEB recognise that further restructuring needs to take place to make sure that leaders’ roles and responsibilities are defined clearly, and that their efforts are focused on future priorities for the school.

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Main findings

You have developed suitable systems for monitoring pupils’ progress from their starting points. Teachers now have a better understanding of this and use this information to plan their lessons more effectively. This means that work is more closely matched to pupils’ abilities. Your shared ‘seven steps to successful learning’ set clear expectations for all staff in every lesson. Information provided by the school shows that the majority of teaching and learning is good and improving. Pupils are interested in lessons and can talk about what they have learned. In most subjects, disadvantaged pupils are performing better than their non-disadvantaged peers. However, this is not the case in English at key stage 4. You recognise that overall there is still work to do in diminishing the difference between the attainment of different groups of pupils through closer monitoring of the impact of teaching and learning on these groups.

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Main findings

You have seen both significant improvement and accelerated progress of pupils in mathematics. This is because you have used an external specialist leader of education (SLE) in mathematics to good effect. The SLE has supported the subject leader and other staff to improve the planning and teaching of mathematics. Staff have received additional training and are now able to identify gaps in pupils’ mathematical learning and address them effectively.

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Main findings

You have ensured that safeguarding continues to have a high profile in school. Procedures and practices to keep pupils safe from harm are known by all staff and are followed in a consistent and timely way. Detailed child protection records are kept and concerns are followed up in a systematic way. You now use one integrated system for monitoring safeguarding, behaviour and attendance. This enables you to have a clear picture of any patterns or weaknesses in these areas and you can act on these accordingly.

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Main findings

You have made sure that regular attendance is a high priority and interventions this year have led to improvements in attendance overall. A variety of case studies indicate how specific actions have made a difference to improving the attendance of some pupils who did not attend school regularly. Fewer pupils are now late for school. Your work to promote good relationships with parents is also having a positive impact on pupils’ attendance because parents now understand why it is important that their child attends school regularly, so that learning time is not lost. While attendance has improved, you recognise that there is more to do and your challenging attendance target reflects this. Following the last inspection, the school’s action plan focused appropriately on the identified areas for improvement. You reviewed the progress made towards reaching the targets set, along with the impact these actions had. Following a

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Main findings

recent self-evaluation, you have now developed a new school improvement plan. However, your self-evaluation is overly descriptive and does not precisely evaluate the impact of actions taken by leaders on key areas of improvement. As a result, your school improvement plan is not fully aligned with your self-evaluation. Some success criteria are not measurable so it is difficult to judge the extent of improvement in some areas.

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External support

The local authority has commissioned the BEP to facilitate and monitor school improvement work. The Brays Specialist Teaching Alliance provides a school improvement adviser to work in partnership with leaders to address improvement priorities. The BEP district lead meets with leaders regularly to make sure that the support is fit for purpose, and monitors the progress the school is making. He recognises that the pace of change has increased recently and that leaders and the IEB are driven to improving the school further. The IEB ensures that external support is aligned with the school’s improvement priorities. This ensures that there is a consistent and agreed approach to ongoing school improvement. The school would benefit from continued support and oversight from the BEP.

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External support

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

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