Coritani Academy

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

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Mr Dave Flowitt Principal Coritani Academy Henderson Avenue Scunthorpe North Lincolnshire DN15 7RW

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

Following my visit to the school on 20 September 2017 with Sara Roe, Ofsted Inspector, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to report the inspection findings. The visit was the first short inspection carried out since your predecessor school was judged to be good in March 2014.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the last inspection. You and your leadership team have a very clear understanding of the strengths and areas in need of further development of your school. Your vision and future plans for the school clearly demonstrate your pathway to improvement.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

You have brought about many changes since taking up post in 2015. For example, you have developed your own effective curriculum, in place of work set by pupils’ home schools. You have also introduced qualified teachers to be responsible for different areas of the curriculum.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

The school improvement plan accurately prioritises changes which need to be made to further improve the school. Targets set to improve staff performance are very closely linked to the improvement plan, ensuring that improvement is brought about by everyone in the school.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

Staff clearly share your vision and values. Those spoken to said how proud they were to work for the school. A comment made by one summed up the feeling of others: ‘Our whole school is based on developing spiritual, moral, social and cultural values and the well-being of students and staff’. Staff enthusiasm for ensuring that the needs of all pupils are met shines through all that they do. Staff were clear that the support that they receive from senior leaders and their peers enables them to contribute to making the school the best it can be. Pupils often arrive at school at times other than the start of the school year. Most remain dual registered with their home schools. They are often very disillusioned with school and some have not attended school for a considerable period of time. Once they settle into the caring environment which your school provides, they quickly learn how to succeed at learning again.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

The regular checks you make on pupils’ progress across the school show that pupils overall are making good progress from their different starting points. Your use of key stage 2 information to help you to set aspirational targets for pupils enables you to measure how quickly pupils are catching up on previously missed time.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

You and your staff are very proud of the examination results achieved by the Year 11 pupils who left last year. Their results in mathematics and English were very close to or exceeded those expected nationally. This, considering some pupils arrived in Year 11, represents very good progress from low starting points. Pupils made less good progress in science overall because the quality of provision was not as good as in other subjects.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

Teaching and support staff work closely together to ensure that planned work meets the needs of all pupils. Support staff, who are called assistant teachers, have a very flexible approach. Should a pupil be distressed or have had difficulties at home, they will quickly re-organise their work schedule in order to support those with the greatest need.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

Your very clear focus on addressing pupils’ additional needs, particularly mental health needs, enables staff to help pupils to reduce the barriers they face. You consistently support pupils and help them to learn how to manage their own anger and frustration. This has contributed significantly to the calm atmosphere and very positive behaviour of pupils.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

You, other senior leaders and staff have developed strong relationships with parents and pupils’ families. Those spoken to during the inspection spoke warmly of the way in which staff support pupils and their families. The introduction of a reward system which allows staff to send messages to parents and to award pupils points at very regular intervals has contributed significantly to parents’ peace of mind. This reward system has also contributed to pupils’ very good behaviour across the school.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

The school is a member of Isle Education Trust, a multi-academy trust. The trust has supported the school well on its continued journey to improvement. Leaders have received support in delivering safeguarding, human resources services and support in improvements in the quality of teaching and learning. This well-targeted support has contributed to school improvement overall.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

The newly formed management committee is beginning to offer you and your leadership team effective support as well as challenge. However, no chair has yet been appointed for the committee and nor has their role in bringing about future improvement been defined. Safeguarding is effective.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

You and the leadership team are passionate about the need to safeguard pupils. As a result, safeguarding practice and principles are threaded through all that the school does. Safeguarding practices and protocols meet statutory requirements. Records and confidential information are maintained safely and appropriately and written records are of a good standard.

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Short inspection of Coritani Academy

Leaders and staff are clear about how safeguarding underpins the work of the school and how keeping children safe is a key priority for all. The regularly updated training, provided for all staff, has ensured that they are knowledgeable about what to do in the event of an incident occurring. Pupils explained clearly how the school keeps them safe and ensures that they know how to keep safe outside school, particularly when using the internet.

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Inspection findings

 A focus of our visit was to evaluate the progress made by pupils from their starting points and to see whether the strong progress made in English and mathematics in 2016 had continued in 2017. You were clearly very pleased with the progress made by pupils who left Year 11 last year. They started at different times in Years 10 and 11 and from very different starting points. However, all obtained a GCSE in mathematics and nearly all obtained a GCSE in English. This represents very strong progress from pupils’ starting points.  A further key focus was the progress of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities as well as disadvantaged pupils. You confirmed to us that you do not receive pupil premium funding for your cohort of disadvantaged pupils. However, this does not deter you in your efforts to ensure that this group of pupils are supported to make equally good progress as their peers nationally.

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Inspection findings

 An increasing number of pupils are joining the school with an education, health and care plan. Your staff are well trained and are adept at recognising and supporting the needs of these pupils. As a result, the progress they make is close to that of their peers and others nationally.  A further key line of enquiry was the compliance of the school’s website. When both I and the team inspector tried at different time to access the website to check compliance, several areas appeared to be inaccessible. When we looked at the website with you at the school, you were able to demonstrate that all areas were easily accessed. The website clearly showed full compliance with Department for Education requirements. Trust leaders have been informed and are looking into this matter.

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Inspection findings

 Pupils’ behaviour and attendance were a further line of enquiry for the inspection. Your information showed clearly that the attendance of individual pupils nearly always improves when they join the school. Many have low attendance levels when they start school, but often reach attendance levels close those expected nationally after a short settling-in period. You have set the overall attendance goal close to the national average and at the time of the inspection, attendance levels were very close to this.  Pupils’ behaviour improves when they settle into the calm atmosphere of the school. Your reluctance to use physical intervention is clear and has contributed to pupils’ understanding of the need to develop strategies to manage their own behavioural difficulties. The vast majority have successfully achieved this and it is clearly evidenced in the low levels of recorded incidents of difficult behaviour over

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Next steps for the school

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that:

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Next steps for the school

 rigorous monitoring of the quality of learning is carried out in science in order to accelerate pupils’ progress in this subject  the role the management committee plays in bringing about further improvement to the school is further developed by electing a chair for the committee and developing a clear plan of action for improvement.

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Next steps for the school

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

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Information about the inspection

During this inspection, the inspection team met with you and your senior leadership team. We held meetings with staff, pupils and members of the management committee, as well as representatives from the academy trust. I also met with two parents and took into account views expressed in parents’ comments made by text message.

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Information about the inspection

The inspection team observed learning in classrooms across the school and looked at work in pupils’ books. We also scrutinised a range of safeguarding and other documents relating to pupils’ behaviour and the curriculum.

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