SchoolsCompany Central Devon Academy

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

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Daniel Whelan Principal SchoolsCompany Central Devon Academy Falcon Road Exeter Devon EX2 7LB

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Devon Academy

Following my visit with Abigail Staff and Andrew Penman, Ofsted Inspectors, and Nicola Lownds, social care inspector, to your academy on 19–20 September 2017, I write on behalf of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills to confirm the inspection findings.

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Devon Academy

This monitoring inspection was conducted under section 8 of the Education Act 2005 and in accordance with Ofsted’s published procedures for inspecting schools with no formal designation. The inspection was carried out because Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector was concerned about the effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements at the academy.

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Evidence

Inspectors scrutinised documents relating to safeguarding and child protection arrangements. They met with the principal and other senior leaders, the executive principal, parents, teachers and support staff. Meetings took place with the chief executive officer and senior staff from the SchoolsCompany Trust and with the governor with responsibility for safeguarding. A telephone conversation with the local area designated officer for safeguarding took place during the inspection. A wide range of external and internal documentation relating to safeguarding, behaviour and safety was scrutinised. Inspectors also reviewed curriculum and e- safety plans. Other documentation taken into account included a local authority audit of safeguarding, governors’ minutes and pupils’ attendance records. Inspectors spoke informally to small groups of pupils throughout the inspection. They also observed behaviour at the start of the day and during breaktimes and

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Evidence

lunchtimes. Visits to classes, including scrutiny of pupils’ work, were conducted to evaluate pupils’ attitudes to learning. An inspector visited the school’s separate site, the Barrington Street provision. Inspectors spoke with parents on the telephone and had a meeting with a parent of a recent pupil. The school’s own parent view survey results were taken into account.

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Evidence

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

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Context

Central Devon Academy is sponsored by SchoolsCompany, a multi-academy trust. The academy was formed in March 2015, replacing the Devon County Council Pupil Referral Unit (Central Personalised Learning Service). The academy caters for young people between the ages of 4 and 16 years who have been permanently excluded from school, are at risk of permanent exclusion or who have medical needs that require additional support in order to access education. The academy also provides education for a small number of pupils who are placed as a result of exceptional circumstances. The academy provides for pupils from a wide-ranging geographical area that includes Exeter, Tiverton, Exmouth, Sidmouth, Honiton and Crediton. The academy has two main education sites: the Stansfield Centre in Exeter that provides up to 65 full-time places for key stages 1 to 4 pupils, and Barrington Street in Tiverton that provides up to 25 full- and part-time places for key stages 3 and 4

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Context

pupils who either have medical needs or who require highly personalised programmes. There are times during the year when the numbers of pupils suddenly rise due to demand for additional places. Numbers of pupils are usually at their lowest in September at the start of the academic year and peak during January and February.

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Context

Leaders and governors and the trust have recognised that improvements both to the strategic leadership of safeguarding and to safeguarding arrangements are urgently needed. As a result, there have been some very recent changes to improve the organisation of safeguarding across the provision. For example, a number of staff have received extra safeguarding training to improve capacity to manage safeguarding concerns as they arise. New systems for reporting concerns and serious incidents have also been put into place. These improvements have the potential to secure stronger safeguarding practices; however, they are too new to see any discernible impact.

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Context

Staff record information about pupils’ safety and well-being across the school. However, leaders do not analyse and evaluate this information in order to ensure that safeguarding practices are effective. Leaders do not analyse incidents to establish patterns and trends that could help the school to provide support that meets pupils’ needs. Consequently, there are pupils who continue to display unsafe behaviour and to put themselves and others into hazardous situations in and out of school. There is also insufficient oversight and analysis by leaders and managers, leading to a lack of compliance with required safety procedures, such as fire drills and first aid.

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Context

The designated safeguarding lead arranges a range of safeguarding training that takes place throughout the year. She is committed to ensuring that updates are given to anyone who has missed training. However, senior leaders have not ensured that records are updated. As a result, leaders and managers are unable to reliably check that all staff receive the appropriate range of safeguarding training. In addition, leaders do not evaluate the impact of training in order to improve safeguarding practices. As a result, some staff do not apply the safeguarding information to their everyday practice. For example, some staff are unclear about what to look out for regarding pupils at risk of being sexually exploited or at risk of radicalisation.

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Context

The trust is aware that improvements are urgently needed in the management of behaviour across the school and have provided extra support and advice from a senior adviser from within the trust. There is a plan in place to ensure that all staff receive updated professional development in order to improve behaviour management techniques and strategies. At the time of the inspection, around one half of the staff have undertaken this training. Observations around the school and records of serious incidents show that some staff are not suitably skilled to manage the behaviour of pupils effectively. Too often, staff fail to respond appropriately and their interventions serve only to escalate pupils’ challenging behaviour. Police are too frequently contacted to manage behaviour incidents.

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Context

Leaders do not monitor the patterns of poor behaviour to ensure that lessons are learned and improvements are made in order to reduce the frequency and seriousness of incidents. Records show that incidents are not regularly followed up with pupils in order to better understand the triggers and hence to reduce the level of risk and avoid repetition. Although staff report a recent reduction in serious incidents, there are still too many examples of pupils hurting one another and of staff injuries.

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Context

There is insufficient oversight of the reporting of concerns about child protection to the local authority designated officer (LADO). Consequently, some incidents have remained unreported for a significant amount of time, placing pupils at risk of future harm.

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Context

Risk assessments do not provide staff with precise information about the individual needs of pupils or suggest appropriate strategies to minimise risk. The school has not ensured that pupils who are at risk of being exploited have risk assessments in place so that staff are aware of the risks. As a result, staff are not alerted to notice signs of concern regarding these pupils. Assessments used for trips and visits outside school are generic and have not been suitably adapted to ensure that pupils’ specific needs are taken into consideration in order to minimise risks outside school. At breaktimes and lunchtimes, older pupils can leave the school site if given permission to do so from parents. Many choose to do this. There are few, if any, consequences for not returning to school, so pupils often return late to the site and occasionally do not return at all.

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Context

Parents’ views gathered by the school and parents spoken to during the inspection are generally positive about the support their children receive at the school. Many are very pleased with the extra attention given to their children. Parents expressed some concerns about pupils’ lack of interest in lessons, particularly during afternoon sessions for older pupils, which contributes to pupils not returning after lunch. Pupils at the Stansfield site report that they do not enjoy their learning as it does not interest or challenge them and, because of this, they do not want to be at school.

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External support

The support from the trust has not yet secured rigorous checking and scrutiny of safeguarding procedures and practices to ensure an effective culture of safeguarding. The trust has acted appropriately to increase the capacity of leadership, ensuring additional resources, including an executive principal and other senior staff. The trust’s chief executive officer is committed to building a learning network across the trust in order for leaders to share best practice in all areas of school improvement.

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Priorities for further improvement

 Trust leaders, governors and school leaders should act urgently to secure a strong culture of safeguarding by: – establishing a cycle of monitoring activities to rigorously check the effectiveness of safeguarding arrangements, including an analysis of serious incidents, that reduces their frequency and severity – ensuring that incidents of physical intervention by staff are followed up with pupils, staff and parents to make sure that staff develop the least intrusive approach to supporting and enabling pupils to maintain their safety and well- being – improving provision at lunchtimes and afternoons in order to engage pupils in their learning and promote their attendance – improving the quality of risk assessments, including for pupils at risk of sexual exploitation, so that individual pupils’ needs and risks are well understood by staff and their actions reduce risk of harm – ensuring that the systems for recording and reporting child protection

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Priorities for further improvement

concerns are more rigorously and consistently applied and that concerns regarding the safety and well-being of pupils are reported to the LADO in a timely manner – ensuring that all staff receive timely and appropriate safeguarding training and that leaders check the impact of training on everyday practice across the school – urgently ensuring that all staff receive training in effective behaviour management strategies – ensuring that statutory safety procedures and record-keeping, including fire drills and first aid records, are kept up to date and analysed so that lessons are learned and safety practices continually improve across the school.

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Priorities for further improvement

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

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