Park View School

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

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Mr Andrew Webster Headteacher Park View School 252 West Green Road London N15 3QR

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Short inspection of Park View School

Following my visit to the school on 10 October 2017 with David Boyle, 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 the school was judged to be a good school in January 2013.

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Short inspection of Park View School

The leadership team has maintained the good quality of education in the school since the previous inspection.

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Short inspection of Park View School

Since your appointment in 2014, you and your team have improved the opportunities provided for pupils and raised their achievement. Pupils‟ attainment in unvalidated 2017 GCSE results showed a continuing trend of improvement, particularly in English but also across a range of subjects. You had rightly prioritised improving the progress pupils make in mathematics. You achieved this by focusing on teaching and learning, through the sharing of good practice and improving the frequency, accuracy and reliability of assessment information. As a result, interventions were more focused, and pupils made rapid progress and achieved good outcomes.

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Short inspection of Park View School

Your vision of „ensuring “Aspire, Achieve, Succeed” is the reality for all‟ was evident during the inspection. The positive learning environment and planned activities enable pupils to develop and consolidate the skills and attributes required of the „Park View Learner‟. Pupils who spoke to the inspectors were happy and confident to discuss their school and their learning and achievements, as well as their desires for their future.

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Short inspection of Park View School

You and your team have worked to address the areas for improvement from the previous inspection. This has resulted in improvements in the feedback pupils receive, especially verbal feedback, during lessons. Pupils are encouraged to discuss their work using subject-specific language and to improve and refine the language they use. This ensures that they make good progress in the quality of their work, particularly in writing. You recognise that there continues to be some unevenness between subjects, including some underperformance in science. You also have more to do to develop the capacity of your leadership team with some middle leaders, many of whom are new in post and as yet have little experience in raising quality and standards in their subject areas.

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Safeguarding is effective

The leadership team has ensured that all safeguarding arrangements are fit for purpose and records are detailed and of high quality. You and your senior leaders have developed a secure and thoughtful culture of safeguarding which permeates the school. This is endorsed by your colleagues, and pupils and their parents.

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Safeguarding is effective

Pupils who spoke to the inspectors said that they feel safe inside and outside school and that there are numerous people and places they can go to in order to report any concerns. This includes the „Bsafe‟ project, their form tutors and the local police constable. Pupils said that their personal, social, health and citizenship education lessons provide them with the skills and strategies to help keep them safe and the confidence to deal with situations if they arise. Pupils confirmed that bullying is rare, but is dealt with effectively when it occurs.

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Safeguarding is effective

Colleagues praised the training they had received from the designated safeguarding lead and her team. They felt that they had been given the tools to identify potentially vulnerable pupils, and the skills and resources to be able to support pupils based on known local risks.

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Safeguarding is effective

You and your leadership team are aware of the remaining challenges for those pupils who do not attend school regularly. Your safeguarding team carefully follows up any absence. Consequently, the attendance of targeted pupils, including pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, has started to improve, although you recognise that more remains to be done.

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Safeguarding is effective

Governors have a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of their role in ensuring that pupils are kept safe. They meet half termly with the designated safeguarding lead to ensure that pupils‟ needs are met. They routinely check recruitment records to confirm that the school‟s policies and procedures are followed. Governors are currently working with the leadership team to reduce the number of fixed-term exclusions.

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Inspection findings

 We agreed that a focus for the inspection would be the provision of careers information, advice and guidance to see how the school prepares pupils for the next stage of their education. This was because last year, a lower than national proportion of pupils stayed in sustained education, employment or training.  You have continued to develop and enhance the careers programme to support all pupils‟ aspirations. A range of career activities is planned and pupils cite the „four universities‟ trip, the London School of Economics mentoring scheme and the one-to- one interviews as activities that have had the biggest impact on their decisions. You and your team now track pupils‟ destinations. The culmination of your work is that, this year, the vast majority of pupils moved on to appropriate education, employment and training.  The second area we agreed to focus on was how appropriately and effectively you

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Inspection findings

maximise the performance of those pupils who have special educational needs support, and boys. This is because the 2016 GCSE results showed a significant gap between the progress made by these and other groups in the school.  Enthusiastic, knowledgeable and realistic leadership in this area has enabled and implemented a coherent strategy to raise achievement for both of these groups. The strategy includes offering further validated training to learning support assistants and employing lead practitioners who run regular „teach meets‟ to upskill colleagues. Your ultimate aim is to provide targeted support for boys in key stage 3 to help them with the techniques required for formal assessments. This is high on your leadership‟s agenda, although in its early stages and so requiring more time for departments to reduce the gap between the progress made by boys and that of girls. The progress of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities continues to be hampered

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Inspection findings

by low attendance and this too remains a priority for the school.  We also agreed to look at how you and your leadership team have extended the school‟s work to improve the literacy of lower attaining pupils. This this was because the GCSE results of pupils in this group in 2016 showed some underachievement.  Together, you and your team identified that some initiatives in this area were not having the desired effect. Consequently, you have introduced a new literacy programme, particularly for lower attaining disadvantaged pupils and pupils who did not reach expected standards at key stage 2. During lessons, pupils are encouraged to use keywords in both their verbal and written work. As a result, literacy across the school is improving, and the progress of this group of pupils in English is now much stronger.  The final area we agreed upon was to look at the variations in outcomes between subjects in key stage 4 revealed by analysis of GCSE results in 2016 and 2017. You,

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Inspection findings

your leaders and governors know that pupils‟ progress in some subject areas is not as strong as in others.  You carefully check on the quality of teaching and offer support where necessary. Support is delivered through thoughtful, targeted continuing professional development sessions. Consequently, the skills and experiences of your teaching staff continue to increase, enabling them to plan activities to ensure that pupils make rapid progress. For example, during a science lesson, students were asked to redraft verbal responses so that they contained accurate and precise scientific language.

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Next steps for the school

Leaders and those responsible for governance should ensure that they:

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Next steps for the school

 continue to check and evaluate the quality of teaching and learning so that pupils consistently make good progress across all subjects  provide appropriate opportunities for subject leaders to enhance their skills and gain experience to further develop their own subjects. I am copying this letter to the chair of the governing body, the regional schools commissioner and the director of children‟s services for Haringey. This letter will be published on the Ofsted website.

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Information about the inspection

During this inspection, the team undertook learning walks with you and other senior leaders across a range of subjects. We met with you, the senior leadership team in relation to their areas of responsibility, the special educational needs coordinator, the attendance officer, middle leaders, second-year teachers, colleagues responsible for careers advice and guidance, governors, a representative of the local authority and numerous pupil groups. We observed pupils‟ behaviour around the school during break- and lunchtimes. My colleague listened to a selection of pupils from Years 7, 8 and 9 reading aloud. We analysed the views of 59 parents who had responded to Ofsted‟s Parent View survey. The team looked at a range of documentation, including the school‟s self-evaluation, improvement plan, faculty reviews, pupil performance data, destination data, safeguarding records and policies. I undertook a review of the school‟s website. It contains

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Information about the inspection

comprehensive and instructive information for a varied audience. The school‟s website meets requirements on the publication of specified information.

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