St Giles Academy

St Giles Academy Addison Drive, Lincoln, Lincolnshire LN2 4LQ

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare Inadequate

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Early years provision Requires improvement

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Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Not previously inspected

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Leaders have not created a safe atmosphere around school, particularly at breaktimes and lunchtimes. Some pupils’ behaviour is poor and this makes other pupils feel anxious. Fixed- term exclusions have been very high.  Leaders’ self-evaluation of the school’s effectiveness is overgenerous. The leaders have not improved teaching well enough to enable pupils to make good progress.  The proportion of pupils who are persistently absent remains above the national average, particularly for disadvantaged pupils.  The trustees have not been effective in their leadership role. They have not checked well enough on the impact of leaders’ work on pupils’ progress. Very recent changes in the trust’s structure have not had time to make demonstrable improvement.  Pupils do not make good progress in English and mathematics. As a result, they are not prepared well enough for secondary education.  Some parents who spoke with inspectors

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

expressed concerns about bullying.  The quality of teaching is inadequate. Teachers do not consistently set high expectations of pupils’ work. Teachers do not correct pupils’ misconceptions in a timely way and the most able are not challenged well enough.  Leaders have not used effectively the additional funding for disadvantaged pupils, or the funding for pupils who have special educational needs (SEN) and/or disabilities. These pupils make poor progress.  Pupils are not sufficiently engaged in their learning. There is low-level disruption in lessons.  Not all pupils feel safe. Some do not know what to do if they feel they are being bullied. They are not confident that all staff would deal with their concerns effectively.  The curriculum is not broad and balanced. Pupils do not have the opportunity to deepen their learning in a range of subjects.  Recent improvements in the leadership of the early years since May 2017 have enhanced the

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Attainment at the end of key stage 2 rose in 2017.  The new headteacher has raised staff morale.  Pupils who speak English as an additional language make good progress.

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Full report

In accordance with section 44(1) of the Education Act 2005, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is of the opinion that this school requires special measures because it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management at all levels, by: – ensuring that the trustees check more robustly the school’s performance and hold school leaders to account for the progress that pupils make – ensuring that the pupils feel safe at school, particularly at breaktimes and lunchtimes – ensuring that all teachers have high expectations and check more closely on the progress that the pupils are making in their learning – using the information from leaders’ monitoring of teaching to evaluate the school’s effectiveness accurately and to tackle the weaknesses in teaching more rigorously than is the case currently – training the subject leaders to know how well pupils are achieving in the subject areas that they lead – making sure that the actions set for teachers, as part of the appraisal process, are more precise, in order to help teachers to improve their performance – allocating and monitoring the use of additional funding for disadvantaged pupils and

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities more effectively, to enable these pupils to make good progress – strengthening provision to develop pupils’ understanding of British values and their knowledge of different faiths and cultures – strengthening the quality of information provided to parents about their child’s progress – ensuring that the curriculum is broad and balanced and pupils learn well in a wide range of subjects.  Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by ensuring that teachers: – assess more accurately the needs of the pupils, including the most able and those who have SEN and/or disabilities – plan work which is more closely matched to pupils’ individual needs – address pupils’ misconceptions in a timely way – develop pupils’ reading comprehension skills, so that they have a deeper understanding of the texts that they read – improve pupils’ writing skills in key stage 1 by encouraging pupils to check that their

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

sentences make sense – strengthen pupils’ ability to reason mathematically, so that they can answer accurately more challenging questions.  Strengthen pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare by: – reducing the proportion of pupils, particularly disadvantaged pupils, who are persistently absent, by working more closely with pupils and their parents to explore how the causes of absence can be overcome – reducing the amount of low-level disruption in lessons – reducing the number of fixed-term exclusions – improving pupils’ attitudes to learning, so that more pupils are engaged in their learning – improving the school’s arrangements for dealing with bullying and ensuring that these are understood by pupils and their parents – increasing pupils’ confidence in all staff to deal effectively with their concerns about bullying.  Improve the leadership in the early years by checking closely that the additional

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

funding for disadvantaged pupils is helping them to make accelerated progress from their starting points. External reviews of governance and of the school’s use of pupil premium funding should be undertaken to assess how these aspects of leadership and management may be improved.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

 Leaders have an overgenerous view of the quality of teaching at the school.  Although leaders identify weaknesses in teaching when they monitor pupils’ work, they do not routinely check that the weaknesses have been tackled effectively when they carry out further monitoring. Leaders are not improving teaching quickly enough and pupils are not making the progress of which they are capable.  The majority of the senior leadership team have been given new roles of responsibility since January 2017. Leaders have very recently organised training in the teaching of reading and mathematics. However, it is too soon the judge the impact of this training on pupils’ progress in the current academic year.  Last year the additional funding for disadvantaged pupils was not used effectively to improve the progress of this group of pupils. The leaders did not analyse the effectiveness of the intervention groups provided for disadvantaged pupils.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

Furthermore, they did not record how the pupil premium funding for the early years was spent. Disadvantaged children in the early years made weak progress.  The actions set out in teachers’ appraisal documentation are not precise enough to enable teachers to improve their performance. Teaching is not improving quickly enough.  The school is not promoting fundamental British values effectively. Pupils have very limited opportunities to learn about different faiths and cultures. Consequently, they are not as well prepared for life in modern Britain as they should be. The pupils do learn about democracy and elect a school council to help them make improvements at the school.  Pupils’ social and moral development is not promoted well enough because the behaviour of some pupils is inadequate.  The school’s curriculum is not broad and balanced. Scrutiny of pupils’ work from last year shows that pupils have not had sufficient opportunities to learn knowledge and

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

skills across subjects, other than English and mathematics.  The school has not used the funding for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities well enough. Some parents expressed concerns to inspectors about the school not meeting the needs of their children who had additional needs. Scrutiny of this group of pupils’ work shows that they do not make good progress across a range of curriculum areas.  Parents’ views about the school are mixed. Just under a half of parents who spoke with inspectors are happy with the school. They said that their children like their teachers. A similar proportion of parents expressed concerns to the inspection team about the amount of bullying at the school.  Some parents and pupils told inspectors that they would like more tables and chairs in the classrooms. Some pupils said that sitting at a table helps them to write their work neatly.  The written information parents receive about the progress their child is making at

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

school is not informative enough.  The school provides a range of extra-curricular clubs and activities to aid pupils’ physical development. Leaders check that disadvantaged pupils access the clubs. The school uses effectively the primary school physical education and sport funding to employ specialist coaches to teach pupils key skills and games. Pupils engage well in these lessons.  It is recommended that the school does not appoint newly qualified teachers.

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Governance of the school

 The board of trustees recognises that it has not been as effective in its role as it should have been. It thought that the school was improving in 2016, before the very low-key stage 2 outcomes were first published in July 2016. As a result, an interim executive board was formed in the last academic year. Although this board met regularly, the school has not improved quickly enough. Exclusions remained high for the first two terms in the last academic year and pupils’ attendance was still too low. The progress made by pupils in key stage 2 remained weak.  The structure of the trust changed in September 2017. Trustees believe that the new system for monitoring the school’s work will be more effective. However, it is too soon to show their demonstrable capacity to improve the school.  The board of trustees has not challenged leaders effectively about how the additional funding for disadvantaged pupils was spent last year. The trustees do not know about

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Governance of the school

the impact that the use of this funding has had on the progress of disadvantaged pupils well enough.

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Safeguarding

 The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.  Leaders have not created an atmosphere in which pupils feel safe and secure all of the time. Pupils do not have confidence that all staff will deal effectively with any concerns that they may have, particularly about bullying.  Pupils who spoke with inspectors had concerns about behaviour at breaktimes. Furthermore, when inspectors observed incidents of poor behaviour at breaktimes, staff were not sufficiently vigilant and, therefore, did not see the problems.  The school’s record-keeping for significant incidents is not sufficiently robust. Not all records with regard to physical restraint are completed fully. For example, the section about capturing pupils’ views of the incidents has not always been completed. This undermines the effectiveness of the school’s record-keeping.  The family resource worker and other designated leaders for safeguarding lead multi-

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Safeguarding

agency meetings aimed at supporting families and potentially vulnerable pupils. They deal with concerns promptly and liaise with a range of external agencies to keep children safe. However, the leaders do not always record the actions taken by external agencies and their record-keeping is not detailed enough to give a complete picture of all the actions taken to keep children safe.  The staff receive regular training on safeguarding. They know what to do if a child makes a disclosure.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

 Teachers’ expectations of what pupils can achieve are too low. The teachers do not expect pupils to write answers of sufficient detail to questions about what they are reading. Moreover, pupils do not have regular opportunities to review their answers and to make improvements. Pupils do not make good progress in developing their skills in reading comprehension.  Teachers do not assess pupils’ abilities well enough. Pupils’ misconceptions are not addressed in a timely way to enable the pupils to make good progress. Furthermore, the most able pupils are often set the same work as the less able pupils and are not challenged well enough in their learning.  The teaching of mathematics is weak. Pupils, particularly the most able, do not have enough opportunities to reason mathematically, in order to deepen their understanding. Occasionally, staff do not have the subject knowledge to enable the pupils to understand how to complete a calculation.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

 Pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities are not given enough opportunities to correct their misconceptions. Weaknesses in pupils’ understanding of numbers and how to complete written calculations are not corrected. In English, weaknesses in pupils’ sentence construction are not remedied quickly enough.  In key stage 1, too many pupils have not been taught well enough to write sentences that make sense. Pupils are confused about when to use capital letters and full stops.  Teachers encourage pupils to use their phonics skills to read unfamiliar words. However, they do not challenge the most able pupils to extend their learning, for example by reading sentences.  Where teaching is most effective, it is because the teachers have higher expectations of what pupils can achieve. For example, in a Year 4 class, pupils were studying the character of Edmund from ‘The lion, the witch and the wardrobe’. The teacher asked

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

searching questions about the text and checked on the pupils’ understanding of vocabulary. Consequently, pupils’ engagement in their learning was more evident and, in small groups, the pupils began to discuss the text with interest and rigour.  Pupils who speak English as an additional language make stronger progress than other pupils in the school. These pupils act on the advice given by teachers to improve their work.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.  Some pupils do not know what to do, if they feel that they are being bullied. Some pupils thought that the best way to deal with bullying was to stay off school, or to avoid the playground.  Pupils and parents raised concerns about bullying. The school’s log of incidents of bullying only has two recorded incidents in the current academic year. Leaders could not show the log of bullying incidents from last year, nor had they analysed last year’s incidents to check if there were any patterns or trends of bullying. Leaders have not monitored well enough the pupils’ views about bullying.  Pupils do not consistently display positive attitudes to learning. They can be slow to engage in lessons and lose focus easily, particularly in the afternoon. As a result, this contributes to the variable progress that pupils make.

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Personal development and welfare

 Pupils have been taught how to keep safe online. They know not to share personal information on the internet.  The pupils are helped effectively to understand how they can positively affect the life of others at the school. The members of school council and the ‘eco’ committee are given opportunities to improve the school. The school council raises money for toys to be used at breaktime and the ‘eco’ committee is planning a wildlife area.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.  Fixed-term exclusions have been very high until recently. In the latest published figures for exclusions in 2015/16, the proportion of pupils who served fixed-term exclusions was over seven times the national average. Fixed-term exclusions remained high until Easter 2017, after which they have started to decline.  Pupils’ attendance is lower than the national average. The proportion of pupils who are persistently absent is much higher than the national average, particularly in respect of disadvantaged pupils. The school has not had a consistent approach to working with parents to help to improve attendance until this term. Consequently, pupils’ attendance has not improved rapidly.  Pupils’ behaviour at breaktimes and lunchtimes can be poor. Pupils do not always play cooperatively and some pupils asked inspectors if they could stop the play fighting. Some pupils told inspectors they do not feel safe at school because of other pupils’ behaviour.

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Behaviour

 Low-level disruption is prevalent in classrooms. Pupils shout out in lessons. Some teachers ignore this while other teachers address it. At times, pupils lie on the floor and do not engage in their learning. Pupils sometimes can take too long to start activities, particularly when they move around the classrooms. As a result, learning time is lost.  Teachers deal effectively with pupils who sometimes display very challenging behaviour. They deal with this quickly and do not let such incidents disrupt other pupils’ learning.

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

 In 2016, at the end of key stage 2, the proportion of pupils who achieved the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics combined was extremely low. Provisional information for 2017 shows the school’s outcome in the same measure is still well below the national average, though it has improved. Moreover, in 2017, the progress key stage 2 pupils made from their starting points in reading and writing deteriorated from the previous year.  Progress in mathematics was in the lowest one-fifth of schools nationally. Pupils are underachieving considerably and are not well prepared for secondary education.  The most able pupils do not achieve well. Only a few pupils have achieved the higher standard in any subject at the end of key stage 2 in the past two years.  In 2017 disadvantaged pupils made poor progress through key stage 2 in reading, writing and mathematics. No disadvantaged pupil achieved the higher standard in

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

these subjects in either 2016 or 2017.  Pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities also made poor progress through key stage 2 in all subjects in 2016 and 2017.  The proportion of pupils in key stage 1 attaining the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics has been below the national average. In 2016, pupils made broadly expected progress from their starting points in all three subjects.  The proportion of Year 1 pupils reaching the expected standard in the national phonics screening check was below the national average in both 2016 and 2017.  Scrutiny of pupils’ current work shows that they are still not making the progress that they should in reading, writing and mathematics.  Pupils who speak English as an additional language make good progress in reading, writing and mathematics through key stage 2.

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Early years provision Requires improvement

 In May 2017, a leader was seconded from another school within the trust to improve the leadership of the early years. She continues to work at the school for two days a week to mentor the new leader. The changes that have been made in the provision have led to improved teaching and learning. Therefore, the provision in the early years is judged to be better than in the rest of the school, but the early years still requires improvement.  Children start school with abilities below those typical of children of the same age. Historically, children have not made good progress and the outcomes at the end of the early years have been below average for the past two years.  Children attend five different providers before starting school. The school staff have not worked closely enough with these providers to enable them to have a deep understanding of the children’s abilities before they start school. As a result, the

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Early years provision Requires improvement

children have not made good progress in the Reception Year and have not been as well prepared for Year 1 as they should have been.  The school has no record of how the pupil premium funding for the early years was allocated in the last academic year. The proportion of disadvantaged children who achieved a good level of development was well below the national average. This year, early years leaders have assessed the individual needs of disadvantaged children at the start of the current academic year. They have set up bespoke intervention programmes to help to develop children’s communication and language skills. However, it is too soon to securely judge the impact of this work, despite early signs of improvement.  Children play cooperatively and safely and are mostly engaged in their learning. On occasion, children need several reminders to be ready for learning, when they have moved from one activity to another.

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Early years provision Requires improvement

 Adults model good language skills for the children. Phonics is promoted well and children are learning to blend sounds in order to read simple words.  Teachers’ expectations of the progress children can make are rising. The children are encouraged to use letter sounds to spell words, such as ‘insect’ and ‘animal’.  In mathematics, children are asked to find different ways of making the same total. In addition, in the ‘ice cream shop’, children calculate how many ice creams they would have in total, if they had two more.  Teachers record their assessments of children’s learning in detail across a range of curriculum areas. The assessments are shared online with parents, so that the parents can also comment on their children’s achievements. For those parents who do not have internet access, the school provides a paper copy of the each child’s assessments.  The teaching of mathematics is effective. In one example, the teacher helped the

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Early years provision Requires improvement

children to realise that a number can be split different ways to make the same total. The children are developing a deepening understanding of number to give them a solid foundation for future learning.  Leaders work well with external agencies to meet the needs of any children who require extra support, for example with speech and language therapists and the autism outreach service.  Children are taught about how to keep themselves safe. They are told that all adults in the school must have a school lanyard, otherwise they are told to inform a teacher. The children are also shown, for example, how to hold scissors safely.

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School details

This inspection of the school was carried out under section 5 of the Education Act 2005.

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School details

Email address office@stgilesacademy.co.uk

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School details

Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

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Information about this school

 The school meets requirements on the publication of specified information on its website.  The school complies with Department for Education guidance on what academies should publish.  The school was part of the New Dawn Trust. The trust has been restructured and, from September 2017, is now called Link Education Trust.  The school has undergone several changes of leadership in the last three years. The first headteacher was absent from July 2015. Two acting heads had a job-sharing arrangement from July until December 2015. A new headteacher was appointed from January 2016 and was absent from October 2016. The current headteacher held the interim post of head of school from October 2016 until February 2017, when he was appointed to the role of head of school permanently. He became headteacher in September 2017.  There has been a large turnover in teaching staff. More than half the staff have been

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Information about this school

appointed in the last 18 months.  The school is much larger than the average-sized primary school.  The proportion of disadvantaged pupils is nearly double the national average.  The proportion of pupils who speak English as an additional language is lower than average.  The proportion of pupils from minority ethnic groups is lower than the national average.  The proportion of pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities is much higher than the national average.  The school does not meet the government’s current floor standards, which are the minimum expectations for pupils’ attainment and progress in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of Year 6 in 2016.

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Information about this inspection

 The inspectors observed lessons in all classrooms, some jointly with the headteacher.  The inspectors looked at pupils’ current work covering a range of subjects and looked at books from the previous academic year.  Meetings were held with the headteacher; the leaders of English, mathematics, physical education, the early years, and a range of other subject leaders; the leader responsible for teaching and learning; the coordinator of the provision for pupils who have SEN and/or disabilities; the leader responsible for pupils’ tracking information and standards; the leader for the pupil premium funding; members of the board of trustees and three directors from the Link Education Trust.  The inspectors spoke informally with parents at the start of the school day on both days of the inspection. The inspectors have not used the evidence from the responses to Parent View, the online questionnaire, or the results from the online pupil survey

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Information about this inspection

because Ofsted has judged that there is evidence to suggest that the results may not be valid.  The inspectors considered the questionnaires completed by 34 members of the school staff.  The inspectors spoke with groups of pupils, listened to pupils reading and observed pupils at breaktimes, lunchtimes and in assembly.  The inspectors looked at a range of documentation, including the school’s self- evaluation, the school improvement plans, minutes of meetings of the board of trustees, the school’s most-recent information on pupils’ achievement, and information related to safeguarding, behaviour and attendance.

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Inspection team

Martin Finch, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Susan Wilson Ofsted Inspector guidance ‘Raising concerns and making a complaint about Ofsted’, which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.gov.uk/government/publications/complaints-about-ofsted . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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Inspection team

In the report, ‘disadvantaged pupils’ refers to those pupils who attract government pupil premium funding: pupils claiming free school meals at any point in the last six years and pupils in care or who left care through adoption or another formal route. www.gov.uk/pupil-premium-information-for-schools-and- alternative-provision-settings .

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Inspection team

You can use Parent View to give Ofsted your opinion on your child’s school. Ofsted will use the information parents and carers provide when deciding which schools to inspect and when and as part of the inspection.

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Inspection team

You can also use Parent View to find out what other parents and carers think about schools in England. You can visit www.parentview.ofsted.gov.uk , or look for the link on the main Ofsted website: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted .

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Inspection team

achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspection team

If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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Inspection team

You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open- government-licence/ , write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

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Inspection team

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

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Inspection team

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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