Wotton House International School Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire International School Wotton House, Horton Road, Gloucester GL1 3PT

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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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Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Not previously inspected

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 The proprietor has not ensured that the independent school standards are consistently met.  The proprietor has not ensured that the school has a robust culture of safeguarding or has appointed suitably qualified and experienced leaders with responsibility for safeguarding.  School leaders do not have a good understanding of safeguarding procedures and practices, including those relating to pupils coming onto or off the school’s roll.  School leaders’ understanding of how to manage allegations against staff is weak. Referrals to the local authority have not been timely.  The proprietor does not ensure that all the required pre-employment checks are carried out and appropriate references are sought for potential members of staff.  Record-keeping in the school is very poor, especially in relation to safeguarding.  Staff do not implement the school’s policies relating to health and safety, first aid and risk

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

assessment effectively.  The quality of teaching, learning and assessment is inadequate. Leaders do not ensure that teachers have the skills they need to promote good progress across a range of subjects. As a result, pupils’ academic outcomes are poor.  Techers’ expectations of pupils are too low. Teaching does not provide them with a consistently high level of challenge.  Many pupils have gaps in their basic literacy and numeracy and these are not being filled quickly enough.  Pupils’ understanding of the attributes of successful learning is not secure, especially among younger ones. This aspect of their personal development is not promoted well.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 Pupils make better progress in English than they do in other subjects.  The school works well to promote good attendance.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 The school must take action to meet the requirements of the schedule to The Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014 and associated requirements. The details are listed in the full report.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

 Improve the effectiveness of leadership and management by ensuring that: – a robust culture of safeguarding is rapidly established – a suitably qualified member of staff takes on the role of designated safeguarding lead – an admissions register that meets statutory requirements is quickly compiled – the school works more closely with the local authority in relation to allegations against staff and pupils coming onto or off the school’s roll – the principles of safer recruitment are consistently applied in all cases – effective policies regarding health and safety, first aid and risk assessment are implemented – record-keeping is rapidly improved, especially with regard to safeguarding – the uncertainties about the curriculum for pupils in Year 10 are quickly resolved – staff receive the training they say they need to deliver the curriculum.  Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment by ensuring that:

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

– teaching consistently promotes good academic outcomes for pupils across the curriculum – pupils are challenged to achieve more so they make much more rapid progress, whatever their individual starting points – pupils’ basic literacy and numeracy skills are securely and quickly consolidated – teaching promotes the secure development of the attributes of successful learners among pupils – pupils’ work is more systematically organised so it provides a better resource for the future consolidation of learning or revision.  The school must meet the independent school standards, as set out in the annex of this report.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

 Leadership and management are inadequate because the proprietor of the school and its leaders do not have the knowledge, understanding and skills to ensure that the independent school standards are consistently met. These unmet standards have a significant negative impact on pupils’ safety, welfare and academic development.  The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective. School leaders have not established a robust culture of safeguarding in the school. The school’s procedures and practice do not follow the requirements of the statutory guidance, ‘Keeping children safe in education’, 2016, or the guidance issued by the Gloucestershire Safeguarding Children Board (GSCB).  The proprietor has not ensured that suitably qualified members of staff take responsibility for the leadership of safeguarding. No one in the school has undertaken up-to-date multi- agency safeguarding training, as required by the GSCB. This is one of the main reasons

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

that school leaders do not have the level of understanding to enable them to promote an effective culture of safeguarding.  School leaders have a weak understanding of safeguarding procedures, including those that relate to informing the local authority about pupils coming onto or off the school’s roll. The school’s admission register does not meet the requirements of the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006. This puts pupils at risk.  School leaders have a poor understanding of the requirements of managing allegations against staff. They have not followed the statutory guidance or informed the designated officer at the local authority in a timely manner.  The school does not apply the principles of safer recruitment securely, especially with regard to references. References are not consistently requested prior to interview and the school also accepts open references, for example in the form of ‘to whom it may concern’

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

testimonials. Other examples of references in staff files are undated or give no indication of the identity of the referee. The school uses a number of young foreign nationals as volunteers; there is no indication in the school’s records that references are sought for these individuals.  The school’s policies on health and safety, first aid and risk assessment are not implemented effectively. The accident book does not consistently record when first aid is applied and what that first aid was. The science classroom’s chemical storage cupboards were unlocked and some flasks were unlabelled and/or open. This allowed pupils access to potentially dangerous chemicals.  Record-keeping in the school is poor, especially with regard to safeguarding and safer recruitment. Safeguarding files are often incomplete as they do not contain all relevant documentation. The same is true for the records of staff recruitment. Key documents are

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

often only stored as attachments to emails, which makes them difficult to locate or use.  The school’s safeguarding policy is made available to parents on the school’s website.  The school’s curriculum follows the Middle Years Programme of the International Baccalaureate (IB), although the school has yet to receive authorisation from the IB. Some teachers, in their response to the staff survey, indicated that they are concerned that they have not had the training they feel they need to deliver the Middle Years Programme successfully. The proprietor states that some pupils might take GCSEs at the end of Year 11 but older pupils are currently not following a curriculum tailored to meet the requirements of the specifications of these exams.  For most of the year, all pupils spend one day a week at the Wilderness Centre, a facility separate from the school. According to the school’s website, the time spent at the

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

Wilderness Centre is part of the formal taught curriculum. Despite the website stating subjects such as English, biology or geography are taught there, only tenuous connections to the formal curriculum were seen during the inspection.  The school has a range of clubs that pupils can choose from in a timetabled slot in the school day. These include cooking, art and choir. These clubs are popular with pupils and contribute well to their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.  The school’s personal, social and health education programme covers a wide range of topics and helps prepare pupils for future life. Pupils have an appropriate understanding of fundamental British values and are, as a consequence, being prepared for life in modern Britain.  The school has a very small number of pupils who have special educational needs and/or disabilities. As a result, it is not possible to generalise about them. Nevertheless, the

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

school has a good understanding of how to work closely with the local authority when reviewing pupils’ education, health and care plans. The school employs a consultant special educational needs coordinator who screens pupils to identify the presence of any specific learning difficulties they may have.

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Governance

 The school does not have a governing body. Governance is carried out by the proprietor, who is also the principal.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

 Teaching, learning and assessment are not developing pupils’ knowledge, understanding and skills well enough. As a result, pupils make very poor progress across the curriculum as a whole.  Teachers’ expectations are far too low. The work they set pupils does not challenge them sufficiently. It is often too easy, requires little thought or does not develop knowledge, understanding and skills in the relevant subject. As a result, pupils do not make the progress that they should. In particular, those who need to catch up after some disruption in their educational history do not rapidly fill the gaps that they have in their basic literacy and numeracy.  Even when work lacks challenge, teachers’ expectations of the quality of work that pupils produce are low. Work is consistently of poor quality across the curriculum, with the partial exception of English. Whether completed in exercise books or in online portfolios,

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

pupils’ work shows little development in key knowledge, understanding and skills in a range of subjects. Presentation is often very poor and a substantial amount of the work in the online portfolios is simply copied directly from sources on the internet.  Teaching is poorly planned and does not consolidate pupils’ learning well enough. In science, for example, pupils are repeatedly asked to undertake tasks which have little to do with science, even though their basic understanding is very poor and needs to be worked on. In languages, some exercises can be completed without any knowledge of the language being studied.  Teachers’ assessment focuses too much on task completion rather than the quality of the work produced. As a result, pupils’ understanding of how to improve their work is limited and they make slow progress.  Teaching, learning and assessment are more effective in English than in other subjects,

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

especially for older pupils. As a result of clearer planning and better assessment, pupils make more progress in English than they do in other subjects. However, teaching across the curriculum does not build effectively on their literacy skills.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.  As a result of the widespread shortcomings in the school’s safeguarding procedures and practices, pupils are not safe.  Many pupils have not securely developed the habits of successful learning, especially younger ones. They do not take sufficient pride in their work and often lack the resilience to ensure that work is completed to a high standard. This situation is compounded by teachers’ low expectations of the quality of work that pupils should be producing.  Pupils say that there is little, if any, bullying and are confident that the school deals effectively with it if and when it occurs.  Pupils have a good understanding of fundamental British values. They are accepting of difference and support, encourage and care for each other.  Parents who completed the online survey, Parent View, or who spoke to the inspectors

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Personal development and welfare

were very positive about the impact that the school was having on their children’s self- esteem and self-confidence.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils requires improvement.  Pupils’ self-discipline is inconsistent. At times they can behave well, both inside and outside the classroom. At other times, however, low-level disruption impedes learning and teachers do not always handle problems such as inappropriate shouting out well. At the Wilderness Centre, incidents of physical altercation and swearing were observed by an inspector. Overall, behaviour at this aspect of the provision was not good.  Although the school has a behaviour policy that it implements, some teachers’ responses to the staff survey expressed concerns about the ability of all staff to manage the behaviour of pupils consistently well.  Pupils’ attendance at the school is good. Some pupils with historically high rates of absence are being helped by the school to improve their attendance.

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

 Across almost all subjects, pupils are underachieving considerably, whatever their starting points. In all year groups, pupils do not securely develop the key knowledge, understanding and skills that will help them make progress and prepare them for the next stage of their education.  A significant minority of pupils arrive at the school after some disruption in their education. School leaders recognise that these pupils need to catch up, but the poor- quality teaching that they receive means that they are not doing so anywhere near rapidly enough. For example, basic deficiencies in literacy, including not using capital letters and full stops correctly, are not being addressed by teaching.  Pupils’ work indicates that they are making very slow progress in acquiring the basic knowledge, understanding and skills required for success in a range of subjects. In history, for example, pupils are not developing the ability to analyse, interpret and

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

evaluate historical evidence. In science, basic skills such as drawing accurate diagrams or graphs are not securely present. In mathematics, pupils have not acquired the basic skills, such as balancing equations, that are a fundamental basis of future progress.  Older pupils are making better progress in English than in other subjects. As a result of more effective teaching, they are developing the ability to analyse texts and present their findings coherently in written responses. Even here, however, shortcomings in literacy are limiting the success with which pupils respond to the questions they are set. Younger pupils are not making quick enough progress in improving their written skills.  Since it opened in September 2016, the school has not had occasion to enter pupils for external examinations.

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School details

This inspection was carried out under section 109(1) and (2) of the Education and Skills Act 2008, the purpose of which is to advise the Secretary of State for Education about the school’s suitability for continued registration as an independent school.

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School details

Proprietor International Village Education Ltd

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School details

Website www.gloucestershireinternationalschool.co.uk

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School details

Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

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Information about this school

 Gloucestershire International School is a small independent school. It is registered for a maximum capacity of 250 pupils but has fewer than 10% of this number on roll. In addition, it is registered as a boarding school but currently has no boarders. The proprietor plans to operate flexi-boarding for a small number of pupils from January 2018.  The school is owned by International Village Education Ltd. The owner of this company is the proprietor of the school and is currently the school’s principal.  This is the school’s first standard inspection since it opened in September 2016.  In a typical week, pupils spend one day at the Wilderness Centre, an outdoor education provision separate from the school.  The school does not use any alternative provision.  The school has small numbers in each year group from Year 7 to Year 10. There are no pupils in Year 11.

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Information about this inspection

 Inspectors visited lessons across a range of subjects and year groups. During these visits, they observed pupils’ learning, looked at their work and talked to them about their studies. A more formal discussion with a group of pupils also took place.  Inspectors examined a wide range of pupils’ work from their exercise books and their online portfolios.  Inspectors held regular discussions with the proprietor throughout the inspection and met with other staff to discuss aspects of the school’s work.  Inspectors looked at a range of the school’s documentation, including information on the school website and the school’s policies. They examined documents relating to safeguarding, as well as the school’s records of the checks it makes on teachers’ backgrounds to ensure that they are suitable to work with children.  In making their judgements inspectors took into account four responses to Parent View,

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Information about this inspection

Ofsted’s online parental questionnaire, and the responses to the staff survey. Inspectors also spoke to three other parents.

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Inspection team

Stephen Lee, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector

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Part 1. Quality of education provided

 3 The standard in this paragraph is met if the proprietor ensures that the teaching at the school: – 3(a) enables pupils to acquire new knowledge and make good progress according to their ability so that they increase their understanding and develop their skills in the subjects taught; – 3(b) fosters in pupils self-motivation, the application of intellectual, physical and creative effort, interest in their work and the ability to think and learn for themselves; – 3(c) involves well planned lessons and effective teaching methods, activities and management of class time; – 3(d) shows a good understanding of the aptitudes, needs and prior attainments of the pupils, and ensures that these are taken into account in the planning of lessons;

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Part 3. Welfare, health and safety of pupils

 7 The standard in this paragraph is met if the proprietor ensures that: – 7(a) arrangements are made to safeguard and promote the welfare of pupils at the school; and – 7(b) such arrangements have regard to any guidance issued by the Secretary of State.  11 The standard in this paragraph is met if the proprietor ensures that relevant health and safety laws are complied with by the drawing up and effective implementation of a written health and safety policy.  13 The standard in this paragraph is met if the proprietor ensures that first aid is administered in a timely and competent manner by the drawing up and effective implementation of a written first aid policy.  15 The standard in this paragraph is met if the proprietor ensures that an admission and attendance register is maintained in accordance with the Education (Pupil Registration) (England) Regulations 2006[13].  16 The standard in this paragraph is met if the proprietor ensures that:

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Part 3. Welfare, health and safety of pupils

– 16(a) the welfare of pupils at the school is safeguarded and promoted by the drawing up and effective implementation of a written risk assessment policy; and – 16(b) appropriate action is taken to reduce risks that are identified.  18(2) The standard in this paragraph is met if: – 18(2)(e) in the case of any person for whom, by reason of that person living or having lived outside the United Kingdom, obtaining such a certificate is not sufficient to establish the person’s suitability to work in a school, such further checks are made as the proprietor considers appropriate, having regard to any guidance issued by the Secretary of State; and in the light of the information from the checks referred to in paragraphs (c) to (f) the proprietor considers that the person is suitable for the position to which the person is appointed.  21(1) The standard in this paragraph is met if the proprietor keeps a register which shows

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Part 3. Welfare, health and safety of pupils

such of the information referred to in sub-paragraphs (3) to (7) as is applicable to the school in question.  21(3) The information referred to in this sub-paragraph is- – 21(3)(a)(viii) checks were made pursuant to paragraph 18(2)(e),

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Part 8. Quality of leadership in and management of schools

 34(1) The standard about the quality of leadership and management is met if the proprietor ensures that persons with leadership and management responsibilities at the school: – 34(1)(a) demonstrate good skills and knowledge appropriate to their role so that the independent school standards are met consistently; – 34(1)(b) fulfil their responsibilities effectively so that the independent school standards are met consistently; and – 34(1)(c) actively promote the well-being of pupils. 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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Part 8. Quality of leadership in and management of schools

Parent View 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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Part 8. Quality of leadership in and management of schools

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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Part 8. Quality of leadership in and management of schools

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Part 8. Quality of leadership in and management of schools

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Part 8. Quality of leadership in and management of schools

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Part 8. Quality of leadership in and management of schools

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Part 8. Quality of leadership in and management of schools

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