Cambridge Park Academy

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

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Mr Mark Eames Cambridge Park Academy Cambridge Road Grimsby North East Lincolnshire DN34 5EB

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Cambridge Park Academy

Following my visit to your academy on 26-27 June 2018, I write on behalf of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills to confirm the inspection findings. Thank you for the help you gave during the inspection and for the time you made available to discuss the actions that have been taken since the academy's previous monitoring inspection.

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Cambridge Park Academy

The inspection was the third monitoring inspection since the academy became subject to special measures following the inspection that took place in November 2016. The full list of the areas for improvement that were identified during that inspection is set out in the annex to this letter. The monitoring inspection report is attached.

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Cambridge Park Academy

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

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Cambridge Park Academy

Leaders and managers are taking effective action towards the removal of special measures.

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Cambridge Park Academy

Having considered all the evidence I am of the opinion that the academy may appoint newly qualified teachers.

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Special measures monitoring inspection of Cambridge Park Academy

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

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place in November 2016

 As a matter of urgency, improve the effectiveness of the school’s safeguarding arrangements by making sure that: – all required checks on the suitability of staff are in place and the school’s record of checks is complete and meets Department for Education requirements – all staff are well trained and knowledgeable about how to promote all aspects of pupils’ personal development, behaviour, safety and welfare – the school’s safeguarding policies and procedures follow current Department for Education guidance and are clear, understood and consistently applied – pupils’ behaviour is managed safely and well.  Rapidly improve the effectiveness of leadership, management and governance by making sure that: – leaders and governors have an accurate and comprehensive understanding of all areas of the school’s work, especially the arrangements for safeguarding pupils – leaders and governors closely monitor the quality of teaching and the progress

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place in November 2016

all pupils make, including disadvantaged pupils and the most able, and act quickly and decisively where improvement is needed – performance management is used to drive improvement in teaching, accelerate pupils’ progress and hold teachers and leaders more rigorously to account – pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is supported and promoted consistently well.  Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment and increase the progress pupils make, especially disadvantaged pupils and the most able, by ensuring that: – assessment information is used effectively by teachers to plan learning activities which are closely matched to pupils’ interests and levels of ability – teachers follow the school’s policy for marking and giving feedback to pupils.

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place in November 2016

An external review of governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.

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place in November 2016

An external review of the school’s use of pupil premium funding should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved.

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Evidence

The inspector observed the school's work, scrutinised documents including the school’s system for measuring pupils’ progress, safeguarding documents, and those related to performance management. The inspector met with the principal, two deputy principals, the school’s behaviour lead, the school’s data manager, the primary lead teacher, a group of staff members, a group of pupils and the chair of the governing body. The monitoring visit focussed on the role leaders and managers are playing in bringing about improvement in the areas identified for improvement in the previous full inspection report.

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Context

Since the last monitoring visit, the school has appointed several new members of staff. These include a new teacher to lead the early years classes. The teacher started on the first day of the inspection

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The effectiveness of leadership and management

Senior leaders focus on developing a culture of safeguarding within the school has continued since the last monitoring visit. The deputy principal leading on this aspect of the school’s work, has ensured that all checks required to ensure safer recruitment of staff have taken place. Staff receive regular training and are clear about what to do should a safeguarding incident occur.

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The effectiveness of leadership and management

The recently introduced system for recording pupils’ progress is now becoming familiar to senior leaders and members of staff. Initial information showed a mixed picture. In some areas of learning, pupils make good and better progress. However, in others, where the quality of teaching and learning is less strong, progress is not yet consistently good. This corresponds accurately with the quality of teaching and learning identified by leaders through their monitoring.

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The effectiveness of leadership and management

Leaders are aware that more now needs to be done to improve the consistency of the quality of teaching and pupils’ progress across the school.

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The effectiveness of leadership and management

The quality of provision in early years has dipped. Since the previous monitoring visit, the temporary teacher in post has left. A new permanent teacher has recently been appointed and took up post on the day of the monitoring visit. Leaders are offering a range of support to the new teacher, in order that improvement can take place as quickly as possible. However, it is too early to measure the effectiveness of this support.

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The effectiveness of leadership and management

Provision within the Laurus centre, the schools specialist centre for autism, has

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improved since the last monitoring visit. The leadership of the Laurus unit has been transferred to the key stage five leader, who is based in the same building. Pupils are now taught by subject specialists. These actions have already improved pupils’ attendance and progress. Pupils’ behaviour has also improved as the new leader, supported by the deputy principal, has put in place clear boundaries and heightened expectations for all pupils. While improvement to provision has improved senior leaders recognise more is needed in order to improve the quality of teaching, learning and outcomes for pupils.

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The chair of governors continues to be a frequent visitor to the school. The newly strengthened governing body is now concentrating on improving the challenge it gives to senior leaders to bring about further improvement.

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Senior leaders and governors are aware that there remains much to do. The school has still got a significant amount of progress to make in order to come out of special measures as a good school at the school’s next inspection.

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The school development plan reflects their aspirations well.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment

The work of the new leadership of teaching and learning is continuing to improve the quality of teaching and learning and outcomes for pupils. Strategies such as developing a market place where staff can meet and share good practice, as well as ‘bring and brag’ sessions where staff share their best ideas stimulate thinking about effective teaching. The prize winner’s idea is then adopted as good practice across school. Other improvement strategies include more regular monitoring of teaching and learning by senior leaders.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment

A new style of monitoring which comprises of regular announced and un-announced focussed learning walks has been put in place. Staff spoken to were positive about the increased time spent by leaders on monitoring, most felt it had improved their practice overall.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment

A further improvement has been the development of the role that teaching assistants play in supporting pupils in the classroom. Bespoke training for all teaching assistants (TA’s) is planned for the near future. Once again, it is too soon to measure the impact of this strategy. However, discussions held with TA’s and teachers suggested that staff feel further training will increase the role played by TA’s in the classroom and improve pupils learning overall.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment

Classroom observations undertaken by the inspector and deputy principal, showed a mixed picture with some strong practice observed in key stage 3 and some weaker practice identified within early years. This picture offered no surprises to the deputy

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principal who clearly recognises the strengths and weaknesses in the quality of teaching and learning and is working to bring about improvement.

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The school’s new tracking and monitoring system has started to identify the progress of the most able pupils. Leaders and staff are now measuring their progress more closely. While this is beginning to capture better progress, not all staff are using it to bring about improvement to the performance of this group.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

Pupils personal development, behaviour and welfare continues to improve. Behaviour continues to be monitored and patterns of incidents are closely analysed. For example: a rise in the number of recorded incidents last term has been closely scrutinised and small adjustments have been made. As a result, incidents of difficult behaviour have reduced again, as evidenced by 16 fewer incidents per week than at the same time last year.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

A new rewards system, based on pupils earning points has been introduced. This system is proving to be popular with staff and pupils. Helping to administer the system has become the responsibility of four new prefects, who enthusiastically and regularly set up a ‘pop up shop’ at break and dinner times to enable pupils to spend their points.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

School leaders feel that developing closer relationships with parents has helped reduce the number of incidents of difficult behaviour and has boosted attendance. Parent workshops on a variety of different subjects are now run by school staff in partnership with other professionals. For example, the inspector observed a sleep workshop, where a small group of parents worked together with a staff member who is also a sleep practitioner. Parents spoken to said how useful the group sessions had been and how this had helped them to cope with the difficult sleep patterns of their children.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

The number of pupils excluded from school has fallen once again. School leaders recognise that the target needs to be even lower. They are continuing to explore options, such as time out of lessons, where pupils are supported to manage themselves well.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare

School leaders have recently carried out an audit on the spiritual, moral, social and cultural (SMSC) curriculum. This information has been used to bring about improvement to the personal social and emotional development (PSED) curriculum offered in school. For example pupils spoken to clearly understood about democracy through applying for roles as school prefects.

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Outcomes for pupils

The school’s new tracking system demonstrates that pupils’ progress is improving overall. Work in pupils’ books supports this view.

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School data shows that pupils make weaker progress in mathematics than in English still. However, this is not always the case across all year groups. School leaders are aware of this and some changes to the mathematics curriculum have been implemented. However the impact of these changes is not yet reflected in pupil outcomes.

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The gap in achievement between disadvantaged pupils and others in school has closed and is similar to others nationally.

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Planning for progress information, which teachers use to inform their planning for learning, is now used across the school and the system is well understood by most members of staff.

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Half-termly information is passed, in the first instance, to middle leaders who evaluate pupils’ progress and make the decision on whether extra support is needed to get pupils back on track. As the new system is still in its infancy, it is not yet possible to ascertain its effectiveness. However, work in pupils’ books, is beginning to demonstrate the effectiveness of extra support given to pupils identified as falling behind.

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External support

The school is currently receiving little support from the local authority or other schools.

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