Unified Academy

Chart Wood School Taynton Drive, Merstham, Redhill RH1 3PU

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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

 Weaknesses in leadership at a senior level have limited the school’s capacity to improve.  Safeguarding is not effective. New processes and procedures are not yet securely established. Risk assessment and planning documents to protect vulnerable pupils from harm are insufficient.  Weaknesses in teachers’ subject knowledge and low expectations are hampering pupils’ progress.  Teachers do not use assessment effectively to plan learning that is closely matched to pupils’ learning needs and abilities.  Leaders do not have a clear understanding of the progress of different groups of pupils in all subjects and year groups across the school. As a result, leaders and staff do not know exactly where improvements are needed.  The curriculum is not planned well enough to meet pupils’ specific special educational needs.  Additional funding such as pupil premium and physical education (PE) and sport funding is not used effectively. Leaders do not know what

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

difference the funding is making.  Pupils do not attend school regularly enough. Leaders do not have sufficient information to improve pupils’ attendance.  Over time, pupils’ social, emotional and mental health needs have become increasingly complex. Staff do not reliably have the skills and knowledge to meet these very specific needs.  Pupils’ positive behaviour is not developed well enough. At times, pupils’ behaviour is highly disruptive. Instances of poor behaviour and bullying are not recorded effectively. Consequently, leaders are not able to accurately evaluate the impact of the actions they have taken to improve behaviour.

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Summary of key findings for parents and pupils

 School leaders and staff work well to build positive and trusting relationships with pupils.  School leaders are receiving helpful support from representatives of the Orchard Hill College Academy Trust (OHCAT).  Staff use many opportunities throughout the day to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

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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?

 Urgently review and sharpen safeguarding processes so that: – pupils’ individual safety and support plans include specific, helpful information so that staff are able to keep pupils safe – all staff are consistently using and applying the school’s safeguarding procedures and systems appropriately – all actions following a concern are systematically recorded and appropriately followed up.  Improve the quality of leadership and management and governance, by ensuring that: – a sustainable and effective leadership, governance and staffing structure is in place – leaders use the newly introduced systems to monitor the progress of pupils effectively, including that for disadvantaged pupils and the most able pupils, so that it is clear which aspects of teaching and additional support are working and which are not – pupils access a broad, balanced and appropriate curriculum, well suited to their needs – a range of school performance information is gathered, analysed regularly and used

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

to inform school improvement planning – school policies provide staff with sufficiently detailed information to ensure that the school’s procedures are consistently applied – leaders reliably analyse information about pupils’ behaviour and attendance to inform their actions to bring about improvement – additional funding to support disadvantaged pupils is used effectively to improve the progress and outcomes of this group – staff receive appropriate training and support to have the necessary skills and resources to manage pupils’ social, emotional and mental health needs effectively – PE and sport funding is used to increase competitive opportunities for pupils and increase rates of participation.  Improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessment so that pupils, including the most able and those who are disadvantaged, make consistently good progress in all aspects of learning, by ensuring that:

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

– all staff have consistently high expectations for all pupils’ behaviour and achievement, including for the most able pupils – teachers have reliable subject knowledge in the subjects that they teach – teachers make effective use of information from their assessment of pupils’ progress to provide suitably challenging teaching that builds on pupils’ prior learning and matches their needs.  Improve pupils’ personal development, behaviour and welfare, by ensuring that: – pupils attend school regularly – the school’s behaviour management procedures are understood by all staff and followed consistently – all behaviour, bullying and racist incidents are recorded and dealt with effectively – staff are well equipped to meet pupils’ complex social, emotional and mental health needs – fixed-term exclusions are reduced – transition times between activities and lessons are managed so that learning time is maximised.

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

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

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What does the school need to do to improve further?

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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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

 The school joined OHCAT in January 2019. The acting headteacher has stepped up from her deputy headteacher role to lead the school while a substantive headteacher is appointed. Without a deputy headteacher, the acting headteacher is necessarily reliant on extensive on-site support from leaders in the trust to steer the school’s improvement. As a result, the school has limited capacity to improve.  Support from leaders within the trust is helping to stabilise the school following a difficult period of change. School improvement planning is in the early stages of development. However, it is too soon to see the impact of this.  Leaders do not have enough information about pupils’ progress. A new progress monitoring system is being introduced. However, leaders and the trust have very limited insight into the progress that different groups of pupils are making, or where improvements are needed.  Processes for managing the performance of staff are being established. Teachers have

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

not been held to account stringently enough for the progress that pupils make. Trust representatives know that accountability needs to be much sharper to be effective.  Leaders for mathematics and English are keen and interested in their subjects. However, they are not monitoring the quality of teaching and learning in their subject areas effectively. Consequently, subject leaders do not have clear plans in place for improving pupils’ progress and outcomes.  The curriculum does not meet pupils’ very specific needs well enough. The curriculum offer is varied and includes cooking, design technology, humanities, biology and art, but not modern foreign languages. However, leaders acknowledge that the curriculum needs to be re-designed to meet pupils’ complex social, emotional and mental health needs more effectively and to ensure that learning is carefully sequenced. However, there are no clear plans in place yet.

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

 Although a range of policies exist, these are generic policies for the trust. Policies do not always describe the specific procedures in place in the school. Additionally, not all of the required policies are available on the school’s website.  Leaders do not use additional funding to support disadvantaged pupils effectively. Leaders have not identified the learning needs of this group of pupils closely enough. The progress of this group of pupils is not specifically reviewed. Plans have not been evaluated to consider the impact that the funding is having on improving disadvantaged pupils’ outcomes.  Leaders do not have a clear strategy for the spending of additional PE and sport funding. Leaders do not know what impact the funding is having on increasing pupils’ participation in sporting activities.  The special educational needs coordinator is knowledgeable and has developed positive working relationships with a range of external agencies. Various strategies and

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Effectiveness of leadership and management Inadequate

approaches are used to provide pupils with additional support. However, the impact of the effectiveness of pupils’ support is not evaluated closely enough.  Leaders and staff provide helpful opportunities, both planned and informal, to promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. For example, in Year 6, activities about Bonfire Night were used to stimulate pupils’ thoughts about plotters and people being held in captivity.  Despite experiencing significant change in recent months, staff morale is positive. Staff feel well supported by senior leaders and value the visible presence of representatives from the trust.  It is recommended that the school does not appoint newly qualified teachers.

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Governance of the school

 Since the school became part of the academy trust, governance functions have been fulfilled by representatives of the trust. Appointments have recently been made to create a new local governing body, including a chair of governors. The initial meeting of the new governing body was due to be held soon after this inspection.  Over the last few months, school leaders and the trust have rightly focused on tackling safeguarding concerns identified in the school’s residential provision. Consequently, the trust has not yet undertaken any monitoring visits of the educational provision and progress to improve the quality of education.  The trust has begun to provide helpful support and challenge to school leaders. However, it is too soon to see the sustained impact of this.

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Safeguarding

 The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.  The school’s single central record is not fully compliant. There were some administrative gaps and errors that were rectified during the inspection. The single central record has been checked by a representative from the trust and recommendations made to improve the quality of information. However, a written record of these checks was not available during the inspection and there was no evidence of how these actions are monitored.  Although all pupils now have an individual ‘Safety and Support Plan’, these plans are not always used effectively to keep pupils safe. Scrutiny of these documents revealed that they are often too generic and do not provide the specific information required to ensure that pupils are kept safe. Sometimes, there are delays in recognising, reporting and following up safeguarding concerns.  The support needs of pupils whose individual circumstances make them highly

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Safeguarding

vulnerable have not been reliably identified to ensure that they are kept safe. Additional safeguarding risks to these pupils, and other pupils and staff, have not been rigorously assessed and planned for, to protect all involved from harm.  Trust representatives are providing intensive support to school leaders, including the designated safeguarding lead, while new safeguarding systems and procedures are implemented. However, these changes are still relatively new and are not yet operating consistently enough for leaders to be confident that pupils are safe.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

 Teachers’ assessment of pupils’ learning is weak. Planned learning does not build on what pupils already know and can do. As a result, work is often too easy.  Teachers’ subject knowledge is weak. Too often, teachers provide pupils with activities to complete rather than tasks that are carefully planned and sequenced to develop pupils’ skills, knowledge and understanding. This is particularly evident in English, in the lower school, and also in humanities. As a result, pupils’ progress is often too slow.  Teachers’ expectations of what pupils can achieve are not consistently high enough. Teachers are kind and helpful, but they do not always insist on pupils’ attention and participation. Pupils sometimes opt out, or even leave lessons, reinforcing their negative attitudes to learning.  Relationships between staff and pupils are typically warm and positive. During lessons, pupils and staff often have engaging spontaneous conversations. However, these

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

conversations are often unrelated to the learning. They disrupt the flow of the lesson and divert pupils’ attention away from their learning.  The learning needs of different groups of pupils are not well understood. For example, insufficient consideration is given to the learning needs of disadvantaged pupils or the most able pupils to ensure that teaching meets their needs effectively.  Support from additional adults is too inconsistent in its effectiveness. Sometimes, additional adults make little contribution to pupils’ learning because their support has not been well planned. However, at other times, adults use their knowledge of individual pupils to provide more effective support.  Transitions between activities and lessons are frequently too slow. Time is not always used productively because there is not a sharp enough focus on learning.  Better learning happens in practical and vocational subjects. For example, in cookery,

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Inadequate

pupils successfully created their own meals using minced beef. The learning was planned thoughtfully, and pupils knew exactly what they needed to do. As a result, pupils worked hard and concentrated carefully on their work.

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Personal development and welfare

 The school’s work to promote pupils’ personal development and welfare is inadequate.  Leaders have identified that pupils joining the school have increasingly complex mental health needs and many have suffered traumatic experiences. Leaders acknowledge that staff need more support and better training to meet these pupils’ needs effectively.  Several pupils told inspectors that they worry about bullying. Some pupils explained that they are regularly bullied. Pupils are not confident that staff will tackle bullying effectively.  Records of bullying and racist incidents are limited. Leaders do not have enough information to be able to evaluate the frequency and type of incidents occurring so that improvements can be made. Policies are generic to the trust and do not reflect the specific procedures used in the school.  Pupils’ safety and support plans do not include sufficiently personalised information to

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Personal development and welfare

enable staff to keep pupils safe.  Pupils told inspectors that friendly staff have helped them to feel positive about being part of the school. Many pupils spoke of valuing the strong and positive relationships they have with staff. Pupils like the school’s ‘Trusted Adult’ and ‘Champion’ schemes. They know that staff care about them.  Some parents told inspectors that they appreciate the support that they receive from school staff.  The alternative providers contacted during the inspection told an inspector that they valued the close liaison with the school about pupils’ well-being.

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Behaviour

 The behaviour of pupils is inadequate.  At times, pupils’ behaviour is disruptive, both in lessons and around the school. In some classrooms, pupils were seen to be shouting out, making racist comments, or ignoring teachers’ instructions and throwing objects around the classroom. Sometimes pupils remove themselves from lessons and go outside. Some pupils explained to inspectors that their learning is disrupted on a daily basis.  Pupils do not attend school regularly enough. Approximately half of the pupils on roll are persistently absent from school. Leaders’ efforts to improve attendance are not having a positive impact for most pupils who need to come to school more often. Record keeping does not provide sufficient detail for the attendance of different groups of pupils to be analysed, or for leaders to know which strategies are most effective in improving attendance.  There are times when teachers have high expectations of pupils’ behaviour and they

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Behaviour

plan pupils’ learning carefully. On these occasions, pupils’ behaviour is settled and positive. However, this helpful approach is inconsistent throughout the school.  Behavioural incidents, including those that require physical restraint, are not recorded reliably in accordance with the school’s own procedures. This means that leaders do not have all the information that they need to analyse and improve behaviour. Fixed- term exclusions are high and are not reducing.

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

 Pupils who join the school have frequently experienced very unsettled educational placements in the past. Consequently, there are often gaps in their knowledge and understanding. The school does not establish clearly enough what pupils’ starting points are to be able to pinpoint their precise learning needs. As a result, pupils do not reliably get off to a strong start in catching up on previously missed learning.  Leaders do not track or analyse pupils’ attainment and progress well enough. New systems are being developed, but it is too soon to see the impact of this work. Consequently, leaders do not yet have a clear picture of the progress of different groups of pupils in all subjects and year groups.  Work seen in pupils’ books shows that their progress is often too slow. Generally, older pupils make better progress than younger pupils, particularly if they have sustained a settled placement at the school.

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

 The learning needs of disadvantaged pupils, vulnerable pupils and the most able pupils are not identified precisely enough. As a result, the rate of progress of these pupils is too inconsistent.  When learning has been carefully planned, pupils do better. For example, in mathematics and science, particularly for older pupils, learning is generally more carefully sequenced than in other subjects and pupils make better progress as a result.  In 2018, all Year 11 pupils left the school with at least entry-level qualifications in English and mathematics. Pupils also study GCSE examination courses in art, design technology and science.  In the vocational courses, pupils work on their projects with sustained interest and attention. Pupils develop useful skills and gain vocational qualifications that help prepare them for their next steps in their education or future employment.  Pupils are provided with useful support for their destinations after school. In 2018, all

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Outcomes for pupils Inadequate

pupils went on to education, employment or training. School staff work well to support pupils to make a successful transition to college.

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School details

This inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was also deemed a section 5 inspection under the same Act.

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School details

School category Academy special sponsor-led

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School details

Appropriate authority The board of trustees

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School details

Acting Chair John Prior (Orchard Hill College Academy Trust) Acting Headteacher Jo-Anne Gale

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School details

Email address joanne.gale@cws.surrey.sch.uk

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School details

Date of previous inspection Not previously inspected

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Information about this school

 Chart Wood School joined the Orchard Hill College Academy Trust in January 2019.  The deputy headteacher is currently the acting headteacher. A new headteacher has been appointed and will join the school in September 2019.  The school provides education for pupils who have social, emotional and mental health difficulties. A number of pupils have additional special educational needs and/or disabilities, such as autism spectrum disorder.  All pupils have an education, health and care (EHC) plan.  All pupils attending the school are boys.  Some pupils access off-site alternative provision at: Skills and Integrated Learning Centre (SILC), Sporting Chances, Winchmore Tutors and A2E – Access to Education. Pupils in Years 10 and 11 attend vocational courses at East Surrey College.

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Information about this inspection

 This inspection was carried out as a direct result of two qualifying complaints made to Ofsted that raised serious concerns. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector decided that an inspection should take place, without notice, to follow up the whole-school issues that were identified. Inspectors sought to establish whether pupils were safe, and pupils’ behaviour was promoted effectively.  This inspection was carried out under section 8 of the Education Act 2005. The inspection was also deemed a section 5 inspection under the same Act.  The inspection was aligned with a monitoring inspection of the residential provision at the school, carried out by two Ofsted social care regulatory inspectors.  Inspectors observed teaching and learning throughout the school. Some observations were carried out with the acting headteacher or senior leader. A sample of pupils’ workbooks was also examined.  Inspectors held meetings with senior leaders, subject leaders, a group of teaching staff

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Information about this inspection

and a group of support staff.  The lead inspector met with representatives from the trust.  Inspectors met with some pupils to discuss their views about the school and talked to pupils informally about their work and to gather their views.  An inspector heard some pupils read.  An inspector spoke on the telephone with representatives of two of the off-site providers.  An inspector spoke to a small number of parents on the telephone to discuss their views about the school.  Inspectors scrutinised records and documentation relating to safeguarding, behaviour, attendance and pupils’ individual records.  Safeguarding procedures were reviewed.  Inspectors reviewed the checks made on staff about their suitability to work with pupils.

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Inspection team

Claire Prince, lead inspector Her Majesty’s Inspector

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Inspection team

Maxine McDonald-Taylor Her Majesty’s 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

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Inspection team

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Inspection team

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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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