Setting

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 1231 www.gov.uk/ofsted

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James Eagles Headteacher Grafham Grange School Grafham Bramley Guildford Surrey GU5 0LH

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Serious weaknesses monitoring inspection of Grafham Grange School

This letter sets out the findings from the monitoring inspection that took place on 23 October 2024, on behalf of His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills. The monitoring inspection was carried out under section 8(2) of the Education Act 2005 and was the first monitoring inspection since the school was judged to have serious weaknesses following the graded (section 5) inspection that took place in March 2024.

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Serious weaknesses monitoring inspection of Grafham Grange School

The purpose of a monitoring inspection is not to grade the school’s key judgements, but to identify and report on the school’s progress. It is to highlight to the school and parents any improvements that school leaders have made since the school’s previous graded inspection.

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Serious weaknesses monitoring inspection of Grafham Grange School

During the inspection, I discussed with you and other senior leaders, trust leaders, the chief executive officer and the local authority the actions that have been taken to improve the school since the most recent graded inspection. We discussed the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. I also carried out lesson visits, spoke to pupils and met with staff. I have considered all this in coming to my judgement.

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Grafham Grange School continues to have serious weaknesses. Leaders have

made insufficient progress to improve the school.

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I strongly recommend that the school does not seek to appoint early career

The school should take further action to:  Urgently establish effective systems and processes to establish the whereabouts of pupils who are not attending school regularly, including those who are on part-time timetables and/or attending alternative provisions. The school must ensure that all reasonable steps are taken to seek assurances about the safety and well-being of these pupils. The trust must ensure that there is rigorous oversight from leaders at all levels to safeguard these pupils. It must also ensure that there is an open and reflective dialogue between the school and the local authority, and that information is shared so that both parties can work in partnership to keep pupils safe.  Improve pupils’ behaviour and attitudes. The school must set clear routines and expectations for pupils’ behaviour across all aspects of school life and ensure that staff receive the training to implement these effectively.

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I strongly recommend that the school does not seek to appoint early career

 Ensure that it has a sequenced curriculum that fits the new primary teaching model and that teachers receive the training and support they need to deliver it effectively.

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Since the last inspection, the trust has appointed a new headteacher, who started at the beginning of the academic year. The trust has also put in place interim senior leaders to support the school while work is ongoing to appoint a substantive senior leadership team. During this time, several teaching and support staff have left. Only three of the 12 teaching posts are currently filled. Therefore, the school has had to rely heavily on agency staff in the interim. The headteacher has rightly focused on building a positive culture within the team. Staff welcome this and feel increasingly well supported. The school is working to recruit and retain staff. However, as it stands, there remains considerable instability in staffing, which significantly impacts leaders’ efforts to improve the school.

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The quality of education is not improving. While the school has an appropriately ambitious and sequenced secondary curriculum, with alternative pathways designed to meet pupils’ needs, the school is not using this curriculum. This is because current staffing instability means that it cannot be implemented. Therefore, as a remedial measure, the school has adopted a primary curriculum model to reduce transitions during the school day and to support efforts to improve behaviour and attitudes. This decision has clearly been made in the best interest of pupils. However, as a result, unqualified staff have been given teaching responsibilities and teachers are now teaching outside their subject specialism, without either having sufficient training to do so effectively. Throughout the monitoring visit, I visited several lessons with leaders and did not see any effective teaching. Furthermore, leaders have not acted quickly

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enough to implement an effective reading curriculum. Therefore, I have to conclude that the quality of education has declined further since the school was inspected.

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Behaviour is unacceptable. Pupil conduct is consistently poor. There is little to no behaviour management and leaders with oversight are not taking effective action to raise expectations. Staff do not have a common understanding of behaviour expectations. Poor pupil behaviour is tolerated by leaders who are overseeing and leading the staff on the ground. The fundamentals are, therefore, not being addressed. As a result, the school environment is unruly. This makes learning incredibly difficult and leaves some pupils feel unsafe.

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Leaders have not accurately evaluated or provided rigorous enough oversight of key areas such as safeguarding, attendance and the school’s use of alternative provision. Attendance remains critically low. A significant proportion of pupils are persistently absent or severely absent. Registers are inaccurate, meaning leaders at all levels do not have an accurate understanding of pupils’ attendance and are unable to evaluate the impact of their actions to improve it.

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Governance is not effective. The rapid improvement committee understands the school’s staffing issues. However, its members over-rely on inaccurate data and anecdotal evidence from the school. This means they do not have an accurate evaluation of actions being taken and are unable to refer to any evidence of impact. Therefore, the committee members are not providing effective support and challenge on some of the key areas for improvement, such as attendance.

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Some pupils are not being safeguarded. Most pupils are persistently or severely absent. Many attend alternative provision off site. The school has failed to establish effective systems and processes to establish pupils’ whereabouts and assure itself that pupils are safe. The trust has not provided effective oversight of this and has not taken sufficient action to ensure these pupils are safe. Consequently, pupils, many of whom are disadvantaged or have additional vulnerabilities, are at increased risk of exposure to local risks.

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The school has systems in place to record safeguarding concerns. When acute concerns arise about a pupil, appropriate actions are taken to check on their welfare, involving police and other safeguarding partners. However, record-keeping often lacks detail about actions, outcomes and the rationale for decisions made. Therefore, the school has some work to do to ensure that record-keeping meets the expectations of Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024.

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Since the school’s graded inspection, the trust has only partially engaged with the local authority regarding safeguarding concerns it has raised. The school must ensure there is open and transparent communication between the school and the local authority responsible for safeguarding. This is necessary to ensure that there is a positive culture of safeguarding and an open dialogue with services that play a role in keeping children safe.

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In summary, I have to conclude that leadership, including the trust and those responsible for governance, have not taken effective action to improve the school and are not currently demonstrating the capacity to do so. I am copying this letter to the chair of the rapid improvement committee, the chair of the board of trustees and the CEO or equivalent of the Orchard Hill College Academy Trust, the Department for Education’s regional director and the director of children’s services for Surrey. This letter will be published on the Ofsted reports website.

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